I posted too early… I’m passing out… I guess my sleep is the first one?

Bob Einstein -
November 20, 1942 - January 2, 2019

“Bob Einstein, a two-time Emmy winner who has recurred on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm since its launch and created the wacky Super Dave Osborne character, died today in Indian Wells, CA. He was 76 and recently had been diagnosed with cancer.”

https://deadline.com/2019/01/bob-einstein-dead-curb-your-enthusiasm-super-dave-osborne-smothers-brothers-1202527938/

I’m somewhat shocked to know he was actually a few weeks older than Mean Gene (above). Super Dave Osborne was a great character. I also had no idea his brother is Albert Brooks.

Southwest Airlines co-founder Herb Kelleher - Southwest Airlines’ co-founder Herb Kelleher, who died Thursday at age 87, will be remembered as “a pioneer, a maverick, and an innovator.”

Charles Harrison, the industrial designer who revolutionized the View-Master toy and the plastic trash can, has passed away aged 87

https://www.dezeen.com/2018/12/10/charles-harrison-designer-obituary/

Carol Channing
January 31, 1921 - January 15, 2019

Broadway legend Carol Channing has died at age 97
Publicist B. Harlan Boll said Channing died of natural causes at 12:31 a.m. Tuesday in Rancho Mirage, California.

Col. Joe M. Jackson, USAF (retired), passed away at the age of 95 on January 12th. He was a 33 year veteran who served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, where he earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions in a rescue of three American airmen from a base that was being overrun and under heavy fire.

The story of the rescue and his part in it can be read here.

We are diminished.

John Bogle has died at 89. He was the one who created the concept of the index fund, something that matters to most of you via your retirement funds, even if you don’t know that. He also founded the Vanguard Group, one of the better, amongst other things, investment and retirement fund companies out there.

Boo, ‘world’s cutest dog,’ dies aged 12

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/01/19/americas/boo-cutest-dog-dies-scli-intl/index.html

Tony Mendez (78) died January 19, 2019, of complications from Parkinson’s disease.

SFGate has one of the best articles. Read it through, if you have the time. He was one of my heroes (for more than just Argo), and I’m sad that he’s gone.

R.I.P.

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Tony-Mendez-Argo-spy-who-smuggled-US-hostages-13547013.php

Russell Baker, Pulitzer-Winning Times Columnist and Humorist, Dies at 93

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/business/media/russell-baker-dead-pulitzer.html

First few paragraphs of obit:

Russell Baker, the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author whose whimsical, irreverent “Observer” column appeared in The New York Times and hundreds of other newspapers for 36 years and turned a backwoods-born Virginian into one of America’s most celebrated writers, died on Monday at his home in Leesburg, Va. He was 93.

The cause was complications from a fall, according to his son Allen Baker.

Mr. Baker, along with the syndicated columnist Art Buchwald (who died in 2007), was one of the best-known newspaper humorists of his time, and The Washington Post ranked his best-selling autobiography, “Growing Up,” with the most enduring recollections of American boyhood — those of James Thurber, H. L. Mencken and Mark Twain.

In a career begun in a rakish fedora and the smoky press rooms of the 1940s, Mr. Baker was a police reporter, a rewrite man and a London correspondent for The Baltimore Sun, and after 1954 a Washington correspondent for The Times, rising swiftly with a clattering typewriter and a deft writer’s touch to cover the White House, Congress and the presidential campaigns of 1956 and 1960.

Then, starting in 1962, he became a columnist for The Times and its news service, eventually composing nearly 5,000 “Observer” commentaries — 3.7 million insightful words on the news of the day — often laced with invented characters and dialogue, on an array of subjects including dreaded Christmas fruitcake and women’s shoulder pads. The columns, which generated a devoted following, critical acclaim and the 1979 Pulitzer for distinguished commentary, ended with his retirement in 1998.

To a generation of television watchers, he was also a familiar face as the host of “Masterpiece Theater” on PBS from 1993 to 2004, having succeeded Alistair Cooke.

