stop_dying raze twice now, in the twilight time between night and day. i guess first it was yesterday, though in my current state yesterday is still today, even as tomorrow's already let itself in. that was when i heard about JKB. this is a guy who had no reason to even acknowledge me, who was a part of some music that meant a lot to me, first as a guitarist and a drummer, then as more of a manager, which was the role he'd settled into by the time i first made contact with him. i guess you could say we became long-distance friends. we exchanged some emails eleven years ago, i bought some music through him so all the money would go to him and jeff, sent him some of my own stuff, and we got a nice little dialogue going. i still can't believe he did this, but he sent me some things that have never been released and have probably only been heard by a few people. pieces of a lost album that never happened. some really interesting songs there, with some real darkness and fire. he had his demons, but as far as i could tell he'd licked them, bruised them, knocked them down to some dead place. we became facebook friends when facebook became a thing in our lives. he said some very kind things to me about a song i sent him a few years ago when i wasn't in a great place. i could tell he wasn't just blowing smoke. it meant more than he could have known. about a year ago he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. he accepted it as a sort of pitch-black cosmic joke after all he'd been through and managed to survive (heroin was a thing at one point). then there was a car accident. he said his arm came out of it looking like something out of a bad zombie movie. he was told he probably wouldn't be able to play guitar anymore. he kept playing anyway. i really thought he might beat it. he'd beaten everything else. as recently as a week or so ago, he was still active on the internet, talking about new music, as articulate and funny and no-nonsense as ever. he died in his sleep. his body just decided it was done. at least it was peaceful. but it seems strange to think of him not being here anymore. i wish i'd got the chance to meet him. there are things about the way i play electric guitar that wouldn't exist if i'd never heard his playing all those years ago. now, not twenty four hours later, david bowie is dead, days after releasing one of the best, most adventurous albums he'd made in eons. i grew up loving "lady stardust" (the album version and the piano demo) on cassette tape, had my mind blown by the "sweet thing" suite on "diamond dogs", listened to "the motel" in that goddamn trailer when no one could sleep the night my grandmother on my mother's side was snoring loud enough to wake the deaf, dug in to the berlin trilogy in high school, found another world in what he did for iggy on "the idiot", and loved all of it. even when he made albums that were less than great he was never predictable, never boring, never played it safe. this is bullshit. stop dying, please, people who shouldn't die. thanks. 160111 ... unhinged they say it comes in threes *sigh* it seems like the new year is a deadly time of year. a year ago at this time my mom was laying in the hospital and i didnt even know it 160111 ... nr first a member of my jazz group, then david bowie, then an author i worked with at my former job. i don't think these things will ever make sense. 160111 ... raze it's almost funny, in a sick way. because as much of a not-optimist as i tend to be, i've said to more than a few people, "i've got a feeling about 2016. i think it's going to be a good one." and it's still early days, to be sure. there's a lot of year left to be year'd. but it's as if whoever controls the shape of years got wind of what i was saying, arched an eyebrow, and said, "oh yeah? we'll see about that." 160112 ... raze and now alan rickman, who was the same age as bowie. fuck off, cancer. seriously. 160114 ... leif I'll just be at my desk crying all day. https://vimeo.com/28766126 160114 ... nr annette funicello 160115 ... nr wait. she died awhile ago. why is the internet lying today? 160115 ... nr i mean i guess fake celebrity deaths are popular online. i don't get it. 160115 ... raze now it's glenn frey. which, not to be insensitive, doesn't quite register on the same scale — only because the eagles never really moved me or rearranged my brain, though i did and still do enjoy some of their tunes (i don't care if it's uncool ... listen to "new kid in town" and those vocal harmonies on "you look in her eyes, the music begins to play", and tell me glenn and don henley weren't born to sing together). but still. this is getting out of hand. 160120 ... he was old though. abe_vigoda 160126 ... raze paul kantner. also, channing tatum's goat. 160128 ... raze dan hicks. goddamn cancer. again. 160206 ... raze harper lee. at least she was at an age where you can pretty safely say, "she led a full life." but still. 160220 ... amy in red dfw didn't lead a full life but he could have. I feel pretty badly about him for many reasons. the 69 year olds sound old enough to me. I likely will make it to that age but will feel lucky to do so, and that's also ok because i lived too much (all subjective) before 30. Now bemoaning that i have to draw it out, to unknown personal benefit and only hope that i'm societally doing what i'm put here for. Totally don't know why people who don't know the person who dies naturally to have a fairly upset by it as here. I always figure It happens to us all, expect it to happen. Maybe i'm too irish or detached to my own living- still i take a longer view of the sunrise after the sunset. Even if i had kicked the bucket with my blood clot it is proper to eventually say my time was up. Improper deaths are all the weird murders on tv, john lennon, dfw. Bowie- what a showman! And a pioneer cuz you know the future is more of those rockstars - life personified- waltzing away stage left. i suppose it helps to sincerely believe in the afterlife and the resolutions in store for us all therein. even Harper Lee publishing her unpolished novel tieing loose ends beforehand - that too was quite admirable. I thank them both. Maybe i can thank dfw too (but not 100% ) . Or, maybe i think an obituary column entitled "stop dying" might very well turn into a very very long nihilistic foray in out tenuous connections to celebrity... and how we very much wish for their immortality when they already achieved it, on their own, lives well lived, gifts totally given . I know i sound like a harpie but this could go on forever. It's why humans invented the rituals of burial and all that. Not that i approve of sanctioned killing - war - there are no good unnatural deaths. Lung cancer? Had an addiction to smoking. That's still natural. But then my doctor did tell me there was a risk with birth control and i took the risk- so any consequences