Wakeman reworks rock epic Journey to Centre of Earth

LONDON (Reuters) – The story behind the upcoming re-issue of Rick Wakeman‘s 1974 concept album “Journey to the Center of the Earth” sounds almost as unlikely as the Jules Verne tale that inspired it.

Progressive rock veteran Wakeman had presumed the original orchestration to his chart-topping disc was lost for good when his record company MAM, where the manuscripts had been stored in boxes, was brought to its knees in the early 1980s.

Although he could have re-orchestrated the work from the original album, recorded live at the Royal Festival Hall in London in 1974, Wakeman knew it would be far from perfect.

And the original score was 55 minutes long whereas the 1974 version had to be cut to closer to 40 due to the constraints of vinyl recordings at the time.

“In about 1983 or 1984 I had an enquiry to do Journey again in America,” Wakeman recalled in a telephone interview.

“I thought ‘great’. But MAM had gone, and nobody there had any idea what had happened to all the stuff of mine,” the former Yes keyboardist told Reuters.

“Up until recently I would get phone calls to do it and I said ‘no, I can’t', there is no music any more. You just resign yourself to disappointment.”

Everything changed about four years ago when a box of papers arrived at his doorstep – a fairly regular occurrence, he explained, for a man who had been married several times and had “stuff in storage all over the place”.

Sifting through the contents, Wakeman found a pile of music that was not his own, but “something told me to empty the entire box.” At the very bottom was the long-lost conductor’s score of Journey, albeit so damp the pages were stuck together.

To this day Wakeman does not know where the box came from, and is amazed it reappeared nearly 30 years after going missing.

ORIGINAL SONGS

Once the music had been downloaded on to a computer, Wakeman set about reintroducing the songs and other sections he removed for the 1974 recording with the help of notes he had kept.

He decided to make a studio recording of the rock opera, and sought to replicate the sound of the original instruments.

For the narrator’s voice, he could not go back to David Hemmings, who died in 2003, and so invited actor Peter Egan.

The result is a re-mastered version of Journey, complete with 20 minutes of unheard music, which hits shelves on November 20. It comes in the form of a “fanback” comprising the music, a 132-page magazine and a replica of the program to the 1974 show.

For Wakeman it was a labor of love, but one he hopes will prove profitable.

“We did have record companies come forward,” the 63-year-old said. “But I don’t want an A&R (artists and repertoire) man coming in and saying it could do with this and that.

“The only way I can get this done as I believe it should be is to finance it and do it myself which we did. It broke the bank, there’s no doubt about it.”

While the concept of a rock opera based on French author Verne’s 1864 sci-fi classic may not instantly appeal to young listeners today, Wakeman believes there is a market for his latest release.

“Music audiences today don’t put a date on anything, they either like it or they don’t,” he said, adding that the “prog-rock” genre for which he is best known has made something of a comeback in recent years.

PROKOFIEV FAN

The prolific musician who has made around 100 albums and sold millions of records started piano lessons when he was seven, and at about that time the seeds of his career were sown.

“Story telling to music is something I have loved since my father took me to see ‘Peter and the Wolf’ aged eight, and (Sergei) Prokofiev became my hero,” he recalled.

By his late teens he was an established session musician and joined the band Yes in 1971 with whom he recorded the hit album “Fragile” and, the following year, “Close to the Edge”.

In 1973 he released “The Six Wives of Henry VIII” a solo concept album, and in 1974, which his official online biography calls “probably the most significant year in Rick’s career”, he made Journey and toured the world with it.

Another concept album, “The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table” followed in 1975, and Wakeman returned to Yes for spells throughout the 1990s.

Next week he plays six dates in South America, including the first concert performance of the new, full Journey and a rendition of The Six Wives.

The new “holy grail” following the rediscovery of Journey is to track down the original music to King Arthur, which was also lost. Wakeman is orchestrating the existing recording for a show next June, but would love to find the full score.

“All of us involved hope very much that it (Journey) makes its money back, because it would then allow me to look for the King Arthur music. We are doing a version next June and it would be lovely to say we’ve done it from the original music.”

