Wow, interesting. I just recently saw Blade and the Sinead clip where he comforted her like a week ago.
Two significant sports deaths today. The infamous but also legendary baseball man Pete Rose has died at 83. Long life, not shocking. But Dikembe Mutombo also died today at the age of 58. Brain cancer. That really stinks.
I've waited on them both. Back in my casino days, late 90s. I used to bring Pete Rose his racing forms. He was still denying the gambling allegations but spent a lot of time in casinos. Dikembe was hanging out with Dominique Wilkins, IIRC. They were, uh, tall. Really tall.
I mostly remember his songs - Help Me Make It Through the Night, Sunday Morning Coming Down, and of course Me and Bobby McGee.
Definitely one of the best songwriters in the business. One of my favorites was one called "Here Comes That Rainbow Again," in which he compressed two pages of a scene in Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath" into something like twenty lines. It's the only song I know with the theme of "random acts of kindness." It's been recorded by many people, but the best one was done by Leo Kottke and Emmylou Harris:
Yeah, it’s weird. I'm in my early 50s but only lately learned that he used to be a big name A-list star. Growing up I was vaguely aware of him, thought the doubled name was odd and possibly affected, but had no idea he had been a Big Deal. I remember him from films like Millennium and Blade, neither of which were really Oscar caliber. Only after he died did I learn that he wrote Me and Bobby McGee.
Just found out Simon from Wildlife Aid has passed away. I used to watch their Youtube videos of rescuing animals as a sort of feel-good-pick-me-up. He and the foundation did good work. R.I.P.
Ha! A mere kid. He wrote and sang a lot of songs, then started acting. Most of his singing was country; he was a member of the Highwaymen with Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson. The latter is who gave him his start in country music after Kristofferson landed a chopper in Cash's lawn. As for movies besides the Blade series, I remember A Star is Born with Barbra Streisand, The Man Who Fell From Grace With the Sea with Sara Miles, and and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid with James Coburn. The latter also featured that haunting song Knockin on Heaven's Door by Bob Dylan; a very moving scene that is, far superior to Guns & Roses w/o context.
Cissy Houston (September 30, 1933 – October 7, 2024) – Grammy winner who performed with artists like Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, and Van Morrison – and mother of Whitney Houston – has died.
PS. A couple of hours after I posted this, I was channel surfing and found this movie, just in time to catch that scene. Slim Pickens was the gut-shot sheriff and Katy Jurado was his wife.
Ethel Kennedy (April 11, 1928 – October 10, 2024), human rights advocate and widow of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, has died at the age of 96
Former One Direction member Liam Payne fell off a balcony in Buenos Aries and died. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/oct/16/liam-payne-former-one-direction-singer-dies-aged-31
Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas and the architect of the 7 October attacks in Israel, has been killed by the IDF. And that is all I'm going to say about that situation here.
A giant in the Star Trek world, Jeri Taylor, died yesterday at 86. I didn't realize she was this old. She was a producer and scriptwriter for Star Trek: The Next Generation, and was the showrunner for the final season. The script she was most proud of (and rightly so), was for the classic episode The Drumhead. She was also the co-creator of Star Trek: Voyager, and was the showrunner for the third and fourth seasons. Pour one out for a real one. RIP Jeri.
