Today is the day to simmer down.
The Killing Yourself to Live Contest: Most Overrated Celebrity Death
First prize winner: JM Houk
I would like to make the case for Henry John Deutschendorf's
death as one of the most overrated, if not entirely preventable and stupid,
rock star demises on record.
Henry John Deutschendorf (aka John Denver) was killed in October 1997 when
his experimental airplane, an "EZ Long," crashed into Monterey Bay
off the coast of Northern California.
Born in Roswell, New Mexico, some people are reportedly still questioning
whether Denver was actually a victim of an alien abduction and doubt that
he actually perished in the plane crash.
Mr. Rocky Mountain High bought the death plane only days before his demise
and decided to take it out for a spin notwithstanding the fact that he reportedly
lacked a valid pilot's license because his FAA medical clearance had been
revoked due to multiple drunk driving (on the ground) arrests. Denver also
reportedly had a number of prior run in's with his plane - literally. In one
instance, Denver's flight instructor is said to have sued when Denver crashed
his plane into the instructor's while both were taxiing on the ground.
The cause of the crash can apparently be linked to Denver's staunch belief
in energy conservation, i.e., he forgot to fill up both the main and reserve
fuel tanks before playing with his new toy.
Of course, it is ironic that Denver's first big success was the recording
of his song, "Leavin' on a Jet Plane," by Peter, Paul and Mary in
1969. It was certainly a prophetic recording.
Denver also apparently tried to hasten his demise by trying to become the
first civilian on a space shuttle ride (i.e., the ill-fated Challenger) and
by trying to buy his way onto the Russian Mir space station in 1988. However,
the Russian's 10 million dollar price tag was a little too steep for a Country
Boy with alimony and child support to pay.
Despite the fact that Denver's demise came as a result of his own stupidity,
fans around the world continue to mourn their loss to this day. In my town,
there is a contingent of hardy folk who honor his name with a roadside clean-up
a couple times a year. When I see them out with their blue plastic litter
bags, I always kind of wonder whether Denver would have wanted them to use
paper instead of plastic. I guess we'll never know.
Second prize winner: Steve Gozdecki
Live fast. Die young. Those rockers sure know how to do it!
Now I don't know about you, but I'm sick to death of the way the kids continue
to mourn the late bassist from the Cars, Benjamin Orr. Sure, his was the sincere,
honey-sweet voice that balanced out Ric Ocasek's more bemused, oft-paranoid
vocals in that band's esteemed body of work. He made us all bop and clap our
hands to "Let's Go," broke our hearts with yearning for hot models
on "Drive," and reminded me that he was "Just What I Needed."
I think we all remember the nationwide grief that spontaneously arose and
continued on through 24/7 media coverage during Benjamin Orr's five-month
battle with pancreatic cancer, a struggle that finally ended on October 3,
2000, when rock and roll heaven gained one hell of a bass player. Many would
have you believe that this country hasn't been the same since, what with all
the kids throwing out their Tupac and Cobain and Selena and Jim Morrison shirts
in favor of ones featuring Orr, his visage omnipresent near the Alley on Clark
St.and in skateparks across this great nation of ours
I'm not really sure these kids actually know their Ben Orr, truth be told,
and I blame the media. Everytime I see one of these OrrHeads -- and it happens
all the time, believe me -- I get all to crying and "Ohmigod I miss Benjamin
Orzechowski so much," and they just stare at me blankly, not even aware
of his real name. I tell them that Big People were much, much better than
the Cars, and that The Lace is a far superior album to Heartbeat City, and
they tell me that they have no idea what I'm talking about.
Oh Ben...a nation may continue to mourn, but only I knew the true youzechowski.
Honorable Mentions:
Melissa Bell:
C'mon, baby, light my fire* Hmm, what rhymes with fire? I know! Higher! That's a good one. And pyre! Ooh, nice, fits in with the "fire" theme * lordy, Jim, you are brilliant!
Or not.
I mean, "No time to wallow in the mire"? That one's just so lame. Why not mention a deep-fat fryer or screaming like Ye Olde Towne Cryer while you're at it?