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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I Was Misinformed: The Time She Tried Viagra

I have noticed, in the bragging-rights department, that “he doesn’t need Viagra” has become the female equivalent of the male “and, I swear, she’s a real blonde.” Personally, I do not care a bit. To me, anything that keeps you happy and in the game is a good thing.

But then, I am proud to say, I was among the early, and from what I gather, rare female users.

It happened when the drug was introduced around 1998. I was 50, but after chemotherapy for breast cancer — and later, advanced ovarian cancer — I was, hormonally speaking, pretty much running on fumes. Whether this had diminished my sex drive I did not yet know. One may have Zorba-esque impulses when a cancer diagnosis first comes in; but a treatment that leaves you bald, moon-faced and exhausted knocks that out of your system pretty fast.

But by 1998, the cancer was gone, my hair was back and I was ready to get back in the game. I was talking to an endocrinologist when I brought up Viagra. This was not to deal with the age-related physical changes I knew it would not address, it was more along the feminist lines of equal pay for equal work: if men have this new sex drug, I want this new sex drug.

“I know it’s supposed to work by increasing blood flow,” I told the doctor, “But if that’s true for men, shouldn’t it be true for women, too?”

“You’re the third woman who asked me that this week,” he said.

He wrote me a prescription. I was not seeing anyone, so I understood that I would have to do both parts myself, but that was fine. I have a low drug threshold and figured it might be best the first time to fly solo. My memory of the directions are hazy: I think there was a warning that one might have a facial flush or headaches or drop dead of a heart attack; that you were to take a pill at least an hour before you planned to get lucky, and, as zero hour approached, you were supposed to help things along by thinking beautiful thoughts, kind of like Peter Pan teaching Wendy and the boys how to fly.

But you know how it is: It’s hard to think beautiful thoughts when you’re wondering, “Is it happening? Do I feel anything? Woof, woof? Hello, sailor? Naaah.”

After about an hour, however, I was aware of a dramatic change. I had developed a red flush on my face; I was a hot tomato, though not the kind I had planned. I had also developed a horrible headache. The sex pill had turned into a bad joke: Not now, honey, I have a headache.

I put a cold cloth on my head and went to sleep. But here’s where it got good: When I slept, I dreamed; one of those extraordinary, sensual, swimming in silk sort of things. I woke up dazed and glowing with just one thought: I gotta get this baby out on the highway and see what it can do.

A few months later I am fixed up with a guy, and after a time he is, under the Seinfeldian definition of human relations (Saturday night date assumed) my official boyfriend. He is middle aged, in good health. How to describe our romantic life with the delicacy a family publication requires? Perhaps a line from “Veronika, der Lenz ist da” (“Veronica, Spring Is Here”), a song popularized by the German group the Comedian Harmonists: “Veronika, der Spargel Wächst” (“Veronica, the asparagus are blooming”). On the other hand, sometimes not. And so, one day, I put it out there in the manner of sport:

“Want to drop some Viagra?” I say.

Here we go again, falling into what I am beginning to think is an inevitable pattern: lying there like a lox, or two loxes, waiting for the train to pull into the station. (Yes, I know it’s a mixed metaphor, but at least I didn’t bring in the asparagus.) So there we are, waiting. And then, suddenly, spring comes to Suffolk County. It’s such a presence. I’m wondering if I should ask it if it hit traffic on the L.I.E. We sit there staring.

My reaction is less impressive. I don’t get a headache this time. And romantically, things are more so, but not so much that I feel compelled to try the little blue pills again.

Onward roll the years. I have a new man in my life, who is 63. He does have health problems, for which his doctor prescribes an E.D. drug. I no longer have any interest in them. My curiosity has been satisfied. Plus I am deeply in love, an aphrodisiac yet to be encapsulated in pharmaceuticals.