Mr. Baker wrote 15 books, including many collections of his columns, and “Growing Up,” a 1982 memoir of his Depression-era youth, his inspirational mother and America between the wars. It earned him his second Pulitzer, the 1983 prize for biography. Besides his two Pulitzer Prizes, he won two George Polk Awards, for commentary in 1978 and career achievement in 1998, and many other honors.

After his retirement from The Times, Mr. Baker wrote for The New York Review of Books on politics, history, journalism and other subjects. A collection of 11 of those essays, on revered public figures, was published in 2002 under the title “Looking Back.”

Earlier, he wrote for Life, Look, Reader’s Digest, The Saturday Evening Post, Ladies’ Home Journal and other publications. From 1985 through 1994, he served on the Columbia University Pulitzer Prize board, selecting winners of the nation’s most prestigious awards in journalism, literature and the arts. He was its chairman in 1993 and 1994.

…

He called his own style “a ballet in a phone booth”, referring to an attempt to be both witty and perhaps a bit ridiculous, while attempting social, personal, or cultural commentary, in a confined space of 750 words or so.

Hall of Famer Frank Robinson, baseball pioneer and first black manager, dies at 83

USA Today
https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/2604973002

Frank Robinson was royalty, a legend in the world of baseball. Despite his tremendous accomplishments on and off the field, it was as if his monumental role in baseball history had been forgotten.

Maybe now, people will pay attention and realize that Frank Robinson was one of the most impactful figures in baseball history.

Robinson, a first-ballot Hall of Fame player who became the first African-American manager in baseball, died Thursday at the age of 83, according to Major League Baseball.

This is the start of a long article detailing his many accomplishments and his tremendous cultural influence.

My curmudgeon of a father-in-law passed away on February 5th. He left a pile of children, dozens of grandchildren, a bunch of great grandchildren and one great great grandchild!

Thank you @barney for helping me appease the old cranky. I hope you received your purple gift recently!

I have 2.5 lbs of two twist strawberry candies to deal with I am considering swapping out all the mints at the funeral home.

John Dingell, longest-serving member of Congress has died. He was 92.

Dingell was the longest-serving member of Congress and helped sponsor the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1957, helped pass Medicare in the House and sponsored the Endangered Species Act.

NBC news article here
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna968401

Albert Finney - Oscar-nominated British actor Albert Finney has died aged 82 after a short illness.
May 9, 1936 - February 8, 2019

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-47175304

A sad loss for stage and screen.

Lee Radziwill, Ex-Princess and Sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Dies at 85

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/16/obituaries/lee-radziwill-dead.html

(The start of the article)

Lee Radziwill, the free-spirited former princess who shared the qualities of wealth, social status and ambition with her older sister, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, but who struggled as an actor, decorator and writer to share her sister’s aura of success, died on Friday at her home in Manhattan. She was 85.

Her daughter, Anna Christina Radziwill, confirmed the death, citing natural causes.

It cannot have been easy living in the shadow of one of the world’s most famous women, the wife of President John F. Kennedy, and Mrs. Radziwill was hardly immune to competitive instincts. Jackie Kennedy had helped create the mystique of the thousand days of Camelot — a woman who had made her new home a place of elegance and culture, who had brought babies into the White House for the first time in the 20th century.

Mrs. Radziwill, the wife of a Polish émigré nobleman, Prince Stanislas Radziwill, was an international socialite and fashion icon who for years was on lists of the world’s best-dressed women. Like Jackie, she had cultivated passions for painting, music, dance and poetry. She made several attempts for professional recognition, but achieved only pale reflections of the spotlight on her sister.

Jackie and Lee supposedly had a complicated relationship, both supportive and competitive, and very tangled over social position and over men in their lives.

Lee never managed to become publicly important (beyond her socialite status) in her own right, tho she did attempt various ventures at a public career.

Pour one out for our fellow goats.

@eonfifty

Karl Lagerfeld, Chanel’s artistic director, dies aged 85

https://amp.theguardian.com/fashion/2019/feb/19/karl-lagerfeld-fashion-designer-dies-aged-85

The German fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld has died at the age of 85, sources close to Chanel have said.

Lagerfeld, the fashion house’s artistic director, missed its haute couture show in Paris in January, fuelling speculation about his health.

