10 People Who Died In My Lifetime I Never Got To Meet

All over the TV, it seems there’s a running loop on different channels of them showing tributes to famous people we’ve lost this year. That got me to thinking (I know, a dangerous thing). There are people that died and I never got to meet them. So I decided to put fingers to keyboard and write a list.

Please note:
This list is by no means in order of importance. All numbers were issued randomly.

This list is obviously incomplete. I’m sure if I sat down and thought about it I’d come up with plenty more people I wish I’d gotten to meet. After finishing the list I came up with ten more. See Honorable Mentions. Maybe one day I'll go into those ten.

The reasons I wish I’d met these people are the reasons listed above. I know some of them were flawed (example: Cobain was a heroin addict and committed suicide, both Heston and Larsson’s politics weren’t popular with some people, Preston was accused of child molestation, and Grizzard had two failed marriages that he wrote many times were his own fault). Don’t read any deeper into the list than what I’ve got.


1.  Freddie Mercury

 
Who wouldn’t want to meet Freddie? Seriously… who?  While most people consider any death “tragic”, Freddie’s just seems like the world lost its voice to me. When my son was two I came home from a shift… dog tired… and was flipping through the channels. I came across Queen live from Wembley Stadium. We both sat there and watched the entire thing. You know how hard it is to keep a two year old still that long? Freddie Mercury did it.


2.  Johnny Cash
 

As someone raised Baptist, Johnny always reminded me of David (the kid that killed Goliath with a slingshot) because though he did his best to serve God, he was flawed. Yeah he believed in God but he cheated on his wife, took amphetamines, and did his best to be a good person even though he failed at times. Never mind that man could sing any song and make it his own regardless of the subject matter. Johnny Cash got me interested in folk music.


3.  Elmore Leonard
 

I reread Elmore Leonard just to try to write dialog like him. He was simply the best. While I love his characters (Raylan Givens and Boyd Crowder especially) it’s his dialog that has always spoke to me. The fact he was able to write and sell as long as he did also is an inspiration.


4.  Thomas Austin “Amarillo Slim” Preston

 

 

 

The only poker player on the list. When I was younger the only time you could see the World Series of Poker was on Christmas Day. That was my first introduction to Amarillo Slim. I bought his autobiography and couldn’t put it down. There’s just something about Slim that made me smile. Maybe it was his persona, maybe it was what he did for a living- I don’t know. But I would’ve loved to have had met him.

 

 

5.  Paul “Bear” Bryant

 

I don’t know anyone born and raised in the state of Alabama who never got to meet Bear Bryant that doesn’t wish they’d met him. One of the winningest coaches in football history he’s one of the most quoted people I know. Coaches today are still using his lines to motivate young people. He revolutionized the game of football. He could adapt. His players loved him and from all I’ve read he was one of the better people you could ever hope to meet.

 

6.  All of The Ramones

I’m referring to the original members: Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, and Tommy. To this day when I’m having a bad shift “I Wanna Be Sedated” is one of the first songs that pops into my head. Being a fan of punk rock you have to give props to the Ramones. Jax Deacon and Trent Busby both having Ramones t-shirts in their wardrobe (I own one also) is my tribute to one of my favorite all time bands.


7.  Charlton Heston

Being raised around tough, old men it’s no surprise another one makes the list- Charlton Heston. While I can’t defend all of his politics (I can’t defend anyone on this list) I have to give him mad props for standing by them. It couldn’t have been easy to be president of the NRA in liberal Hollywood. When Jim Carrey’s Funny or Die clip came out I couldn’t help but wonder what Mr. Heston's response would've been. He was a damn fine actor also.

 

8.  Stieg Larsson

Mr. Larsson is on my list for one reason: He created one of my favorite literary characters (Lisbeth Salander from The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo). As someone who strives to write a deeply flawed protagonist (Jackson Deacon) I’m constantly amazed at how he’s able to make Lizbeth so troubled yet so believable and make me so willing to get behind her as a character.

 

9.  Kurt Cobain

Kurt Cobain changed music when I was a teenager… cut and dried. Unplugged from New York is probably one of if not my favorite album of all time and that album is acoustic. Those lyrics he wrote combined with that scratchy voice still haunts me at times. Another deeply flawed individual who I relate to more often than I care to admit even to myself.


