Rolling Obituary Thread: 2017

my coworker from Indiana said the same thing re Indy 500, idk i thought it was kinda nice

long known; he married his partner of 38 years in 2013

Veg, i'm sure your coworker's spouse isn't an advocate of conversion therapy like Mother Pence's.

oh oops sorry I didnt catch that drift - roger that

robert oswald, lee harvey's brother:

http://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/obituaries/article187524003.html

Jack Doroshow aka Flawless Sabrina, the drag impresario seen in The Queen

http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2017/11/27/remembering_the_queer_mentorship_of_flawless_sabrina_jack_doroshow.html

Shashi Kapoor
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-42225524

John Anderson, recipient of my first presidential vote

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/363168-former-illinois-congressman-john-anderson-dies-at-95

Christine Keeler

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/dec/05/christine-keeler-former-model-at-heart-of-profumo-affair-dies

... people you thought were dead.

just days after it was revealed Profumo was also having affairs with a Nazi spy.

Johnny Hallyday, 74.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42247551

missed ken shapiro, rip

groove tube is several kinds of great

William H. Gass (The Tunnel)

Well shit. I'm reading _Middle C_ right now, so I guess I'll pay tribute to him by spending a good portion of my evening reading.
I'm not sure if he's one of my favorite writers, but he's one I always want to see more work by. Still hope we'll see his book on 17th century sermons.
93 is a good long life, at least, although that's no longer any use to him...

Aw damn. One of my all-time favourites

Wow had no idea he was still alive. Found him thru DFW's recommendation of Omensetter's Luck.

Conrad Brooks, who I believe was the last surviving cast member of Plan Nine From Outer Space:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/obituaries/bs-fe-brooks-obit-brief-20171207-story.html

Misread as Conrad Black, so now I'm disappointed.

Misread as Conrad Poohs, relieved that his dancing teeth are still with us.

Percussionist - composer Sunny Murray. One of the most influential musicians of the 20th century.

aw man rip

Damm. Once saw him (in the company of the ilxor now known as xyzzzz) play a great trio gig with the British musicians John Edwards and Tony Bevan. He seemed to be the very definition of a cool jazz cat. RIP.

RIP. One of the best musicians I've ever seen in my life.

If you don't care about American baseball stop reading now.

Tracy Stallard, the pitcher who gave up Roger Maris's 61st home run on the last day of the 1961 season has died. He played for the Boston Red Sox at the time, later St. Louis.

Max Clifford

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/dec/10/max-clifford-dies-aged-74

Blimey. Terrible man.

clifford dying in prison seems like at least a modicum of cosmic justice i guess

aka Clifford The Big Red Flag

Keith Chegwin.

Francis Ingham, the director general of the Public Relations and Communications Association, said the body had never accepted Clifford as a member.

“I feel sorry for his friends and family. But it would be a lie to construct something nice to say on the death of Mr Clifford. He did our industry a disservice by pretending to be part of it,” he said.

This is pleasingly ice cold.

My local chippy still has a "perfect portion" award on the wall, that was awarded by Chegwin in 2010, when he was working for the British Potato Council!

poor Cheggers. I met him once.

Yeah, we did too.

I followed him for a while on Twitter - he mostly tweeted corny oldschool jokes that wouldn't have been out of place in a 60s nightclub (or The Beano) - but he seemed to have a facility for it - they were often pretty good jokes. I'm not sure if he wrote them himself or sourced them elsewhere, but for a while he had a weirdly high hit rate .

rip cheggers, former singer for the Third Ear Band

The Wackers was ahead of its time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6z6VAmxOII

RIP, seemed like a decent sort.

Yeah, given that he was a BBC celebrity of a certain era, it's possible that he was privately a monster, but I hope not,

He was almost an icon for me as child, as an example of someone who was clumsy at everything but still coasted by on curiosity and enthusiasm. Something very before-its-time about his cheerful (but not cloying) amateurishness.

For some reason I visualise memories of Cheggers Plays Pop in colour, even though it was watched on a b/w valve television.

I have vivid memories of kids jumping around on trampolies while Captain Beefheart sang "Hard Workin' Man" on the soundtrack.

he never seemed to be a bad guy even if I couldn't say I enjoyed his work

addiction is a horrible disease that's still criminally improperly supported

He died from a degenerative lung condition!

I followed him for a while on Twitter - he mostly tweeted corny oldschool jokes that wouldn't have been out of place in a 60s nightclub (or The Beano) - but he seemed to have a facility for it - they were often pretty good jokes. I'm not sure if he wrote them himself or sourced them elsewhere, but for a while he had a weirdly high hit rate

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2010/jul/22/keith-chegwin-comedians-jokes-twitter

xp

yeah but the physical toll of his drinking is certainly a possible contributing factor, smoking is the major cause of the pulmonary fibrosis that killed him.

xp

oh dear now I just feel doubly bad for the possibility that I unknowingly laughed at an Ed Byrne joke

Chegwin was talking about smoking 60 a day and beginning to get lung problems back in 2001: https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2001/nov/03/weekend7.weekend6

I struggled to smoke 20 a day when I had young fresh teenage lungs, 60 sounds insane to me, like verging on the impossible (not that I don't believe it, but still)

even if doing an all-nighter on the 'phet, you'd be struggling to smoke 60.