Rolling Obituary Thread 2024

Aw, man.

Trevor Griffiths, playwright, 88.

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2024/apr/02/trevor-griffiths-mancunian-marxist-whose-political-plays-deserve-revival

RIP. He skewered the likes of Gervais when they still the old thing, not the new thing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmHFDVM4k_4

RIP Legend

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go6_uL3Az8w

Posted my favourite Count Floyd on FB, the Bergman clip--for the Bergman parody, but most of all for Flaherty breaking character when he starts barking at the crew, trying to figure out who booked the film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPrNLm9nR3A

Aw man, RIP Joe. when is Scorsese's SCTV doc going to come out?????

loved flaherty as sam and lindsay weir's dad in freaks and geeks - funny but also warm

I didn't know there was a Count Floyd vinyl record

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMtMb6VIC8w

Scorsese stretches himself thin and continues to sit on that SCTV doc.

"All that senseless violence, what does it prove?!?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0CaBy0733Y

John Sinclair too, apparently.

Yeah, obit here. One for the "I thought he died years ago" file.

Oh no! I smoked a crazy big doobie with John Sinclair once, at a friend's wedding.... I have an autographed copy of Guitar Army that reads: 'For Andy - Kick out the Jams, Motherfucker!' 7/29/96

I'll bet he wrote that many times over the years, and relished every single one.

So did Joe Flaherty.

Aw man, RIP Joe. when is Scorsese's SCTV doc going to come out?????

on pause due to marty's heavy schedule last I heard

Anyway, RIP Guy Caballero, Floyd Robertson etc.

Has thiis one been posted yet?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrMBIH2TBpU

Ironic, because...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTBx0P0zOqA

Scorcese's doc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Afternoon_with_SCTV

Bummed to hear about Sinclair. I met him several times when Bomp/Total Energy was releasing those MC5 tapes in the mid 90s. Hilarious beatnik Santa Claus - I wish I got my copy of Guitar Army signed.

Bummed about both, almost missed the news about Sinclair since my social media feeds have been overwhelmed with (justified!) outpourings of love for Flaherty.

Both 82.

RIP Count Floyd :((

So Scary! Ah-ooo!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YV5a3_2AXU

John Barth

Just saw that

Maybe I should finally finish one of his books

John Barth was alive recently! who knew?

Me.

john barth, 91
Now 93.

― Halfway there but for you, Friday, December 15, 2023 3:05 PM (three months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Maybe I should finally finish one of his books

I actually took this news as the final message not to feel bad about barely starting Giles Goat-Boy despite carrying it around for months at one point.

I saw Barth on a panel with a few other novelists, and someone asked him something snarky and he responded calling it a "shitful comment."

Outlived Barthelme, Elkin, Gass...Coover still among us at 92! And Pynchon's around, of course, at 86.

Another novelist of note has passed: Maryse Condé

Barth was part of that Donald Barthelme school of male writing that I skimmed in college but to which I never gave a second look other than The End of the Road.

He was much less interesting and funny than Bartheleme. Nevertheless, RIP, I am sure he is mourned by someone.

He seemed a little out of place in that grouping of postmodernists. Like he was just really into folklore and storytelling and such.

Yes, "Barth, Barthes, Bartheleme" just rolls off the tongue too easily.

sot-weed factor is great (Giles goat-boy kinda dud and also racist)

I read all his other fiction in a couple of years in my 20s & enjoyed it all, honestly didn’t feel that different from burning through Stephen king, genial parochial yarn spinner (but smugger & more bourgeois) - he’s good at it tho imo, rip

Oh I loved loved loved Barthelme in my 20s. Still look back fondly on a couple of the novels and short stories. I definitely read Barth back then too. You can’t go to the bookstore that many times looking for used Barthelme and eventually succumb to curiosity about his shelf mate. Like finally buying a Beau Brummels album after umpteen checks on the Beatles bin.

Every time I hear the reading of "Game" on Selected Shorts I still laugh.

Michael Ward (guitarist for School of Fish, John Hiatt, The Wallflowers & Ben Harper) - age 57

Oh man, I absolutely LOVED School Of Fish's two albums as a teenager. Second album is still an occasionally thrilling attempt by a non-grunge act to pass themselves off as Mudhoney fans of long-standing, first album a fairly pearlescent if unsubstantial slab of psychedelic pop with crunchy guitars and soft acoustic heart.

xps
"He skewered the likes of Gervais when they still the old thing, not the new thing"

it's a tour de force is Comedians. I vaguely remember the part where Pryce does his performance art bit and is shouting Lou Macari from when I was a kid. Literally they don't make 'em like this anymore, not on UK tv anyway.

Playwright Christopher Durang, 75.

https://x.com/HESherman/status/1775510320573800828?s=20

RIP, I've seen local productions of a few of his plays. Pretty funny. They're ready-made for small local troupes.

Two legendary drummers in two days: Albert "Tootie" Heath yesterday, and Keith LeBlanc (of the Sugar Hill Records house band, Tackhead, a thousand sessions in the '80s and '90s) today...