We take a vacation in mountain Mexico. We pop into a drugstore to pick up sunscreen and spot the whole gang, Cialis, Viagra, Levitra, on a shelf at the checkout counter. No prescription needed in Mexico, the clerk says. We buy all three drugs and return to the hotel. I try some, he tries some. In retrospect, given the altitude and his health, we are lucky we did not kill him. I came across an old photo the other day. He is on the bed, the drugs in their boxes lined up a in a semi-circle around him. He looks a bit dazed and his nose is red.

Looking at the picture, I wonder if he had a cold.

Then I remember: the flush, the damn flush. If I had kids, I suppose I would have to lie about it.

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Microsoft executive exits at a shaky time

Turns out Microsoft Corp.'s radical overhaul of its Windows operating system last month wasn't the only big change in store for the company.

The abrupt departure of Steven Sinofsky, president of Windows and Windows Live, is being called poor timing for the tech behemoth. It's also seen as a sign that longtime Chief Executive Steve Ballmer has no plans to step down anytime soon.

Sinofsky's exit, just weeks after the company rolled out the Windows 8 operating system, "doesn't necessarily reflect well on the company," said Kirk Materne, managing director at Evercore Partners.

"I think if you're Steve, having this happen right after creates a level of distraction that you don't want in the first place," he said. "It's never great when you've had this much turnover at the senior level of a company that is really trying to gain its footing in markets like tablet and mobile."

Shares of Microsoft slid 90 cents, or 3.2%, to $27.09 on Tuesday. Its stock has languished in the last decade — virtually unchanged — while shares of rival Apple Inc. have climbed more than 6,700%.

Microsoft is under pressure to impress consumers and investors with its latest offerings, which include Windows 8 and its new Surface device, a hybrid tablet-laptop that launched last month.

But both products have been met with lackluster interest. Windows 8 debuted to low investor expectations, and reviews for the revamped operating system have been mixed, with some users saying it's at times confusing to use.

The Surface, meanwhile, was buzz-worthy when it was first unveiled, but analysts seem unconvinced that it will make a dent in a market currently dominated by Apple's iPad. Although the hardware is sleek, the Surface lacks applications compared with the iPad, and its highly touted snap-on keyboard that doubles as a cover is difficult to accurately type on, reviewers have said.

The Windows 8 launch was said to be the biggest revamp of the operating system in nearly two decades. The latest update includes a new interface called the Start screen that was designed for tablets and touch-screen computers and features moving tiles similar to those on Windows Phone devices. Microsoft wants the new Start screen interface to be the future of Windows.

"The general conclusion of Win 8 is on the surface, it's a solid first start," Materne said. "It's not mind-blowing, it's not going to immediately recapture market share, but it gets them back in the ballgame to a certain degree."

Sinofsky, a 23-year Microsoft veteran, was in charge of the Windows 8 and Surface efforts at the Redmond, Wash., company. He was a polarizing figure in the office with a tough management style and was rumored to be in line to succeed Ballmer, who has been chief executive since 2000.

In an employee memo Monday, the day Microsoft announced his departure, Sinofsky said he had decided to leave to seek "new opportunities."

"With the general availability of Windows 8/RT and Surface, I have decided it is time for me to take a step back from my responsibilities at Microsoft," he said. "I've always advocated using the break between product cycles as an opportunity to reflect and to look ahead, and that applies to me too."

Now that Sinofsky has left, analysts — some of whom speculated there had been a rift between Sinofsky and Ballmer — say they expect a new direction for the Windows division.

"Sinofsky was a highly talented operator who hit product release dates, got delivery in Windows to be more reliable, and was pivotal to successful Office and Win 7 releases," Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Holt said in a note to investors. "While he is a loss for Microsoft, Windows has entered a different phase where cultivation of developers, collaboration between product groups, integration with the mobile operating system and a focus on applications become more important."

Sinofsky will be replaced by Julie Larson-Green, who has been with the company since 1993 and oversaw program management, user interface design and research for Windows 7 and 8. She will lead all Windows software and hardware engineering.

Tami Reller, Windows chief financial officer and chief marketing officer, also will assume responsibility for the business of Windows.

There could be a bit of a learning curve in the meantime, said equity analyst Angelo Zino of S&P Capital IQ.