Jesus.
And here's a real dud couplet from "Riders on the Storm":
"There's a killer on the road
His brain is squirmin' like a toad."
What? A squirming brain? And it's squirming like a what? A toad?
Oh, Jim, that's just plain dumb. Give it a rest and go run yourself a bath,
why don't you?
If, to this day, you still continue to mourn the loss of Kurt
Cobain, you're a big liar. You liked him for a little while, then you lost
interest, and then, when the news struck that he was no longer a member of
the human race, you shed your tears, furrowed your brow, made grand statements,
and generally just made a big ass of yourself. You need to come to terms with
this. You were fake mourning, and in reading all of these books and articles
you read about the importance of Mr. Long Haired Marble-Mouth, you're perpetuating
your silly little lie for more books and articles can be read.
Why do I feel this way? Let's go back and visit me in my Freshman year of
high school. My good friend, Barry, was to go see Nirvana at the State Fair
(that's right -- your legend had taken to playing state fairs -- in Arizona
no less) and I was to go with him. Yet never before have I heard so much grief
about going to see a band. Granted, some of it must have been the evils of
youth, but when we repeatedly got, "You still like Nirvana?!" and
"Wow. They're still around?!" in addition to laughs and hurtful
jeers, I chickened out, not wanting to be the neauvo-lumberjack-loving pariah
I feared I might be (and I didn't even care about the band -- still don't
-- I just wanted to go to a concert and stay out late). But Barry stood his
ground, fended off his peers' hatred, and went to the concert. The next day,
he said, "It was okay."
Months later, the guy is dead in his garage, and these same people are crawling
all over themselves to be the greatest mourner of their generation. People
are wearing shirts, are talking about it nonstop, are buying all the two or
three albums they'd just happen to have missed for some reason. It was disgusting.
Still is. I'm sure there were some lost among the latch-on-to-anything-potentially-meaningful
crowd that genuinely were fans and honestly did feel something because of
his death, but for every one of those, there were fifty who didn't know more
than a couple of Nirvana singles and couldn't name a single other member of
the band. I still couldn't tell you very much of that. But I've never claimed
to be a fan. Personally, I think they were a pretty below average band. Had
some nice songs here and there, but for the most part, you couldn't hear what
Cobain was saying, and when you could, it was at the level of the high school
poetry I'm sure a lot of my peers were later writing when he'd died.
Steve Gozdecki (Essay #2)
At the risk of offending Zulkey's many, many Latina readers, I nominate Selena! for the most over-mourned dead musician ever. While her death, at the hands of an overzealous fan, was certainly tragic, her music was pretty much just run-of-the-mill pop despite its rampant popularity. Also, had Selena! not been killed, J.Lo! would never have been cast to star in her bio-pic, and thus quite possibly never been introduced to the public outside of the rabid Anaconda fan base. (Also, Selena: The Movie marked the downturn of Edward James Olmos' acting career.)
Sandy Nicklas:
One of the things I liked most about summer camp as a kid was the removal from all things going on in the real world. Huge, important news could happen and you would not hear about it until you returned home. Until one week in 1995, when, mysteriously, the hallowed camp flag was at half-mast.
What was it all about? The tragedy of tragedies had occurred: Jerry Garcia died.
The mourning of the death among my friends annoyed me: we were all high school age, yet everyone was acting as if their favorite bearded leader-guru had unfortunately passed on to that groovy Vanagon in the sky. Why were they subjecting all the young campers to this show of mourning? The campers would have the mistaken impression that this death was so important that it was worth bursting the blissful bubble of summertime news ignorance.
So Jerry Garcia died. Was this really such a big surprise? I mean, it was Jerry Garcia, the lead singer of a band whose fans ate grilled cheese sandwiches sold by barefooted high strangers in parking lots. I was probably surprised that he wasn't dead already.
I certainly felt for those who were huge fans of the Dead: I have nothing against the Dead themselves, but I resented those who seemed to mourn Garcia more than he was due, and who seemed to feel that everybody else should, too.