Being old, death gets my attention, so I read the obituaries. This is a collection of recent obits, mostly of people whose work touched my life, because I want to say thanks (or maybe give 'em a final fuck you).
There’ll be a roundup like this occasionally, until I’m on the list myself.
• Suchir Balaji
whistleblower
• Wolfgang Becker
film director, Good Bye, Lenin! (archived link)
• David Bonderman
private equity fucker (archived link)
• Michael Brewer
rock’n’roller, “One Toke Over the Line” (archived link)
• Robert Brooks
in county jail (archived link)
• Diane Delano
actress, Northern Exposure (archived link)
• Sugar Pie DeSanto
R&B singer, “Rock Me Baby”
• Bob “Slim” Dunlap
rock’n’roller, the Replacements (archived link)
• Rayful Edmond
cocaine entrepreneur (archived link)
• Eli Fletcher a/k/a Keith Thornhill
Guitar Man (archived link)
• Meena Ganesh
actress, Vasanthiyum Lakshmiyum Pinne Njanum (archived link)
• Nikki Giovanni
poet, activist
• Gerd Heidemann
journalist who got it wrong (archived link)
• Bridgette Hempstead
Cierra Sisters
• Rickey Henderson
baseballer, Oakland A’s (archived link)
• Zakir Hussain
tabla (archived link)
• identity withheld pending notification of next of kin
forgotten person (archived link)
• Linwood Jones
in county jail (archived link)
• Wesley Joyner
in county jail (archived link)
• Cheung Kan-Shing
forgotten person (archived link)
• David Mallett
singer-songwriter, “The Garden Song” (archived link)
• Troy Masters
journalist, activist (archived link)
• Matthew McCarthy
in county jail (archived link)
• Lorenzo Melendez
forgotten person (archived link)
• Eric Nelson
forgotten person (archived link)
• Marisa Paredes
actress, Like Death Warmed Up
• Hassau Powell
forgotten person (archived link)
• Janis Scott
bus lady (archived link)
• Sir Lady Java
illegal drag queen (archived link)
• Stacy
forgotten person
• Timothy Scott Towne
in county jail (archived link)
• Dick Van Arsdale
basketballer, Phoenix Suns (archived link)
Some of these are interesting. Did you know that there are awards for people who write obituaries? They are apparently called ‘The Grimmy.’
I’m intrigued, but it looks like the organization that handed out Grimmys, The Society of Professional Obituary Writers, didn’t survive the pandemic.
Oh, I wonder who wrote their obituary? 😞