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Monday, June 15, 2009

Was Danny Gans doing a Rush Limbaugh impression when he died?


Was Danny Gans losing his hearing? Did the musical impressionist's reliance on powerful pain medication lead him to partial deafness, on the same road taken by conservative strongman Rush Limbaugh?

The story that Danny Gans had been reaching out to numerous doctors and specialists in the Las Vegas area because his longstanding use of pain medications was causing him to lose his hearing is one of the saddest and most tragic elements in the untimely death of this great, unique entertainer on May 1st.

"What could be worse for an impersonator than to not hear voices well?" asks one reporter who is working on other stories his editor deems far more important. "I don't have a doctor's name or know if he ever saw a specialist or if this is just more of the surrounding buzz. I just have gossip."

"The story's out there. A lot of stories are out there," says another source.

Limbaugh, the talk radio host, underwent cocchlear implant surgery in 2002 to correct unexplained deafness that some have related to his illegal abuse of painkillers like Oxycontin (studies have shown that "rapid hearing loss, even deafness, in some patients who are misusing drugs" like Vicodin and Oxycontin).

It's not known if Danny Gans had Oxycontin, known as the "hillbilly heroin," in his system when he died. Clark County Coroner Mike Murphy would not what, if any, other drugs or alcohol were involved in the 52-year-old Gans' death beyond hydromorphone, known commercially as Dilaudid, and on the streets as "drug store heroin."


The deafness lead is one of many that are swirling through Clark County, and that we are pointing out to the paid Las Vegas reporters who are either trying to justify the budgets of their television news departments, or save their unwieldy backward-thinking newspapers from folding completely.

Many of these same journalists had intimated that they were waiting respectfully and responsibly for weeks until the coroner issued the toxicology report with the cause of Gans' death.

As it turns out, Mike Murphy's controversial "toxic reaction" gobbledygook was not the starting gun for a hungry group of journos eager to get to work as soon as the official work confirmed what they already knew, but, sadly, an excuse to close the lid on a Pandora's Box of citywide scandal.

In the hours following the announcement, local editors allowed reporters and columnists to vent their frustration in their coverage, but the lack of strong reportage in response to obvious questions, combined with the tidbits they've dropped but not followed up on, have led to a vacuum that's far more expansive than the one created by their malfeasance in the weeks following Gans' death on May 1st.

To that end, we've been seeking an interview with Steve Friess (right), the local comp queen and freelance writer who often covers Las Vegas for the New York Times and who attacked us for asking questions about Gans' death in the days following the tragic and shocking event. Friess has gone to the mattresses in the days since the coroner's report confirmed what we had reported-- and what we had revealed exclusively was common knowledge in the Las Vegas Review-Journal newsroom. After writing a cursory item for the Times, he's run away from the story he helped try to cover up.

Steve Friess has blocked our email access to his website, so we were forced to reach out through his censored comments section. He responded to our request this afternoon, but ignored the topic at hand:

"Hey. I just saw your latest attempt to appear on my blog. I actually DID think you had gone away. Didn't see you at the press conference and nobody's told me to look at your site in a while, so I figured you had dropped the matter finally.

"Good luck to you and thanks for a wild ride.

"sf"


Odder than Friess' expectation that the "wild ride" is over, is his claim to have thought we'd "gone away," as he's been posting anonymous comments to our Gans items, most along the lines of this one--

"This source is obviously invented. It fits to neatly with your crackpot theories-- it's too perfect. And Steve wynn would never call the paper over this. That's conspiracy theory fantasy silliness. In the real world of journalism, such a call would become the news. Nice try hoping to be relevant!"

-- claims that our sources are not real and that our staff is writing any post comments that are not negative.

One such comment stands out this evening. "Jody in LA" responds to our post, and to a fellow commenter who'd claimed her earlier comment had been written by a "loser" Tabloid Baby staffer:

"Hey Loser, I guess you've never used the Google news function.

Fact is that I did find this site via Google. A few weeks ago I entered Danny Gans and hit the "news" function on the upper left hand corner. That pulls up the latest stories, blogs etc on the internet.

And I'm guessing due to the lack of coverage on this story (in other words, MSM in Vegas dropping the ball), this site must have come up pretty high for me to have found it.

What is really strange is the lightweight articles, even after the coroner's report. Hell, the coroner's report is odd. Adverse reaction? I guess that's one way to describe an OD. Sounds like it's tailored made for a big insurance claim. And dilaudid for chronic pain? I asked a friend of mine who is a Pharmacy Tech and he said that they almost never see scripts for it. In CA it requires a special prescription form in triplicate to get it. He said it is EXTREMELY strong - way more than vicodin or oxycodone, which are usually prescribed for serious chronic pain.

Then the doctor's statements about a 5 year old script and his searching of the NV and CA prescription database and findings of no script within 3 years - and he spills his guts about all this to the newspaper? Hello HIPPA?

