List Includes Has-Beens, Also-Rans And One-Hit Wonders
Tony Orlando Hopes For A Comeback With "Knock Four Times"
Boy George: "You Really DID Want To Hurt Me!"
() Disassociated Press
by B. Elwin Sherman -- Special To Glory Days Revue
HOLLYWOOD, CA (DP) -- It's not exactly a coveted prize, but inclusion on the annual Glory Days Revue's "Top Ten People Who Should Be Dead By Now" list has always sparked controversy. Some honorees protest, some threaten, and some have even expressed gratitude for finding themselves on the high-profile celebrity “G-List” (Gone) after decades of obscurity.
"Sure, we get calls from lawyers, but we get more from agents," says Frankie "Glitterdome" Curtoon, the self-deprecating originator of the list, who named himself its number one member when it first appeared in 1970.
Mr. Curtoon is still bitter from his experience with Tony Orlando and his songwriters. He recounts: “You remember the song, ‘Knock Three Times’? I helped co-write that, scratching out a lyric on a Big Boy Burger napkin. Larry Brown and Irwin Levine got the writing credits, but ‘twice on the pipe if the answer is no' is my line. Song-stealing hacks.”
He says that if Brown & Levine had gotten their way, the line would’ve been “twice on the pipe if you want me to blow,” and the world would’ve been spared another saccharin love anthem. "Glory-grabbing parasites,” he says, adding: "I've still got the Big Boy napkin. I'm thinking eBay, man. I'd make a fortune."
The Top Ten G-List this year is a veritable Who's Who of Who Shouldn’t Be. Curtoon supplied this reporter with hisbrief eulogies for each. Along with his comments, here are the nominees for this year’s G-List, given in descending order of notoriety:
10. Rush Limbaugh -- Say what you want about Rushbo, no one can beat the guy for earthly staying power after what he did to his body. There was a time he was gulping down enough narcotic analgesics every day to kill your average spirited racehorse. Still, it's time to hang up the mic, Rush-Man. Benny Hill had the decency to go quietly in obscurity. It’s time for the “King of Sting” to take wing.
9. Boy George --When Boy George, (born George Alan O’Dowd in 1961) asked “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me,” in 1982, I for one always answered yes! Anything that would’ve stopped him from singing! Well, Boy, you’ll be 48 in June, your Culture has been Clubbed, you’re in prison, and you may be unwittingly responsible for a generation of lost middle-agers driving around with Bluetooths in their ears. The chameleon’s karma is invisible, BG. Bye-bye.
8. Ann Coulter – Some might argue here that Ms. Coulter should be higher on the list. With my deepest apologies to Mark Antony and Octavian, I’d simply paraphrase: “It’s possible, Ann, that when you die, you will die without ever having been alive.” I only wish I could deliver that line like a Richard Burton did. Even a dead one.
7. Tony Orlando – It’s taken me years to come to this, almost the same amount of time Mr. Orlando has been a has-been. Yes, I’m still miffed about getting stiffed on the Knock Three Times royalties, but I really don’t blame Tony. Lately, he’s reduced himself to weight-loss commercials, and I’ve heard that he’s written “Knock Four Times” in an effort to revive his singing career and is looking for a new recording contract. Tony: It’s always darkest AFTER the Dawn. Cue the silence, please.
6. Henny Youngman – Come on, admit it: How many of you, like me, thought that he and his violin were still alive? Dead since 1998, I now discover. Right here, I’d cite what I thought was his best joke, especially for this distinction: Doctor gave a man six months to live, couldn’t pay his bill, gave him another six months. He always managed to look older younger and younger older. Still dead after all these years, here’s to you, sir. You may consider your mention here a badge of honor, and we know what you’d say: Take my life, please!
5. Jack LaLanne – Jack, you are the “Godfather of Fitness,”and yes, we all still love you, but you’re starting to make men half your age, like me, look like couch potato doughboys. Please, if you can’t die, just ease up a little with the enthusiasm. And, as a personal favor, on your Power Juicer commercial, if you could just once put a Whopper in there and yum it up. If you’re going to keep living, give us a little less guilt, okay?
4. John Ashcroft – There’s not much I can add here. Anyone who was beaten in an election by a dead guy should have cacked out himself after all the votes were in. Plus, he should just plain be dead because of all the people he makes wish they were dead whenever he sings.
3. Hugh Hefner – Please, Hef, if you can’t die, just lie down for an extended period. Sorry, but your iconic pajamas now seem like standard informalwear for a pre-clinical lower bowel diagnostic, and none of us even want to think about you getting turned on, unless it’s getting turned on your side. Before you go, however, I would like to personally thank you for providing the best discretionary pre-adolescent afternoons Iever spent. Sure beat fishing.
2. Michael Jackson -- It’s time to Beat It, the Thriller is gone, you’ve been Bad, it’s getting Dangerous, and you’re no longer Invincible. Once upon a time, when you sang You Got To Be There -- you were. Now you’re somewhere else. And, so is the world, which may now be your greatest obstacle. Right now, you wanna be stoppin’ something, Michael. We can’t bear the thought of seeing you in an Oldies reunion tour as an old man with a moonwalker.
1. Dick Cheney – No debate on who should be this year’s G-List top nominee for ex-air breather. Lately, Dick seems unable to notice that not only is he now nobody, but that nobody cares he’s nobody. Well, at least nobody who shouldn’t be anybody themselves. Sorry, Dick, but this is one deferment you won’t be granted. Congratulations on being drafted as this year’s Number #1 preferred stiff!
Stay tuned.
Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 11:25AM 