He began his career as an assistant to Pierre Balmain in 1955 and joined Chanel in 1983, spending a record-breaking 36 years at the house.

In his first season, he was reported to be “working 16 hours a day and delighted to do it”.

Lagerfeld, who simultaneously churned out collections for LVMH’s Fendi and his eponymous label – an unheard of feat in fashion – was almost a brand in his own right.

Sporting dark suits, white, ponytailed hair and tinted sunglasses in his later years that made him instantly recognisable, an irreverent wit was also part of a carefully crafted persona.

Karl Lagerfeld: ‘I always think I’m lazy, maybe I could do better’

“I am like a caricature of myself, and I like that,” runs one legendary quote attributed to him, and often recycled to convey the person he liked to play. “It is like a mask. And for me the carnival of Venice lasts all year long.”

His artistic instincts, business acumen and commensurate ego combined to commercially triumphant effect in the rarefied world of high fashion, where he was revered and feared in similar proportions by competitors and top models.

He spent his early childhood tucked away from war in the 1,200-acre family estate in Bavaria and had a French tutor.

The big breakthrough came shortly after a move to Paris when, in 1954, he drew a wool coat that won a prize and landed him an apprenticeship with Balmain.

Yves Saint Laurent, who went on to found his namesake label, won the dress prize. The two became fierce competitors and even rivals in love at one point, chasing the affections of the late Parisian society figure Jacques de Bascher.

Saint Laurent, who died in 2008, became the enfant chéri of high society and Lagerfeld the leader of a wild-child younger group.

Lagerfeld first found real success in the mid-1960s with Chloé, the fashion label now owned by Switzerland’s Richemont and to which he was connected off and on until 1997.

But it was Chanel that propelled him to rock star status, as he revitalised the brand and lifted its profile with grandiose runway shows. In the past year these have featured a full-scale beach and an enormous replica ship.

The entire species: the Bramble Cay melomys who lived in Australia

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-20/climate-change-causes-its-first-mammal-extinction?cmpid=BBD022019_BIZ&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=190220&utm_campaign=bloombergdaily

Peter Tork -The bassist for 1960s rock favorites the Monkees, is dead at 77.
February 13, 1942 - February 21, 2019

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2019/02/21/monkees-peter-tork-dead-77/2938399002/

I suspect that many of you won’t even recognize the name, but I was saddened to hear that Katherine Helmond passed away today.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2019/03/01/katherine-helmond-whos-boss-soap-dead-89/3029534002/

She was wonderful in Soap, and it’s sad that she’s gone.

Complications of Alzheimer’s disease? Whoever’s in charge, I don’t forgive you.

Goodbye, Katherine. Godspeed.

Keith, the lead singer of The Prodigy found dead in his home at 49.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/mar/04/prodigy-singer-keith-flint-dies-aged-49

Here he is with iconic reverse mohawk hairstyle.

‘Beverly Hills, 90210’ alum and ‘Riverdale’ star Luke Perry died at age 52 after suffering a massive stroke .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luke_Perry
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000580/

Jan-Michael Vincent has died (at 73).

According to the article, it was “Feb. 10 after suffering cardiac arrest”.

There’s still no explanation of why it only came out today. He was amazing to look at, in those early days. Damnation Alley (otherwise an idiotic movie) was worth watching because he was in it. He had a VERY short fuse, and I believe it ended up limiting his career.

https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/jan-michael-vincent-dead-dies-airwolf-1203158399/

RIP, JMV

Johnny Thompson, a Las Vegas magic legend, dies at 84

Thompson, the legendary showman known as “The Great Tomsoni” and an inspiration to generations of magicians, died Saturday afternoon at Spring Valley Hospital Medical Center in Las Vegas. He was 84.

https://www.reviewjournal.com/entertainment/entertainment-columns/kats/johnny-thompson-a-las-vegas-magic-legend-dies-at-84-1614551/

Ever wonder how it is that one can love sportswriting (at least as written by some select writers), without loving, or even caring much about, the sport?

Perhaps I’m partial, because of shared places and mythologies growing up. (Tho we were different generations).

Such as, well, FW. And TCU. And Colonial Country Club. And “Herb’s” (long since closed now, while some developers try to decide how to make the neighborhood even more “generic boring repetitive upscale trendy”.