Everything about this death and the coverage (or should I say coverup) is strange - very strange. We're supposed to believe that a multi-millionaire health fanatic - who wouldn't eat a spoon of yogurt or an egg 2 days past their expiration date - randomly took a 5 year old expired narcotic, that he just happened to keep on hand all these years in the medicine cabinet, and dropped dead.

All that's missing from this story is a clown car."

And that is from a civilian.

7 comments:

Painstrong said...

Chronic pain is very severe and this affects people's life, long known to people who suffered from a strange disease, were strong back pains, which were intense and not let them work, as was what they said were the doctor and he prescribed oxycodone for pain, but knew it was a very powerful medicine, and moreover, anxiolytics, and worry that they were doing things that previously did not like eating too much, smoking, etc, and read in findrxonline that this drug is well and that we must be very careful with their use, and everything must be under medical prescription.

Anonymous said...

In the Las Vegas world of entertainment, it was common knowledge that for years, Danny Gans was a “pill popper”. The kind of pills that adversely affect your heart. It was also widely known that these ‘pills’ were routinely given to him by *** and ***.

The secret life of Danny Gans was not much of a secret amongst the world of entertainers. It was also not a secret that Gans wildly exaggerated his income many times over. That must have infuriated Casino management regarding their ability to negotiate contracts with nationally known celebrities.

My question is, because of all the conflict in his life, I keep hearing that the death of Danny Gans might possibly have been a homicide or even a suicide ? I hear that police are currently investigating that possibility. Do you know anything more about this ?

Curious,
Las Vegas

Blabby is A Liar AND a Loser! said...

Hey! Busted Again! I just did a Google News search for "Danny Gans" and nothing from this website came up in at least the first 1,000 responses! I chose the sort-by-date option and still NOTHING even though there are so many posts here including at least one today! See?

http://news.google.com/news?pz=1&ned=us&hl=en&q=danny+gans&cf=all&scoring=n

And here's the best part. Try this:

http://news.google.com/news?pz=1&ned=us&hl=en&q=%22tabloid+baby%22&cf=all&scoring=n

In all of Google News, there's only two instances of "tabloid baby" coming up and none of those links actually takes you to this site.

It gets better. Try "tabloidbaby.com." Only one entry, again not this site. See?
http://news.google.com/news?pz=1&ned=us&hl=en&q=%22tabloidbaby.com%22

Nice try, Blabby! You really should doublecheck before you roll out new lies. Nobody would find this site by Googling "Danny Gans" under either the regular search or the News function. This site is not recognized as a news site by Google. Entries do come up in the Google Blogsearch option, but that's not what you wrote! Boo hoo hoo.

Friess is right. You are totally discredited. But boy, he sure has your number!

Jody in LA said...

Well Loser, I know how I got here and it was exactly how I stated it - via google. I do find it hilarious that you spent so much time trying to discredit me, trying to say that I work/blog for Tabloid Baby, and try to pin my posts on Tabloid Baby staff. More smoke and mirrors to try to distract attention away from the real story.

Now, let's get back to the subject of Danny Gans possibly losing his hearing, and seeing doctors about about this problem, possibly brought on by his abuse of various pain meds.

I seemed to remember reading an article in one of the online Vegas newspapers where they were talking about how Gans would constantly text his friends, wife, kids, associates instead of talking - saying that he had to save his voice. It was framed in the story to show how dedicated he was to his craft. It caught my eye because it seemed a bit much. I know many performers will not speak or only whisper on the day of a big performance, but don't do it day in and day out, and certainly not with their families.

Now, a performer who is losing his hearing can control certain elements to cover that up. He can learn new voices and routines in the privacy of his own studio, having the music up as loud as needed. He could use hearing aids on stage that one one couldn't see, or have his monitor cranked up so he could hear himself while working with the band on stage. All sorts of tricks. Hey, if Beethoven could be deaf and figure out how to write and perform masterpieces, Gans could find a way to work around the hearing loss in his performance situation -things that he could completely control.

Where he couldn't control or hide his hearing loss would be in everyday life. Your friends would call you up, your kids and wife, associates, business manager - they would all want and need to talk to you. Since you couldn't hear them clearly, you would either miss what they were saying, and respond inappropriately, or you would be constantly asking them to speak louder. This would quickly reveal the secret. So his solution - tell everyone that he had to save his voice and would only text to communicate most of the time, as indicated in the the newsarticle.

This is all speculation of course, but it seems to fit a piece of the puzzle.

Blabby is A Liar AND a Loser! said...

predictable response from someone who can't get anyone to comment on his blog unless he writes the comments himself. while you're busy attacking everyone else's credibility, the fact that i've proved you're a liar who doesn't know the meaning of the word "exclusive" doesn't matter? Oh, OK!!!

Jody in LA said...

Wrong again, Loser.

You might want to pull up the ole Google today and try "Danny Gans death" again, and hit the "news" option, just like I told you before.

Looky looky what you'll see today! A first page headline that reads, and I quote:

"TabloidBaby.com slams Las Vegas news media, breaks news in Danny Gans overdose death"

Smackdown.

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