"We are surprised by the announcement, given Sinofsky's recent success as well as a belief by many that he could eventually have been the successor to CEO Steve Ballmer," he said. "While we are confident in the abilities of both individuals, we see the change increasing product development risk to future Windows releases."

andrea.chang@latimes.com

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Father of 3 killed in West Rogers Park hit-and-run

Tsering Dorjee had spent the day Monday helping his brother-in-law find an apartment for his family, due here from India next month.

As it turned evening, Dorjee and Dakpa Jorden went to get food and were crossing the street in the 6400 block of North Maplewood Avenue around 6 p.m. when they were struck by a dark blue Volkswagen that kept on driving, police said.

Dorjee, 44 and the father of three small children, was taken to Saint Francis Hospital in Evanston, where he was pronounced dead at 10:27 p.m. from head injuries, according to the medical examiner's office.

Jorden suffered a broken leg and was taken to the same hospital.

“I don’t know what to do," Dorjee's wife, Kalsang Wangmo. "I don’t know what to do now.’’

"My boys are asking, 'Where’s daddy? Where's daddy?' " she said. They are 6, 3 and 1.

Wangmo said she started getting worried when her husband wasn’t home by 7 p.m.  "Normally he comes home before 6:30 p.m," she said.

Wangmo said she called his cell phone several times but got no answer. Finally, the hospital called her at 8 p.m. "They said, ‘Your husband is in critical condition, can you come now,' " Wangmo said, her voice choking with emotion.
 
She frantically called a relative to watch her boys and got to the hospital before he died. "His eyes were all swollen," Wangmo said, and he could not talk.

As she sat by her husband side, Wangmo said she thought of their children and how she would face life without him. “I don’t know, I don’t know…I have three children,’’ she said, sobbing.

She said her husband had the day off Monday and was helping her brother find an apartment. He has been living with them, and the rest of his family was coming from India to live in Chicago next month.

Dorjee worked in the Cook County Clerk's office and was the president of the Rogers Park Chamber of Commerce.

Wangmo said she and her husband are both from India and went to same high school there. She is from Bangalore, in the Indian state of Karnataka, and her husband was from Himachal in northern India.

While living in India, Dorjee worked for the Tibetan government in exile, according to Lhakpa Tsering, president of the Tibetan Alliance of Chicago.  His parents had been born in Tibet.

"It’s very distressing and very disappointing because, in our community, we have very few deaths but they are natural – sickness or old age," Tsering said. "This is the first time a hit-and-run has taken a life in our community.’’

Dorjee had felt strongly about helping other Tibetans. "He is a Tibetan himself and he believes it is very important to help the community," Tsering said. “We feel loss because our community is small -- less than 300 people in Chicago."

Tsering said the Tibetan Alliance of Chicago is planning a prayer ceremony and special gathering to honor him. “He was very active in the Tibetan community because the situation in Tibet is critical,’’ Tsering said. “He really thinks the issues are important.’’

Reuters reported last week that 68 Tibetans have set themselves on fire since March 2011 in protest against Chinese rule over Tibetan regions. At least 56 have died, according to Tibetan rights groups.

Cook County Clerk David Orr released a statement saying Dorjee "was a much-loved member of my Vital Records staff since 1998. Tsering was an incredibly kind soul and dedicated public servant. News of his death this morning brought his coworkers to tears. Our deepest condolences go to his wife, children and family. He will be dearly missed."

The car was described as a dark blue Volkswagen Beetle with the Illinois license plate P121817. Police asked anyone with information to call 312-745-4521.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

Twitter: @chicagobreaking

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At Mao-style conclave, China embraces Twitter age

BEIJING (AP) — During China’s last party congress, the cadres in charge of the world’s most populous nation didn’t know a hashtag from a hyperlink. But five years on, there’s a new message from Beijing: The political transition will be microblogged.

Party officials have this fall embraced social media with unprecedented enthusiasm, hoping it can help guide public opinion and stir up excitement about the staid and scripted party meeting taking place this week in Beijing that kicks off a transition to a new, younger set of top leaders.