But I knew him. A little. To say “Hi” to now and then. He prob didn’t remember who I was.

My brothers and their buddies may have known him better, because he was close lifelong friends with some of their HS coaches, And there were plenty of long afternoons drinking beer in the coach’s back yard, years after HS.

And he appears to have had a damned fine life.

Here’s one tribute:

A toast to Dan Jenkins, who humanized gods and changed sportswriting

http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/26190616/a-toast-dan-jenkins-humanized-gods-changed-sportswriting?platform=amp

Dan Jenkins is gone, and everyone who loves college football, golf and the crisply struck one-liner will raise a glass. Preferably of J&B.

If you don’t know the work of Jenkins, who died Thursday night in his beloved Fort Worth, Texas, at age 90, you are in for a treat. He didn’t invent sportswriting, but with his combination of reporting and humor, perspective and confidence, he changed my business for the better. Much better.

In the pages of Sports Illustrated, Dan made human the legendary sports gods of his era. Figures such as Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Bear Bryant and Darrell Royal no longer loomed larger than life. And Dan did it with a sharp eye, a smartass grin and very fast typing. What he didn’t tell us in his reporting, he told us in barely disguised fiction in best-selling novels like “Semi-Tough.” My favorite had nothing to do with football. I bet I haven’t read “Baja Oklahoma” more than 10 times.

Sportswriters of my era have their go-to Jenkins lines, maybe like an earlier generation does with Noel Coward, or the way that Stephen Colbert goes viral today. For personal reasons, mine remains the lead of his story about the 1984 U.S. Open at Winged Foot:

“Maybe Fuzzy Zoeller plays golf the way everybody should. Hit it, go find it, hit it again. Grin, have a smoke, take a sip, make a joke and every so often win a major championship.”

I spent that Open as Dan’s assistant, the fact-checker who helped him gather material for his story. I was 24 years old and barely could find the first tee without a map. I think the only actual assistance I provided Dan was driving him from Manhattan to Mamaroneck for the Monday playoff between Zoeller and Greg Norman.

Sports Illustrated issues closed on Monday, and 35 years ago, most copy had to be buttoned up by Sunday night. They held the magazine for the Open to conclude. Dan, having cut his teeth at the Fort Worth Press, always had been impervious to deadline pressure. At a magazine where writers were known for dripping out copy like an IV, Dan wrote as if he were late for a cocktail party.

In that lead, Dan captured Zoeller’s personality perfectly, in language that sounded like he leaned over the bar to say it. To witness that up close taught me more about journalism than any class I ever took.

In those days, Dan was known for not appearing on the golf course. He worked the locker room a little. Mostly he held court in the dining area of the club, swapping information and one-liners with agents, writers, golfers, you name it. Dan would walk out onto Augusta National on Sunday to watch the golfers play the short par-4 3rd, a nod to his reverence for the Masters, but otherwise he stayed indoors.

But Dan wanted to see a U.S. Open playoff. We walked out to the fifth green. As Norman prepared to putt, Zoeller, standing at the side of the green, glanced over and saw Dan standing there. Their eyes met, and Zoeller clutched his chest, feigning a heart attack. Make a joke, and every so often win a major.

Dan left Sports Illustrated a few weeks later, more a clash of personality than anything. The magazine editor decided Dan had lost his fastball. Maybe so; he only had another 35 years of relevant journalism left in him.

I first met Dan in the fall of 1978 in the office of The Stanford Daily. I was a sophomore, sitting in front of a Royal typewriter. Dan walked in looking for his daughter, Sally, a freshman who intended to join our staff. I’m pretty sure Dan was holding a cigarette. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t speak in his presence. Think of LeBron James walking into your gym, Beyoncé showing up at your corner bar for karaoke.

On that day, I entered his orbit, and I never left. We bonded because any friend of Sally was a friend of his. You could say the same about any friend of college football. Dan stopped covering football nearly 50 years ago, but his love for the sport never wavered.

