Chester Arthur Dean, 96, passed away Tuesday, May 5, 2009, in Fayetteville.

A memorial service will be held at 11:30 a.m. Saturday at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Fayetteville.

Mr. Dean was born in Lewisville on Oct. 15, 1912, to Arthur and Gertrude Dean. The family moved to Texarkana, where Chester graduated from Texarkana High School. He attended the University of Arkansas between 1930 and 1934, where he was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon and majored in engineering. In 1935 he married Marian Elizabeth Buxton of Joplin, Mo. She preceded him in death in 1999 after 64 years of marriage.

Mr. Dean began his service in the U.S. Army attached to the Civilian Conservation Corps’ forestry program near Cass. He became a commissioned officer in the Army with the Quartermasters Corps. He later transferred and served with the Corps of Engineers during and after World War II, eventually attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel. Upon leaving the Army, Mr. Dean obtained his professional engineer’s license in Florida and became city engineer for the city of Clearwater. The experience gained in service to the Army engineers became the fulfillment of a lifelong dream as a builder, and in 1949 Mr. Dean left Florida to join the Hiram S. Elliot Construction Co. in Kansas City. In 1954, Mr. Dean founded the Chester A. Dean Construction Co. in Kansas City. In 1976, Donald R. Pearce joined the company, and they eventually formed Dean-Pearce Construction Co., which now operates as Pearce Construction Co. in Kansas City.

During his career in Kansas City, Mr. Dean held several official posts and memberships with the Associated General Contractors of America and the Builders Association-Kansas City chapter. He was a licensed professional engineer registered in Florida, Missouri and Kansas. He served as the planning director of the city of Prairie Village during the administration of Mayor Robert Bennett. He also was a director of the Missouri Bank and Trust Co.

After selling his construction company and retiring, in 1980 Mr. Dean moved to Fayetteville, continuing to take an active role as a consultant in the construction business, even into his 90s.

Mr. Dean was a licensed pilot, an avid golfer, a member of the Fayetteville Country Club and enjoyed hobbies in stained glasswork, woodworking, painting and model railroading. Mr. and Mrs. Dean’s love of travel took them all over the world, from China to New Zealand.

Mr. Dean is survived by daughter Jane D. McMaster and husband Lee of Wichita, Kan.; son Arthur B. “Buck” Dean and wife Deborah of Jacksonville, Fla.; granddaughters, Margaret M. Caccia and husband Ralph of Potomac Falls, Va., Kathryn M. Kraske and husband Steve of Westwood, Texas, Sarah M. Helbig and husband Chris of Goldsboro, N.C.; and grandson, Geoffrey A. Ballentine and wife Theresa of Phoenix. Great-grandchildren include Elizabeth and Joseph Caccia, Nicholas and Michael Kraske, and Evan, Elyse and Finnian Helbig. He is also survived by sister-in-law Jane B. Robbins of Houston.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests a donation to the Northwest Arkansas Children’s Shelter in Bentonville.

He was pitching his idea for “Symphony Sam”, a television show to teach classical music to children.
This was during a segment called “Pitch to America”.

I made a clip of Kabin’s appearance, and it’s available here. (9MB WMV file)

He’s apparently going to be on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno tonight (May 27th), pitching his idea for “Symphony Sam”.

A bit of a Kabin update:

While in LA, I learned about and attended an event in late January called the National Association of Television Programmers and Executives (NATPE) convention in Las Vegas at the Mandalay Bay Resort. (www.natpe.org/) It is HUGE! All the heavy TV and movie network players were
there…Universal, CBS, Turner Broadcasting, Fox, Paramount, Oprah, everybody! 10,000 people in all! I went to pitch Sam to the networks and was as nervous
as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs to be at such a giant event.

