Wow, it has been a bad year so far for the music world.
[muttering to self]
I shoulda picked more musician-types.
[/mts]
Pixar animator Dan Lee, who designed Nemo has died at the ripe, old age of 35.
No, I didn’t have him.
Doobie Brothers drummer Keith Knudsen dies at age 56.
Man, if I’m a member of an old classic rock band, I’m out making sure my life insurance is up-to-date…
How does a 56-year-old man die of pneumonia in 21st century America? Did Knudsen have AIDS or something?
Happened to Jim Henson, at the ripe old age of 53, back in 1990. Apparently, some types of pneumonia are super duper double-plus nasty.
Well, and Henson was a workaholic who wouldn’t take time off, and then wouldn’t go to the doctor, and was too far gone (IIRC) by the time they got him to the emergency room.
I thought he died of a staph infection. Does staphylococcus invade the lungs?
I came pretty close when I was 26. There are some really nasty viral types out there, and if you let it go long enough thinking it’s just a really bad cold, you can die.
Why not?
Sounds similar to my brother-in-law. By the time he was sick enough to realise he needed help, he was too sick to do anything about getting it. After about a week he managed to drag himself to a phone, and he called his mother and she took him to the hospital where he was told he had the worst case of pneumonia they’d seen. He was about 28 at the time. The following week, one of his old friends died of pneumonia in almost identical circumstances.
That’s what’s so dangerous. It sneaks up on you quickly, and it doesn’t occur to you that it’s deathly serious since you’re young and generally healthy. For me, I started feeling a little sniffly on Wednesday and by Sunday I was in the emergency room, half dead. The ER doctor thought I had spinal meningitis at first and wanted to do a spinal tap. I was in the hospital for four days and wasn’t able to work full time for a month after. They should do PSAs about pneumonia. I don’t think most people realize how easily it can happen and KILL you.
Especially if you’re a drummer (Knudsen, Capaldi, and the guy from Jefferson Airplane). It reminds me of Spinal Tap.
The news at the time said pneumonia, and Wikipedia says it was bacterial pneumonia. As I recall from my copy of Jim Henson: The Works, from the onset of symptoms to death was a matter of days, and the symptoms weren’t that different from a bad cold.
If the drummers keep going, then it looks good for me because I have Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones.
I thought it was pretty “common knowledge” that Henson had PCP.
Athur Miller, dead at 89. No substantive link yet.
PCP? You mean Angel Dust, or something else? 
Sternvogel and Saitou had Arthur Miller!
With the death of Arthur Miller, Saitou and Sternvogel leap nimbly on to the scoreboard with eleven points each! Congratulations!