It began as a 6-year-old, when he attended the battle of two undefeateds, TCU and SMU, at the end of the 1935 season. So did Grantland Rice. The Rose Bowl would invite the winner, and Dan’s beloved hometown TCU lost a heartbreaker. A few years ago, I visited Dan at his Fort Worth home, and on one wall of his office, he had blown up a photo of Amon Carter Stadium that day, with arrows pointing to where he sat, and where Granny Rice sat. Birth of a Sportswriter.

His coverage of college football for Sports Illustrated in the 1960s opened an entire world to the magazine’s readers, and especially to its Ivy League-bred editors. Dan brought college football to the national mainstream and shone a light on all of the color and pageantry of Saturday’s America, a phrase he gleefully stole for a book title from TCU coach Abe Martin, a tobacco-chewin’ rascal from the very old school.

Dan had the idea to spend a weekend in Dallas with two couples as they attended three college football games. He had the idea to chronicle an entire recruiting season in the home of a blue-chip quarterback, Oklahoma-bound Jack Mildren. He had the idea and the gall to take on all of Notre Dame Nation when he mocked Ara Parseghian, coach of the No. 1 Irish, for settling for a 10-10 tie against No. 2 Michigan State in 1966. The story began, “Old Notre Dame will tie over all,” a brilliant takedown of the Irish fight song.

Dan may have stopped writing about college football, but he continued to love it as if it were his fourth child. He faithfully attended TCU football games, his parking space underneath Amon Carter Stadium directly next to the one reserved for the university chancellor. TCU named its press box for Dan in May 2017, and of all the many honors he received in his long and glorious career, that one stayed close to his heart.

A few months later, I went to Arlington to cover the Florida-Michigan game on opening weekend. The day before the game, I met Dan for lunch at Colonial Country Club, home of the longtime PGA Tour stop. Dan held court there. He was physically frail, but his mind remained keen. We talked college football for 90 minutes, and he made sure to show me the encased display of memorabilia from his career on the wall next to the pro shop.

I dropped him an email now and again, and he always answered within minutes. It’s hard to swallow that I can’t do that again. Instead, I’ll swallow a J&B in his honor, and curl up with “Baja Oklahoma” for the 11th read.

Tiger Woods is the only one that late, great Dan Jenkins couldn’t make laugh

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/open-mike/os-sp-golf-dan-jenkins-0310-story,amp.html

Dan Jenkins Was More Than a Sportswriter. He Was a Sportswriterly State of Being.

https://www.theringer.com/2019/3/8/18256296/dan-jenkins-sportswriter-author

The PGA commentary is here:

https://www.google.com/amp/amp.pga.com/news/golf-buzz/dan-jenkins-sports-writing-great-and-author-dies-90

I’ll to track down what SI has to say about the guy many thought was their finest staff writer ever.

As sportswriters go, Dan Jenkins was one of those who gets to be the fucking man

He mostly lived in and loved the world where intersected sports, humanity, humor, personality, success, failure, struggle, fate, loyalty, and friendship.

And sometimes with a little local high society and big $ thrown in.

And he made people laugh. Including me.

Some of his fiction books:
Semi-Tough
Baja Oklahoma
Dead Solid Perfect
semi-mythologized a fictionalized Fort Worth, and made sports worth reading about even for those who dislike sports.

His books are beyond raunchy, but also have human sweetness and forgiveness in them. And, reading them, people tend to laugh out loud.

He had his years in the catbird seat, and he used the years well. And, AFAIK, he was a good guy.

Dick Dale, godfather of surf guitar, dies aged 81
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/mar/17/dick-dale-dies-aged-81-misirlou-pulp-fiction

Parkland shooting survivor Sydney Aiello takes her own life.
CBS News story

Another world-shaper gone too soon.

From Tor.com: We are deeply saddened to report the passing of author Vonda N. McIntyre on April 1, 2019.

