Dead Celebrity (Part 1)

I’m astounded that he was only 67. Somehow they always seemed old.

10 Likes

Odd, I was just playing some Steely Dan a couple nights ago. Hadn’t listened to them for ages.

3 Likes

Another pioneer of modern standup.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/09/01/547974050/comic-shelley-berman-dies-at-92

5 Likes

You can only choose one. If your favorite is something like Rikki, suck it up or make your own poll.

  • My Old School
  • Hey Nineteen
  • Any Major Dude
  • FM (No static at all)

0 voters

2 Likes
2 Likes

It was a long time before I could tolerate Steely Dan, much less enjoy them. I’ve posted here before about being in elementary school, around the time Gaucho came out, and we had a very irascible gym teacher who made us line dance to “Peg” and “Hey Nineteen.” I could not hear Steely Dan without imagining her going apoplectic, ranting raving and shrieking (at all of us) over some perceived infraction (committed – or not – by one of us). When I found out what “Steely Dan” meant it raised them in my estimation some, but it wasn’t until I was listening to large doses of both jazz and R&B that I liked their music at all. They’ve since become one of my favorites.

9 Likes

Something surreal about that I think they’d appreciate.

I can’t hear Eddie Money’s “Two Tickets to Paradise” without reflexively jerking into jumping jacks.

3 Likes

Earl Lindo, keyboard player for Bob Marley and the Wailers.

3 Likes

Not a good week for musical legends. Holger Czukay, one of the founders of Can, has died aged 79.

9 Likes

Probably more familiar to @GilbertWham and myself

He was one of the people who Roger Mellie (The man on the telly) was based on (Although Mike Neville was not a racist misogynist as far as I know).

2 Likes
12 Likes

John Ashbery. In my world, poets are celebrities.

9 Likes

Years ago my spouse and I went to see A Prairie Home Companion. We hung around after the show and Garrison Keillor came out and talked to us. He and I started talking poetry and he said “I’ve started reading Ashbery. He’s challenging but I like it.” I asked if he’d read Self-Portrait In A Convex Mirror.
He hadn’t and I said “You’re in for a real treat.”

Of course given the circles Keillor travels in he probably met Ashbery.

And I remember the thrill years before that I felt when I first read The Lonedale Operator in a Norton anthology. That was my introduction.

Thank you for that.

9 Likes

Balls… Just found out about that.

4 Likes

Lofti Zadeh, who invented fuzzy logic. Ironically, his death was prematurely announced last August by Tehran University.

1 Like

Not my personal choice of science fiction or politics

As far as I know he wasn’t the first person to write a novel on a computer, that was Len Deighton who wrote Bomber on one in 1968-70

8 Likes
7 Likes

Edith Windsor worked for equality.

9 Likes

Rick Stevens, former Tower of Power vocalist


2 Likes

Grant Hart has died.

6 Likes