On the day of the convention, I walked from my room at the Motel 6 to the Mandalay Bay to begin my adventure. BAD MOVE as I am fat and the Mandalay Bay
was 2 miles away from the Motel 6 and it was HOT! I looked like a total sweaty goober by the time I got to the convention center! Here’s where things got
fun….Within 3 minutes of walking thru the door into the convention hall, a gent Ernie Banks grabs me up and asks me why I’m there. I tell him to sell my
kid’s show. He tells me I would be PERFECT to do the segment called Pitch to America (PTA) for Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show.” (www.nbc.com/nbc/The_Tonight_Show_with_Jay_Leno/highlights/highlights_page3.shtml) We literally RUN to the booth where this pitchfest was taking
place. So…Within 5 minutes of arriving at the Mandalay Bay Hotel, I have a mike in my hand, I’m covered in SWEAT and I have a camera looking me in the
face. Plus I had to pee real bad! UNBELIEVEABLE!!!! But I sucked it up and gave my pitch. It was MY VERY FIRST PITCH EVER and I’m sure I looked like a
snark, but at least I tried!

Well…I got a call about 8 weeks ago from Jay’s assistant for PTA named Justin and he said I was going to be the PTA segment of the Tonight Show in
late March. Well, it turned out the bastards didn’t use my pitch! I was devastated as I told about 500 people I was going to do a pitch on the Leno show and people were watching!!

As it turns out, my producer just got a call from Justin Wednesday telling us we are definitely going to be on the next segment of PTA on the Tonight Show on Friday, 27 May. Justin said we are going to be the first pitch in a line of 8 pitches and they are showing the Carmen Miranda segment from Symphony Sam! The Carmen Miranda segment is the part on Sam where I am dressed up like a woman doing a Latin dance. It’s towards the end of the pilot show. It’s what I consider the funniest part of the pilot!

Anyway, Sam on PTA will air Friday, May 27 on the Tonight show. I hope you can watch it!

Sources close to ODB said he had been complaining of chest pains earlier in the day.

Ol’ Dirty Bastard, a founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan and one of the most eccentric personalities in hip-hop, died of unknown causes on Saturday in New York. He would have turned 36 on Monday.

The rapper, whose real name was Russell Tyrone Jones, was having difficulty breathing and complained of chest pains earlier in the day, according to his spokesperson.

Dirty was at Wu-Tang’s studio, 36 Records LLC on West 34th Street, when he collapsed in the lounge at approximately 4:35 p.m. on Saturday. EMS workers rushed to the scene but were unable to resuscitate him and he was pronounced dead at 5:04 p.m., according to a spokesperson for the city medical examiner’s office.

An autopsy conducted Sunday morning revealed no conclusive results. Toxicology and tissue tests will be administered and the cause of death is expected to be known within 10 days.

Jarred Weisfeld, ODB’s manager, said that the rapper was entirely drug free and that he was committed to getting his life back on track. “He was the complete opposite of what people made him out to be. He was a teddy bear,” Weisfeld told MTV News.

ODB, who arrived in the New York area on a flight from Denver at 10:30 p.m. Friday, had been scheduled to perform with the Wu-Tang Clan in New Jersey that night, but missed the show.

Wu-Tang members Ghostface Killah and Raekwon were among those seen outside the studio Saturday consoling ODB fans.

Cherry Jones, ODB’s mother, was informed shortly after his death and called the phone call “every mother’s worst dream.” “My son, Russell Jones, passed away,” she said in a statement. “To the public, he was known as Ol’ Dirty Bastard, but to me, he was known as Rusty, the kindest, most generous soul on earth. I appreciate all the support and prayers that I have received. Russell was more than a rapper, he was a loving father, brother, uncle, and most of all, son.”

Damon Dash, who signed ODB to Roc-A-Fella Records in the spring of 2003, also released a statement. “All of us in the Roc-A-Fella family are shocked and saddened by the sudden and tragic death or our brother and friend,” Dash said. “Russell inspired all of us with his spirit, wit and tremendous heart. He will be missed dearly, and our thoughts, prayers and deepest condolences go out to his wonderful family. The world has lost a great talent, but we mourn the loss of our friend.”