McIntyre was born in Louisville, Kentucky on August 28, 1948, but her family settled in Seattle, Washington by the 1960s. She was an author and founder of the Clarion West Writer’s Workshop in 1971, which she began after attending the Clarion Writers Workshop in 1970. McIntyre was the third woman to receive a Hugo Award, and was a long-standing champion of feminist SFF. She won her first Nebula Award for the novelette “Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand”, and her Starfarers series had an incredible genesis: She made up the conceit on the spot while sitting on a panel at a convention, out of frustration at the general negativity she found around SF television. She convinced the entire audience of the panel that they had missed out on a great science fiction series, and then decided to write it.
To many SFF fans, McIntyre was well known for her Star Trek novels, which included novelizations for films Wrath of Khan, Search For Spock, and The Voyage Home, as well as the much beloved Original Series novel, The Entropy Effect. She was responsible for giving Hikaru Sulu his first name, a detail that made its way into canon in The Undiscovered Country. She also wrote the Star Wars Expanded Universe novel, The Crystal Star. She won SFWA’s Service Award in 2010, and her novel The Moon and Sun was adapted to film under the title of The King’s Daughter…
Vonda McIntyre died at home in Seattle, Washington of pancreatic cancer. She was writing up to the end, completing a novel titled Curve of the World shortly before her passing. Her neighbor and friend Jane Hawkins noted her drive, saying, “All her docs know she has a book she wants to finish. Even the doc she hadn’t seen before!”

She will be dearly missed

Gene Wolfe died on April 14, 2019, after a long battle with heart disease.

https://locusmag.com/2019/04/gene-wolfe-1931-2019/

https://www.tor.com/2019/04/15/gene-wolfe-in-memoriam-1931-2019/

I loved the comment he made about his wife, when she was in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s: “There was a time when she did not remember my name or that we were married, but she still remembered that she loved me.”

Farewell, Gene. Rest in Peace, truly.

Richard Cole
The last surviving member of the Doolittle Raiders passed away April 9th in TX at the age of 103.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/04/09/richard-cole-doolittle-raiders-dies-103/3416542002/

Chewbecca Actor Peter Mayhew From ‘Star Wars’ Dies at 74

https://variety.com/2019/film/news/peter-mayhew-dead-dies-chewbecca-star-wars-1203203816/

MASH’s ‘Colonel Potter’ dies aged 96

ttps://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-08/mash-star-harry-morgan-dies/3719248

Peggy Lipton, ‘Mod Squad’ and ‘Twin Peaks’ Star, Dies at 72

https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/peggy-lipton-dead-dies-mod-squad-twin-peaks-1203212095/

Que será, será
RIP sweets.
Doris Day (born Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff (April 3, 1922 - May 13, 2019)

Sad to report that Tim Conway from the Carol Burnett Show has passed away. He was 85

Speaking of slips, this one almost slipped by:
Jim Fowler, former host of ‘Wild Kingdom,’ dies at 89
Fowler died peacefully Wednesday at his home in Norwalk, Connecticut, surrounded by family, said Jennifer Whitney, a spokeswoman for Mutual of Omaha, which sponsored the show.

I used to watch that show every weekend. I’m going to parrot @cinoclav and say ‘I had no idea he was still alive.’

Alice Rivlin, first CBO chief and Clinton budget director, dies
Posted May 14, 2019 2:28 PM

Alice Rivlin, the founding director of the Congressional Budget Office, former director of the Office of Management and Budget and a member of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, died Tuesday at the age of 88. (Scott J. Ferrell/CQ Roll Call)

Alice M. Rivlin, an economist, budget and health care expert respected on both sides of the aisle and the first director of the Congressional Budget Office, died Tuesday at the age of 88 after a battle with cancer.

The Brookings Institution, where she served as a senior fellow, confirmed Rivlin’s death.

After a late 1960s stint at what was then known as the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Rivlin served as founding director of the CBO after the agency was created under the 1974 law establishing the modern budget process. Rivlin filled that role through most of 1983 and still holds the record for longest-serving CBO director.

Rivlin went on to become director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Bill Clinton, vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and director of the District of Columbia Financial Control Board created by Congress in 1995 to pull the District out of a financial crisis.

Former Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad lauded Rivlin as a “giant in the budget world,” someone who was “at the top” among budget scholars, and “an American original.”

“Everyone likes Alice Rivlin because everyone understands that she is speaking from a deep background of knowledge and experience,” the North Dakota Democrat said. “And most of all, she had no axe to grind, she had no personal agenda, she was not ever trying to advance herself, she was trying to advance America.”