Dozens of the more than 2,000 party delegates, among them Chairman Mao‘s grandson, are using social media to wax rhapsodic about China’s rise and Party General Secretary Hu Jintao’s live 90-minute reading of highlights from this year’s party work report. Typical posts include pictures of grinning delegates on Tiananmen Square and mobile snapshots of poinsettia arrangements and chandeliers from inside the Great Hall of the People, where the congress is meeting.

Guo Mingyi, a miner from the frigid northeast who was making his debut as a party delegate, tweeted: “On this land with great affections, how can I not sing, how can I not tear up, I love this piece of land, the people and the great Chinese Communist Party!”

State media also are posting microblog interviews with officials and shooting out updates about the congress schedule via Twitter-like accounts.

But apart from being a tool to deliver Beijing’s approved policy messages to the mobile phones of ordinary Chinese, the Internet is a two-way street that’s also being used by the public to poke fun at and critique the propaganda. Online commentators have compared the gushy crying and clapping of some delegates over Hu’s speech to North Korean style mass hysteria.

Responding to state media report about how a female delegate, Li Jian, cried five times at Hu’s work report, a Sina microblog user writing under the name ‘Buying Soysauce’ wrote: “I sobbed uncontrollably too, at the thought that these people were my compatriots.”

Wang Keqin, the assistant to the editor in chief of Beijing’s Economic Observer magazine, wrote about the tears of another delegate, He Guiqin: “It’s back to North Korea overnight!”

Other critics have dredged up old headlines from 1987 about the scourge of bribe-seeking and posted them online to highlight how little party rhetoric, and party problems, have changed despite major social change over the last three decades.

The clash of ideas underscores just how important the Internet has become in China’s campaign to guide public opinion — a major shift from just a few years ago.

At the last party conclave in October 2007, Twitter was a little over a year old and hashtags had only just been introduced. China’s leading homegrown Twitter-like microblog service, Sina Weibo, was still two years from launch.

But as elsewhere, China’s Internet population has exploded over the last five years, jumping from 170 million to more than 500 million today. Social media has boomed with it and now plays a huge part in everyday Chinese life, particularly for urban residents who use it to find restaurants, jobs and mates.

Beijing’s initial reaction to social media was to block and censor, to limit conversations by banning access to Twitter and Facebook and to limit mention of anything considered sensitive or destabilizing with keyword filters. Though authorities still use those tactics, the government is increasingly proactive and working to wrest control of the online conversation by flooding the zone with its own content.

David Bandurski, a researcher with the China Media Project at Hong Kong University, says Chinese officials have learned that simply banning or blocking reports is no longer effective in the porous Internet sphere and that stifling information can backfire by fanning more interest in scandals and crises and sparking online rumors.

“You can’t just stuff the genie back into the bottle,” said Bandurski. “You have also to channel public opinion … officially, they are seeing social media as the best way to send out their authoritative information and kind of drive the agenda.”

But the government remains yoked to its party-ese, which can seem hopelessly out of date in the Twitter age.

A dispatch on the trend by the official Xinhua News Agency gives a hint to the flavor of Beijing’s rhetoric.

“The Internet has been unprecedentedly embedded into the ongoing National Congress of the Communist Party of China,” the news agency trumpeted over the weekend. “Not only can contents on the Internet be found in the congress report, but online media practitioners are attending the congress in person.”

On Saturday, Chairman Mao’s grandson Mao Xinyu tweeted this to his 105,943 followers on Renmin Weibo, the microblog of the official party paper, the People’s Daily: “Mao Zedong thought will always be the guiding ideology of the party.”

It got 155 retweets, a mediocre showing in China‘s lively web sphere.

___

Follow Alexa Olesen on Twitter: http://twitter.com/alobeijing

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Jason Biggs defends tweeting ways

NEW YORK (AP) — Jason Biggs is brushing off criticism he received during the recent election season for vulgar tweets that referenced the wives of both Republican Mitt Romney and his running mate in the presidential race, Paul Ryan.