Before he was known more for his rap sheet than his rapping, Dirty was the most outrageous member of the Wu-Tang Clan, nine New York rappers who fashioned themselves as ghetto superheroes with magic rapping powers. As an MC, ODB was instantly recognizable with his garbled, manic and nonsensical style. His half-rapped, half-sung free-association growl was a key element in several of the Clan’s most memorable tracks, as well as hits from Mariah Carey (“Fantasy”) and Pras (“Ghetto Supastar”).

Russell Jones was born in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn, New York, and was raised on public assistance. His cousins, known now as RZA and GZA, introduced him to hip-hop and by the early ’90s they had formed the Wu-Tang Clan. Jones took on the name Ol’ Dirty Bastard because there was no “father” to his unique style, although he would assume numerous monikers over the years, including Osirus, Joe Bannanas [sic], Dirt Dog, Unique Ason, Big Baby Jesus and Dirt McGirt.

After the massive success of the Wu’s debut, 1993’s Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), the members began launching solo careers, first with Method Man and second with ODB’s 1995 release, Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version, which featured “Shimmy Shimmy Ya.”

His second album, 1999’s N—a Please, featured his biggest hit, the Neptunes-produced “Got Your Money” (which introduced Kelis to the world), but by then his music played second fiddle to his odd behavior and trouble with the law.

Dirty’s best-known antic came at the 1998 Grammy Awards, when he took the stage and interrupted Shawn Colvin’s acceptance speech to complain that the Wu-Tang Clan had lost to P. Diddy in a different category (see “Ol’ Dirty Bastard Tells Why He Stormed Grammy Stage”). Along with being awkwardly timed, the moment will be forever remembered because of Dirty’s peculiar declaration: “Wu-Tang are for the children!”

And back in 1994, ODB invited MTV News to spend an afternoon with him. On camera, he loaded several of his kids (he was said to have more than a dozen, by numerous mothers) into a limousine and proceeded to drive to a welfare office to collect food stamps.

While ODB was talked about for engineering comical moments, for a time his frequent arrests overshadowed anything else he did.

Although he was convicted of second-degree assault in New York in 1993 (the only violent offense ever proven against him) and was shot in the stomach by another rapper in Brooklyn in 1994, ODB’s real tussles with the law started in 1997, when he was arrested for failing to pay nearly a year’s worth of child support for three children he had with his wife, Icelene Jones.

In 1998, he pleaded guilty to attempted assault on Icelene and two months later was shot in the back during what he said was a robbery of his Brooklyn home (he walked out of the hospital, disobeying doctor’s orders).

Later in 1998, he was arrested for shoplifting a pair of $50 sneakers in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and accosted a security guard at the House of Blues in Los Angeles and was charged with making “terrorist threats,” charges he again faced only months later after he threatened to kill an ex-girlfriend.

In early 1999, ODB was pulled over in New York for a traffic violation and was accused of firing a gun at officers, although those charges were later dismissed when the police failed to prove their claims. A few months later, while being cited for a parking violation in Los Angeles, he became one of the first citizens arrested under a new California law that made wearing a bulletproof vest illegal for convicted felons (see “Ol’ Dirty Bastard Arrested For Wearing Bulletproof Vest”). Two months later, he was picked up in Queens, New York, for running a red light and was arrested when police found crack in his Mercedes-Benz (see “Ol’ Dirty Bastard Arrested; Police Claim To Have Found Crack In Rapper’s Car”).

After two more arrests for traffic violations, including another one where he was found with crack, Dirty was sentenced to three years’ probation and one year in a residential drug-rehab facility in Pasadena, California. (During court proceedings, he was scolded by the judge for falling asleep and calling a female attorney a “sperm donor.”) Ten months later, after a disagreement with the staff, he walked out of the court-mandated rehab and became a fugitive.

A month later, two days after appearing onstage with the Wu-Tang Clan in New York (see “Performance By Fugitive ODB Stuns Wu-Tang Clan Crowd”), he was arrested in the parking lot of a McDonald’s in Philadelphia by an officer who recognized him because her son was a fan.