A centrist Democrat, Rivlin was an independent thinker who defied political categorization.

She defended President Barack Obama’s signature 2010 health care overhaul, legislation that was anathema to Republicans. Meanwhile, she collaborated with Wisconsin Republican Paul D. Ryan on a health care plan that proposed restructuring Medicare and Medicaid and drew howls from many Democrats.

Ryan, the former House speaker who retired last year, said in an interview that when he was writing his own Medicare overhaul plan, Rivlin was very influential “and she convinced me to a number of design changes to her way of thinking on how it should be modeled.”

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“I adored, respected, admired Alice Rivlin,” Ryan said, adding he affectionately called her “mom.” Ryan praised Rivlin not only for her intellect and genuineness but for “her very warm and generous personality.”

“She blazed her own trail in so many areas, especially in budgets, health care and education,” he said, calling her “an out-of-the-box thinker.”

While Rivlin and many others have derided what they view as a “broken” congressional budget process, Rivlin credited the 1974 law as a game changer for policymakers wrestling with deficits and debt — particularly having an independent “scorekeeper” at the CBO.

“I think it’s made the Congress and the executive branch very much more conscious of the cost of new legislation,” Rivlin told CQ Roll Call in 2014. “That was the whole idea of scoring — that you had to know what something would cost before you could sensibly decide whether it was worth it.”

The Harvard-trained economist continued to play an active and influential role as a public servant long after concluding her most prominent jobs.

In 2010, a decade after her service on the D.C. Control Board, Rivlin was appointed to Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform headed by former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson, a Republican, and onetime Clinton chief of staff Erskine Bowles, a Democrat.

Rivlin was among 11 members of the commission who voted in favor of the commission’s fiscal plan, which combined changes in entitlement programs, spending cuts and revenue increases to reduce the deficit by almost $4 trillion over a decade. The vote fell short of the required 14 needed to advance the plan to Congress.

She served during the same period as co-chair, with former GOP Sen. Pete V. Domenici, of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Task Force on Debt Reduction. Domenici died in 2017.

Speaking at a Senate Budget Committee hearing Tuesday on efforts to overhaul the budget process, Democrat Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, praised Rivlin’s dedication to the subject.

“She was someone who always walked the walk when it came to budget issues,” Van Hollen said. “I think we’re all going to miss her, but maybe we can carry on in her spirit.”

Rivlin spent much of the past six decades, including recent years, at the Brookings Institution, which she joined as a research fellow in 1957. Promotions to senior staff economist and senior fellow were not far behind.

The author or editor of some two dozen books on subjects ranging from fiscal issues and health care to education and the internet, Rivlin was the recipient of numerous honorary degrees and awards, including the Paul A. Volcker Lifetime Achievement Award for Economic Policy.

A visiting professor at various times, Rivlin taught at the John F. Kennedy School at Harvard, George Mason University, the New School University and Georgetown.

Rivlin grew up in Bloomington, Indiana. She earned a B.A. in economics from Bryn Mawr College, and a master’s and Ph.D. in economics from Radcliffe College at Harvard University.

YMTND.com has gone on to the great Internet Archive in the cloud.

https://gizmodo.com/so-long-ytmnd-1834779107

Grumpy Cat
Grumpy died Tuesday morning from complications related to a urinary tract infection, the cat’s publicist said. She was 7 years old.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2019/05/17/grumpy-cat-beloved-internet-meme-star-dies-age-7/3703970002/

RIP I. M . Pei

RIP Herman Wouk

Dr. John, New Orleans Music Icon, Dies at 77

https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/news/dr-john-new-orleans-music-icon-dies-at-77/ar-AACvduX?ocid=sf

Bushwick Bill nooooooooooooooo

I just noticed this, did you pick the picture for the topic @sohmageek?

Gloria Vanderbilt
February 20, 1924 - June 17, 2019

Gloria Vanderbilt died Monday morning, according to her son, CNN’s Anderson Cooper. The fashion designer, artist and socialite was 95.