are natural by the smoking logic. You drive a car, you're a pedestrian that's also risk because of accidents or neglect on being careful. Are those deaths natural? No, right? The safety dance is more than a song. So now we gotta monitor the mentally ill and suspected terrorists to prevent gun utilization. Should reduce death, freedom and introduce a decline in social self - regulation, parenting, grass rootsy common sense. Give me liberty or give me death! a stark way to put it for sure. But one thing we can't afford at all is Eisenhower's warning where the military industrial complex commodifies insensible war, ships it overseas. THAT is just despicable. Stop that dying, although i do not know how to convince people - military families- that "shit happens in the law of the jungle" is beyond the pale. Still think we'd have a better world if we could send those 2003 neocons to jail. 160220 ... raze i have a hard time feeling like anyone who's killed by cancer has come to their natural end and had the chance to give all they could, regardless of how old they are. but that's just me. 160220 ... raze keith emerson. goddamnit. i don't care if it isn't cool to admit this. i loved ELP as a kid. just about wore my cassette tapes out. still listen to "trilogy" and "brain salad surgery". it isn't hyperbole to call emerson the hendrix of the keyboard. no one ever made a hammond organ scream-sing the way he did. plus, he did the soundtrack for "nighthawks", an underrated moody stallone flick from back when sly still made some interesting movies here and there and took some chances. that's some good, moody stuff. sly had a beard then. rutger hauer played the bad guy. how can you lose? the way "brown sugar" segues into keith's unnerving, semi-dissonant score right at the moment sly knows he's found his man in the middle of a crowded dance club, and hero and villain make sweaty eye contact … that's a classic movie moment. 160311 ... nr rob ford just died of cancer. obviously a lot of people (myself included) didn't like him or his politics, but geez. 160322 ... raze i was just coming here to say something similar. he was 46 years old. that's just a sad thing. 160322 ... raze and now garry shandling. damnit. i liked that guy. 160324 ... raze merle haggard. he was getting up there, but still. this is getting out of hand. 160406 ... doris roberts 160418 ... raze ryan barron. i didn't know him. i think i only met him once, for about two minutes. but i knew about him. he was a tireless promoter, organizer, and supporter of this city's music scene. there's a lot of elitist bullshit involved in some pockets of that scene. he never swam in any of it. he would talk to anyone. he would let anyone play. he gave a lot of bands their first gigs, when no one else would give them the time of day. he would make flyers, find a venue, pound the pavement, and then he would stand around smiling like a proud dad, happy to see everyone having a good time. countless hardcore bands never would have had the experience of playing for an audience if it wasn't for him. a lot of that music is built on anger, but the anger spins itself into a strange sort of joy when it finds full expression in a room packed with sweaty bodies feeding off of its ferocious energy. when you're denied that joy and that feeling of community, it can be a real lonely feeling. and that can take you some dark places. he probably helped to save some more than a few lives without ever knowing it. ryan moved to vancouver a little while back. he found a job he was passionate about. on friday he was promoted. he told a friend he felt like everything was finally falling into place. two days later he was skateboarding with a friend when he was struck and killed by someone driving a silver mitsubishi. the driver didn't stop to help. they kept driving. they've yet to be identified or brought to justice. he was thirty years old. that's just wrong, in every way a thing can be wrong. he was one of the good guys. he was just getting started. and now he's dead, because of a hit-and-run driver. 160419 ... Prince. Fucking Prince. 160421 ... raze what the hell is this shit? is 2016 the year of "let's kill as many musical icons as we can" or something? 160421 ... unhinged *siiiiigh* 160422 ... I suppose we should add Chyna to yesterday's 2016 victims as well. 160422 ... raze yeah. that was a sad one too. way too young. 160422 ... raze anton yelchin? really? i wasn't a fan of some of the movies he was in, but i thought he did some good stuff in "house of D" (savaged as it was by the critics) and "alpha dog". there was something endearing about him. now he's dead, the victim of a bizarre car accident, at 27. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS YEAR? 160619 ... nr ron lester, at 45. sheesh. 160619 ... raze damnit. i really liked him on "popular" (which i only started watching because of a mega crush on carly pope, but never mind). as corny as that show got, there was something deeply human in his acting. when he worried no girl would be able to look past his weight and like him for who he was, there was real pain there. 160619 ... raze michael cimino (even if he never made "the deer hunter", he would deserve recognition for "thunderbolt and lightfoot", which features one of the great early jeff bridges performances). he once said: "when i'm kidding i'm serious, and when i'm serious i'm kidding. i am not who i am, and i am who i am not." also, robin hardy, who directed "the wicker man" (not the stinker of a remake, but the brilliant 1973 original). he once said: "being locked out of your cutting room is very frustrating." both old men. but still. 160702 ... e_o_i Elie Wiesel, and another author the Pt. Claire library had put out a display for and whose name is currently not in my mind. 160703 ... raze alan vega. he was 78, and he spent most of those years making art in one form or another. so you can't say he didn't live a full life. but this is getting ridiculous. STOP KILLING PEOPLE I LIKE, 2016. ENOUGH ALREADY. that first, self-titled suicide album is still like nothing else. that's real punk music right there, with little more than a farfisa organ, a drum machine made by a bowling pin-setting company, and alan's unique "rockabilly from hell" voice. not a guitar in sight. 160716 ... raze george michael. on christmas day. what the hell, 2016? 161225 ... nr carrie fisher. fuck, 2017, you better be better than this bullshit year. 161227 ... raze a friend of mine had a chance to meet her a few years ago at a comic con. he said she was incredibly gracious with anyone who wanted to talk to her, and personable, and hilarious. i love the bonkers thing she said about what she wanted her obituary to say: "i want it reported that i drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra." 161228 ... nr and now her mom. 161228 what's it to you? who go blather from