ODB was then sentenced to two years behind bars (see “ODB Gets Two Years For Fleeing Rehab, Violating Probation”). He spent most of that time at Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York (where Tupac Shakur once served). While in prison, reports surfaced that ODB was suffering mental illness and was suicidal, although his reps denied them.

When he was released from prison and psychiatric care in the spring of 2003, Dirty quickly signed with the Roc and began recording as Dirt McGirt (see “Ol’ Dirty Bastard Hits Campaign Trail With New Album”).

“I just want to get back out there and do it again,” he told MTV News. “You know, how Mike Tyson came back, I wanna come back the same way. I want to hit ‘em hard.”

Dirty logged studio time Busta Rhymes, Ludacris and Pharrell (see “Ol’ Dirty Lays Down Track With Pharrell Before Turning Into A Pumpkin”), and most recently collaborated with Macy Gray (see “ODB Duets With Macy Gray On ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’ “).

The rapper’s manager said that several projects that Dirty was involved with will move forward, including an album recorded with his friends, Brooklyn Zoo, a DVD and a reality show that was completed for Spike TV.

Before Friday’s concert, the Wu-Tang Clan had reunited this summer, at a concert in California. A recording of the show, titled Disciples of the 36 Chambers: Chapter 1, was released in September.

“Through Wu-Tang and his own solo career as an artist, songwriter and producer, ODB came to not only define a generation, but a musical movement that continues today,” Steve Rifkind, who signed Wu-Tang to Loud Records, said in a statement. “We will miss him.”

[This story was updated on 11.14.04 at 1:18 p.m. ET.]

— Corey Moss, with additional reporting by Shaheem Reid and Joseph Patel

Brando died in Los Angeles. The cause of death is unknown.

Brando shot to fame in the late 1940s with his groundbreaking performance in Tennessee Williams’ play “A Streetcar Named Desire” as the brutal, animalistic yet shy Stanley Kowalski.

Brando, a devotee of the Method, gave a raw, vital performance under Elia Kazan’s direction that had critics swooning. Using the technique, fostered by the Russian director Konstantin Stanislavsky and popularized at Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio, actors draw on their own psychology and experience in creating roles.

Brando’s first film, “The Men” (1950), earned raves, but it wasn’t until the 1951 film version of “Streetcar” that he became a major movie star. Three years later, Brando won his first Oscar for his performance as ex-boxer Terry Malloy in “On the Waterfront,” also directed by Kazan. One of his lines from the film, “I coulda been a contender,” has been widely imitated.

His roles in “Streetcar,” “Waterfront” and “The Wild One” (1953) established him as an icon of the 1950s. Over the course of his career, he was nominated for eight Oscars, winning two — for “Waterfront” and “The Godfather” (1972).

He followed his early ’50s films with hits in “The Teahouse of the August Moon” (1956) and “Sayonara” (1957), but his career went into decline in the 1960s, particularly after his mannered performance as Fletcher Christian in 1962’s big-budget flop “Mutiny on the Bounty.”

His career revived, however, with perhaps his most famous role, that of Don Corleone in “The Godfather.” Director Francis Ford Coppola had only Brando in mind for the role, a decision not favored by producers, who almost fired the filmmaker over the decision.

Coppola was rewarded when the film became a huge hit — it was the highest-grossing movie of all time until “Jaws” came along — and Brando’s quietly regal, brooding performance as a Mafia kingpin was the film’s centerpiece.

The actor followed up “The Godfather” with a role in a different kind of film, Bernardo Bertolucci’s “Last Tango in Paris” (1973), in which he played a depressed American expatriate who strikes up a charged affair with a young Paris woman (Maria Schneider). Brando and Schneider were nakedly fearless, both physically and emotionally; the film was rated X upon its release.

Charles died at his Beverly Hills home surrounded by family and friends, said spokesman Jerry Digney.

Charles’ last public appearance was alongside Clint Eastwood on April 30, when the city of Los Angeles designated the singer’s studios, built 40 years ago in central Los Angeles, as a historic landmark.