10.  Lewis Grizzard

Probably the least well-known of the list, Lewis Grizzard and Stephen King are the ones that got me interested in writing. Mr. Grizzard’s syndicated columns were humorous at times, biting at times, and even melancholy at times. I still read his books to this day.

 

If you’re keeping statistics there are seven musicians (counting all four Ramones), three writers, a poker player, an actor, and a football coach. Not a bad list I don't think. Believe it or not after I got this list out I came up with ten more.

 

Honorable Mention:

 

1. John Lennon

2. Johnny Carson

3. Tupac Shakur

4. Sam Kinison

5. Pat Tillman

6. Warren Zevon

7. Dimebag Darrell

8. John Belushi

9. Robert Heinlein

10. John Lee Hooker

 

Carry on...



Holliday Greetings From Jax...

 

 

 

Carry on....

 



Thought For Today 12/15

I'd settle for giving them both just for Johnny Cash.

 

 

 

 

 

As usual, carry on...

 



 

Heidi Schulz Book Contest

This is my entry into Heidi Schulz's contest.

Heidi Schulz Books

     The Pink Giraffe wasn’t the kind of place I’d normally go, even on a dare. But my boss was insistent that I get this story.

     “So how’d you get this gig?”
      She sat across from me in black hooker boots, plastic cutlass, eye patch, bandana and nothing else.
     She gave me a crooked smile. “On a dare. My roommate said I was too chicken to even try to dance. So I decided to go for it. Ironic Halloween is my first night.”
     “What song did you pick?”
     “Cherry Pie by Warrant.”
     I nodded and glanced at the clock bored already.

Happy Birthday Nick

From the voices in my head to you, Happy Birthday Coach!

Roll Tide!

Carry on...

The Best Explanation I Can Give For The Previous Post

Need I say more?

Carry on...

Querying And Popular Remakes

     So for those of you living under a rock those that are supposed to know more than the rest of us are making a remake of Carrie.

     If you’re looking for a post lambasting them for fucking up a Stephen King classic, don’t read any further. I’m not going there. The truth is I see movie remakes like I see popular musicians doing covers of songs. Some of them are good (The Smashing Pumpkins cover of “Landslide” or Social Distortions cover of “Death or Glory” for example) and some of them suck (Metallica’s cover of “Tuesday’s Gone” or Madonna’s cover of “American Pie”) but they’re an artist doing their interpretation of a classic. If artist, filmmakers, or even writers never did this you’d never see any new analysis of existing genres. So you have to take the amazing (MTV Unplugged in New York- Nirvana) with the shitty (The Spaghetti Incident?- Guns N Roses).

     But anyway, I was talking to my friend Jessie a while back and we were talking about the query process. What’s this got to do with the King classic you ask? Simple. I see my attempt at getting published as following the plot to Carrie.

     You’ve got me and my novel Blood on the Sidewalk. We are Carrie White. We’re the ugly duckling no one wants. We’re the outcast, the ones on the outside looking in. We’re the ones that might possibly have a really gnarly fucking power but we’re not quite sure yet and if we do how exactly to control said power (hence my lack of posts).

     Jessie is Sue Snell. When she gets into Madame Syntax mode she is the equivalent of a mean girl throwing tampons at B.O.T.S. gleefully for its ignorance. The reason I use Sue is while Madame Syntax enjoys chanting “plug it up”, Jessie… as a writer herself… is sympathetic to the horrendous evil that is the query process just as Sue felt bad about teasing Carrie and ends up trying to help her.

     Then there is the agent. The agents can and will fall into one of two categories:

Tommy Ross- One of these wonderful agents (and if an agent reads this I sure hope you fall into this category) is going to be the smiling idiot that takes Carrie/B.O.T.S. to the Prom. Hopefully the agent doesn’t end up being bashed over the head by a falling bucket.

Chris Hargensen- The rest of these agents will be the ones that dump pig blood on us. And no, obviously I won’t lock them in the gym and burn that mother fucker down.

If you find this weird, well you just got an idea of what I have to listen to in my head all the time. Hope you enjoyed the tour.

Carry on…