The “American Pie” star took heat for off-color comments posted to his Twitter feed at the time of the Republican National Convention in August. The outpouring of criticism from parents groups, pundits and others led Nickelodeon to issue an apology for the actor’s comments on the social media website. Biggs is providing one of the voices in the cable TV station’s new animated series “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”

“I made a political tweet, so I got a little bit of heat from the right,” he said.

With elections over, Biggs says he’s moving on.

He appeared Monday night in New York at the annual 24 Hour Plays event, which was sponsored by luxury pen-maker Montblanc to benefit the Urban Arts Partnership. The benefit draws more than two dozen actors who write, rehearse, and perform one of six plays that they began working on the night before.

Biggs’ tweets have also poked fun at the Kardashians, Amanda Bynes, Lindsay Lohan and the ABC show “The Bachelorette.”

“I’m more afraid of the Kardashians, than I am of the Republicans,” he said.

He said he sees Twitter as an extension of the darker side of his humor.

As a three-time performer in 24 Hour Plays benefit, Biggs says he’s grown to feel more comfortable with the process.

“It’s a little easier. But it’s still nerve-racking, man.”

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Q & A: Weighing the Evidence

Q. My husband weighs twice as much as I do, yet we take the same dose of over-the-counter medications, as recommended on the packaging. Shouldn’t weight be a factor?

A. There is little information about using weight as a factor in adjusting doses of either prescription or over-the-counter medications, said Dr. Steven A. Kaplan, director of the Iris Cantor Men’s Health Center at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell hospital.

“We are beginning to study different responses by weight,” he said, but he and other researchers have reached no conclusions on recommendations for therapy.

“In my own field, urology,” he added, “my opinion is that it is more likely for the recommended dose to be ineffective in a larger person rather than to be toxic in a thinner adult.”

Some prescription drugs, like chemotherapy agents, already have their dosages adjusted for weight because of their highly toxic nature. As for over-the-counter drugs, recommended doses generally tend to be weighted in favor of safety rather than efficacy, Dr. Kaplan said.

He and other doctors emphasized the importance of following package directions. For example, acetaminophen (like Tylenol) can present a life-threatening risk if the liver cannot process a high dose. If you find that the recommended dose does not work for you, Dr. Kaplan said, speak to your doctor.

C. CLAIBORNE RAY

Readers may submit questions by mail to Question, Science Times, The New York Times, 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018, or by e-mail to question@nytimes.com.

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Chicago's top employers named

The Chicago Tribune released its annual Top Workplaces survey Monday, with a broad cross section of companies -- and dozens of new names -- earning recognition as the best places to work in Chicago. 

Abt Electronics and Coyote Logistics repeated as the top large and midsize employers, respectively, with iD Commerce + Logistics making the list for the first time as the top-ranked small company.  

This is the third year the Tribune has partnered with Workplace Dynamics to rank the top 100 companies as judged by their own employees, using criteria ranging from clued-in managers to flexible work schedules. More than 1,600 companies were invited to participate, with a record 254 completing the survey.

Pennsylvania-based Workplace Dynamics partnered with 32 newspapers and surveyed 1.5 million employees nationwide last year as part of its research efforts into what environments are best for employees. 

"We all spend an awful lot of time at work," said Doug Claffey, CEO of Workplace Dynamics. "Creating a really great workplace for employees is something that I think businesses have an obligation to do.  In addition to making money, you need create an environment where your people want to be."

Beyond Glenview electronics retailer Abt,  the top five large companies were Hyatt Hotels, Baird & Warner, ATI Physical Therapy and FedEx -- all new to this category this year.

Chicago-based Coyote Logistics was followed by kCura, Slalom Consulting, Edward Jones and Mercy Home for Boys & Girls among companies with 250 to 999 employees.  

Wood Dale-based id Commerce topped Webster Dental, 2011 winner Red Frog Events, Assurance Agency and LeasePlan USA among small companies.

Full survey results and a variety of top workplace profiles will be published in a magazine insert included in Tuesday's Chicago Tribune.

rchannick@tribune.com | Twitter @RobertChannick

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Firefighter who died on duty remembered as mentor, friend

A veteran Chicago firefighter suffered a heart attack at his firehouse and died.It happened Sunday night in the 1700 block of West 95th Street, in the Beverly neighborhood.