Blind by age 7 and an orphan at 15, Charles spent his life shattering any notion of musical boundaries and defying easy definition. A gifted pianist and saxophonist, he dabbled in country, jazz, big band and blues, and put his stamp on it all with a deep, warm voice roughened by heartbreak from a hardscrabble childhood in the segregated South.

“His sound was stunning — it was the blues, it was R&B, it was gospel, it was swing — it was all the stuff I was listening to before that but rolled into one amazing, soulful thing,” singer Van Morrison told Rolling Stone magazine in April.

Charles won nine of his 12 Grammy Awards between 1960 and 1966, including the best R&B recording three consecutive years (“Hit the Road Jack,” “I Can’t Stop Loving You” and “Busted”).

His versions of other songs are also well known, including “Makin’ Whoopee” and a stirring “America the Beautiful.” Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell wrote “Georgia on My Mind” in 1931 but it didn’t become Georgia’s official state song until 1979, long after Charles turned it into an American standard.

CNN.com – Guitarist Robert Quine found dead – Jun 8, 2004

Guitarist Robert Quine found dead
Played with Lou Reed, Tom Waits, Matthew Sweet

LOS ANGELES, California/NEW YORK (Billboard) — Guitarist Robert Quine, one of punk rock’s most daring soloists, was found dead Saturday in his New York apartment. He was 61.

According to close friend and guitar maker Rick Kelly, who discovered Quine’s body, the musician died of a heroin overdose Memorial Day weekend. He had been despondent over the recent death of his wife.

Born in Akron, Ohio, Quine was heavily influenced by the Velvet Underground, whose music he recorded obsessively while living in San Francisco. He moved to New York in 1971 and became the lead guitarist for bassist Richard Hell’s important group the Voidoids, with whom he recorded two albums. His skittering, unpredictable work with Hell defined the possibilities of punk guitar.

During the ’80s, he recorded and toured frequently with Lou Reed and played on saxophonist/composer John Zorn’s best-known albums. Quine made key guest appearances on Tom Waits’ “Rain Dogs” (1985) and Marianne Faithfull’s “Strange Weather” (1987). In 1989, he began a long association with Matthew Sweet; he also worked regularly with Lloyd Cole.

In 2001, Universal released a three-CD box of Quine’s live 1969 recordings of the Velvet Underground, “The Bootleg Series Volume 1: The Quine Tapes.”

“Robert Quine was a magnificent guitar player — an original and innovative tyro of the vintage beast,” Reed said in a statement released to Billboard.com. “He was an extraordinary mixture of taste, intelligence and rock’n'roll abilities coupled with major technique and a scholar’s memory for every decent guitar lick ever played under the musical son. He made tapes for me for which I am eternally grateful — tapes of the juiciest parts of solos from players long gone.

“Quine was smarter than them all. And the proof is in the recordings, some of which happily are mine. If you can find more interesting sounds and musical clusters than Quine on ‘Waves of Fear’ (from Reed’s 1982 album “The Blue Mask”), well, it’s probably something else by Robert.”

“He was a marvelous guitarist, a soulful music lover with high standards and had an eviscerating wit,” Patti Smith Band drummer Jay Dee Daugherty told Billboard.com. “He did not suffer fools gladly, but made up for it with a thinly disguised generosity of spirit.”

Copyright 2004 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Watching the stars fall a million dreams have all gone bad.
Think of all we had.
I knew all then thought you loved me I was wrong.
Life goes on graduation day oh graduation day.

Thinking of a time when everything was right.
Thinking of a time with only you and I.
Makes me sorry that it had to end that way.
Learned my lesson now there’s nothing left to say, graduation day, oh graduation day.

Thinking of a time when everything was right.
Thinking of a time with only you and I.
Makes me sorry that it had to end that way.
Learned my lesson now there’s nothing left to say, graduation day, oh graduation day.
Oh graduation day.

– chris isaak