This is not truly a rant. Do what you want. Mourn as you will.
Just consider; all the heroes from the middle of the 20th century are getting older minute by minute. Before you say, “can’t 2016 just be over!? First Rickman, then Bowie, then Prince, then Henderson, then Lake, then Glenn. Fuck 2016!!!,” remember that next year will probably be worse. In 20 years, Paul McCartney will be 94, or dead. Every important or faddish celebrity or artist born before 1950 will be dead by 2050.
We’re going to see the remaining stars from the 60s cultural revolution, as well as those who were kids inspired by the 60s cultural revolution, begin to fall left and right. They’re only going to stop dying when there aren’t any more left.
So maybe lamenting 2016 as a particularly bad year makes you sound silly. Because odds are you’ll be repeating yourself in 2017, and 2018, and 2019 . . .
I’m going to be hash-tagging every celebrity death next year as #atleastitsnot2016
I’ve been thinking the same thing. I’ve genuinely forgotten, how many of the celebrity and significant person deaths this year were sudden and unexpected, and how many were just… old?
Every year is like this; it’s just that for those of us in our 40s and 50s, it’s starting to be the people we looked up to as youngsters more and more.
I imagine when my kids are 40, they’ll be lamenting the deaths of some actors we currently think of as bit players, or at least not as accomplished serious actors, and I’ll be thinking at 78 “That guy? He was eaten by a dinosaur in Jurassic Park 5. Big whoop.”
Here’s your kumbaya moment: Be grateful for all of the cool things that the people who passed in 2016 brought to this world, that would not have been without them.
Instead of being bummed that they’re gone, be grateful for what they left.
Yup. I’m bummed that Glenn Frey couldn’t stand with the rest of the Eagles at the Kennedy Center Awards but I’m glad for all of the music they were honored for.
The worst thing, in my case, is that so many people have died who are younger than I am. And my health sucks in so many ways. The only difference is that when I go, not many people will notice. This has truly been a horrible year, and it’s gonna continue.
Yep, 'tis true. I have been trying not to think about this, myself. But 2017 is going to bring Trump actually in office. It fills me full of dread. I don’t feel particularly hopeful.
As for all the celeb deaths, I think all us children of the 70s are now going through what generations before us have experienced when their pop-icons started dying off. Time marches on, and it’s a train we can’t stop. Hopefully future generations will still be enjoying our icons the way many of us enjoy those who were long dead before we discovered them.
Didn’t the late, great Bette Davis say that “Getting old isn’t for sissies”?
I guess folks will remember 2016 the way I remember 1977, when it seemed icons were dropping like flies left and right.
That year it was Joan Crawford, Maria Callas, Groucho Marx, Bing Crosby, Charlie Chaplin, Guy Lombardo, Sebastian Cabot, and the biggest deal of all, Elvis.
We can at least imagine a 2017 in which a meteorite strikes Washington, D.C., throws up enough fines to slow the progress of global warming, knocks down the electrical grid on the Eastern Seaboard resulting in badly needed rebuilding of the grid, evaluation of the need for planetary defenses, and an emergency election in which we can replace the entire Congress with Muppets. Shame about the Smithsonians and the International Spy Museum, but that’s the breaks.
I like to think that old heroes go away to make room for new ones. Maybe that’s romanticism talking, but that thought does make the world a more positive place to be in.
I’m going to have to roll my eyes at this whole thread. Our ancestors went through much more than we have had to. A civil war that threatened to tear this country apart. Slavery. Two world wars. A great depression. Get over yourselves. Your imagined problems pale in comparison to what life has been like on this planet or in this country.
Okay, we will mourn that these people are no longer around. And it is true that they each made some “contribution” to our lives.
But, prior to hearing of their passing, when was the last time you “really” thought about these people ? Think hard. I mean, it’s not like “just the other day I was thinking how great Mrs. Brady was”. Or “I had just heard an ELP song on the radio, and was wondering what old Greg Lake was up to these days”.
For Prince, and a lesser degree, Bowie, there’s the sense of “I’ll never get to see them perform live”. But then…did you ever pass up a chance to see them ? Soooo maybe seeing them perform wasn’t as high a priority for you as you thought.