Go gentle in to that good night

Our country lost a great man the other day when George McGovern passed on.  If he'd been elected in 1972 and had gotten to work with the Democratic party controlled Congress, I can only imagine how great the USA would be today.  We'll surely miss statesmen and leaders of his caliber and conviction. 

Rest in peace sir and thank you for you many years of service to our country.

Rest in peace

Ken Russell, the man who directed this masterpiece of cheesy horror, just passed away. He was 84.
Thanks for all your films Ken. Bye now.

Citius, Altius, Fortius

Filmmaker, Olympic historian, glasses wearer, and cool old bald guy Bud Greenspan passed away on Christmas Day. I'm a huge Olympic nut and I've seen many of Greenspan's films about the Olympiads. I'll miss him and his work. Rest in peace Bud.

Goodbye to a class act

Rest in peace Elizabeth, no one deserves peace and rest more than you. The thought of your sleazy husband raising your children makes me ill.

Admit it

You thought he was already dead. Didn't you.

You know you did.

Rest in peace

Iconic actor, director, and all around bad ass Dennis Hopper has succumbed to prostate cancer. My favorite performances of his include those he gave in Blue Velvet, River's Edge, Straight to Hell, Apocalypse Now, Basquiat, and Red Rock West. There was nobody quite like him and he'll be missed.

Goodnight Howard

America's greatest historian has passed away at the age of 87. Howard Zinn taught us that history is more than just the story of the rich ruling elites and the machinations of the military industrial complex. He showed us history from the view point of the people who got trampled by it (black folks, native Americans, the poor, the working class), who tried to correct it (socialists, radicals, feminists), and perhaps most importantly, he didn't just sit on his bony academic ass and and write books and teach history, he went out in the streets and made history. He was a crucial player in the early civil rights struggles, his anti war activism took him out of his cloistered office and into the fight against the travesties we know as the Vietnam war and the wars of terror on Iraq and Afghanistan, and he was a voice for those who thought they had no voice. He was a pioneer in telling the story of this country not through dewy eyes that were shaded by rose colored glasses, but through the clear strong lens of truth. And most of the time that lens showed us that the Untied States of America wasn't this do gooder nation that we heard so much about in school, it showed that our country was in fact an empire that was responsible for death, destruction, and despair for those who crossed us or who didn't see things the way we saw them.

There was no one like Howard Zinn before but I hope now that we have his works and his example, there will be many more like him. Goodnight Howard, rest in peace sir. You will be missed.

Now it's just Peter and Paul

Mary and these Van Dyke wearing dudes helped make Bob Dylan famous, their cover of Blowin' in the Wind helped put him on middle America's musical map, and they turned Puff the Magic Dragon into a huge hit. Mary has left on her last jet plane, she's takin' the dirt nap now. Goodbye Mary, you were big part of the soundtrack to my early childhood and one of my first crushes. Thanks for all the great music and for rockin' those early '60's fashions.

Go gently in to that good night

Teddy's dead. That's what I said.

He had his faults and all but coming from a privileged background like he did, he did a hell of a lot for the working people of this country. He'll be missed.

Expect the hate for him by the right to bubble up like lava in a volcano. I imagine they'll be dancing in the halls at Liberty University, the 700 Club, and Focus on the Family.

Rutless exploiter of the mentally and physcially handicapped laid to rest

Rest in peace Eunice Shriver and thanks for giving back way more than you took.

Frankie, we hardly knew ye

Rest in peace Frank. If anybody deserved some fame and fortune late in their lives, it was you sir.

Your life and life story was an inspiration to this Irish American and I'm sure to many others as well.

RIP Donald Westlake

One of my favorite writers, Donald Westlake, has died. He wrote all kinds of crime fiction under a few different pen names. You can read his obit here. If you've never read a Donald Westlake/Richard Stark novel, then please do so soon. He was a master storyteller and he'll be missed, especially be me.

What's the opposite of 'Rest In Peace'?

The hatred for blacks, gays, liberals, and women reached critical mass inside the pea brain of Jesse Helms and caused it to explode and as a result it killed him in doing so. Sources tell me that he was a simmering mass of venom spitting hate near the end of his wretched contemptible life.

Helms made a living off of hate and causing whites to fear anyone who was the slightest bit different than him. He turned gays, blacks, Latinos, anyone who believes in equality between the sexes, Europeans, and anyone else who disagreed with him into stereotypes to be demonized and bashed. His whole career was based on getting elected by making people afraid, so in that respect he was Karl Rove's political father figure.

It's times like these I wish there really was a hell so that Helms could spend an eternity there getting gang raped by the unholy hordes of Ol' Scratch while being serenaded by the sound the screams of his true believers as they get gang raped by the unholy hordes of The Dark One. Hang on a second, getting gang raped by demons is too kind a fate for Helms, what I really hope happens is that everyone forgets him and his legacy of hate and fear are forgotten as soon as they toss his puss filled corpse in the ground.


Good riddance you racist homophobic piece of crap.

See ya later Bob

American artist Robert Rauschenberg died yesterday at the age of 82.
He was a pioneer in the area of mixed media art and I always liked his work. He was provocative and forward thinking in his art and if you look at some of my art my one of my many Flickr photo sets then you can see I owe him a great debt because he influenced me greatly.

Good bye Bob, thanks for all your great works and I hope you come back real soon.

R I P Evel

One of the all time great pop culture icons has passed away. In most every interview of him I read in the past few years he came across as a real asshole but I guess all those years of daredevil stunts will do that to a guy. Rest in peace dude.