For the second time in little more than a week, Chicago firefighters made a sad procession to the morgue today to honor a fallen colleague.

Walter Patmon Jr., 61, an 18-year veteran, died late Sunday night after going into cardiac arrest within hours of responding to a small kitchen fire in the 1500 block of West 99th Street, according to Chicago Fire Department spokesman Will Knight said. The firefighters discovered meat burning on a stove, officials said.

After returning to his firehouse, Patmon experienced shortness of breath while cleaning equipment, Knight said. He was taken to Little Company of Mary Hospital, where he went into cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead at 11:21 p.m.

Patmon's body was taken early Monday to the medical examiner's office, accompanied by a procession of fire and police vehicles. Dozens of firefighters and police officers lined the streets outside the office and saluted as the procession passed under an American flag hanging from an extended fire truck ladder.

With many bowing their heads and removing their helmets, the firefighters then gathered for a communal prayer before the firefighter's body was taken inside.

The death came three days after the funeral of Capt. Herbert "Herbie" Johnson, a 32-year fire department veteran who died while battling an extra-alarm blaze. Johnson was remembered Thursday during an emotional service attended by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and hundreds of firefighters at a Southwest Side church.

Patmon is survived his his wife and three daughters, according to the fire department.

Firefighter Dave Beason was placing purple bunting at Engine Company 121's station house at 1700 W. 95th St. in the Beverly neighborhood this morning.

He remembered Patmon as a good mentor to other firefighters.

“He was a great guy,’’ Beason said.  “He was always smiling, and he was someone who was always willing to teach you.

“He put himself out to help you in any way he could,’’ he said. “Whenever you knew you were going to work with him, you knew you were going to have a good day.’’

Beason worked with Patmon for six years before being transferred to O’Hare International Airport. He said he learned how to drive a fire truck from Patmon.

Patmon "was a real family man,’’ Beason added.  “He just adored his daughters.’’

Patmon was also famous for his barbecues, and Beason said he even encouraged him to open up his own eatery. “Anyone who knew him knew that he made the best barbecue."

Irving Brown Sr., a 63-year-old retired fire captain, said he had known Patmon for about 40 years. They grew up together in the area around 79th Street and Halsted Avenue.  "He really had an attitude that was golden," Brown said.

Known for his barbecue rub, Patmon loved to cook, Brown said. Not even the weather could stop him from barbecuing in his back yard.

"Whenever he had the fancy, he would cook," Brown said, including on wintry days when the temperature fell below freezing.

Brown said Patmon joined the fire department in 1994 after working as a truck driver and as a postal clerk at Michael Reese Hospital. Brown said Patmon's love of people made him a perfect fit for the job.

"Once he got on, you couldn't pull him off of that job with two airplanes and a tow truck," Irving said.

Brown said Patmon graduated from Calumet High School.

asege@tribune.com

Twitter: @AdamSege

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Dutch teenagers sentenced in “Facebook murder”

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Two Dutch teenagers were sentenced to two years in juvenile detention and three years of compulsory therapy on Monday for ordering the death of a girl after an argument on Facebook.

The case, known in the Netherlands as the “Facebook murder”, has caused widespread debate about the role of social media in violent crime.

The victim, identified only as 15-year old Winsie, was fatally stabbed in January at the request of the boy and girl, who were aged 17 and 16 respectively at the time.

Winsie had argued for weeks with the girl, and they had swapped insults on the social networking site.

“The defendants are guilty of a particularly serious criminal offence. The fact that a friendship between two young girls can turn into deep hate and ultimately into murder being incited is shocking and hard to comprehend,” a court in the city of Arnhem said in a statement.

The killer, who Dutch media named only as Jinhua and who was 14 when he committed the crime, was sentenced in September to one year in juvenile detention.

(Reporting Gilbert Kreijger; Editing by Anthony Deutsch and Pravin Char)

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