She died at home with friends and family at her side.
“Gloria Vanderbilt was an extraordinary woman, who loved life, and lived it on her own terms,” Cooper said in a statement. "She was a painter, a writer and designer but also a remarkable mother, wife, and friend.
“She was 95 years old, but ask anyone close to her, and they’d tell you: She was the youngest person they knew – the coolest and most modern.”
Vanderbilt was diagnosed with an advanced form of stomach cancer earlier this month, Cooper said.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/17/entertainment/gloria-vanderbilt-dies/index.html

Lee Iacocca - From the Mustang to the minivan, auto legend Lee Iacocca is dead at 94.
October 15, 1924 - July 2, 2019

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/03/lee-iacocca-auto-industry-icon-dead-at-94.html

Arte Johnson, ‘Laugh-In’ star, dead at 90

Arte Johnson, a master of sketch comedy who won an Emmy for the hit series “Laugh-In,” died Wednesday of heart failure, according to a family representative. He was 90.

The irreverent series formally known as " Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In" became an unexpected hit for NBC, and Johnson was among its more gifted and versatile performers. His German soldier prompted the catch phrase “Very interesting,” and his dirty old man sketch, with Ruth Buzzi, was notorious for causing his co-stars to break out in laughter. (In a recent “Laugh-In” tribute that played on Netflix, Johnson was shown in outtakes making guest Don Rickles laugh so hard that he pleaded with Johnson to “give me a break.”)

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/03/entertainment/arte-johnson-obit/index.html

RIP Thomas Jefferson & John Adams, dying within hours of each other, July 4th, 1826.

Ross Perot
June 27, 1930 - July 9, 2019
Perot, who ran for president twice in 1992 and 1996, died after a five-month battle with leukemia, a representative for the Perot family said.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/09/billionaire-and-former-presidential-candidate-ross-perot-is-dead-at-89.html

Rip Torn
February 6, 1931 – July 9, 2019
He was an Academy Award nominated American actor and comedian.
Known for The Larry Sanders Show, Men In Black, MIB II, The Beastmaster and many others.
No cause of death given.

An actress from one of my childhood favorite movies has passed. Denise Nickerson, best known for portraying Violet Beauregarde in “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory,” has died at 62

Mrs. Teevee : [as the Wonkatania starts to move] I think I’m going to be seasick!
Willy Wonka : [handing something to Mrs. Teevee] Here, take these.
Mrs. Teevee : What are they?
Willy Wonka : Rainbow drops. Suck them and you can spit in seven different colors!
Violet Beauregarde : [as she digs around in her nostril] Spitting’s a dirty habit.
Willy Wonka : I know a worse one.

Retired Justice John Paul Stevens, A Maverick On The Bench, Dies At 99

(NPR)

Retired Justice John Paul Stevens, whose Supreme Court opinions transformed many areas of American law during his 34 year tenure, died at the age of 99 in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., of complications following a stroke he suffered Monday.

Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed Stevens’ death in a statement from the Supreme Court.

“A son of the Midwest heartland and a veteran of World War II, Justice Stevens devoted his long life to public service, including 35 years on the Supreme Court,” Roberts said in the statement. “He brought to our bench an inimitable blend of kindness, humility, wisdom, and independence. His unrelenting commitment to justice has left us a better nation. We extend our deepest condolences to his children Elizabeth and Susan, and to his extended family.”

The court’s statement noted that “he passed away peacefully with his daughters by his side.”

A history of his appointment and his activies on the court follows in the article.

He was known as an independent thinker and he shared with Scalia a reputation for intelligent and careful questioning. He was also known for his constant basic decency, and his respectful approach to human and professional relationships.

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/16/103908524/justice-john-paul-stevens-a-maverick-on-the-bench-dies-at-99

Art Neville, the New Orleans funk musician and founder of the Neville Brothers passed away. He was 81 and the cause of death has not yet been reported.

Christopher Columbus Kraft, NASA’s legendary flight director, has died

Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr.—one of NASA’s founding engineers, its first flight director, and a key architect of the Apollo and space shuttle programs—has died at the age of 95.

Back during the earliest days of NASA, the head of the agency’s Space Task Group, Robert Gilruth, assigned Kraft the job of drawing up rules and procedures for safely managing the flight of a human into space, through the great blackness, and back to the ground. Kraft was to do all of this without the aid of a calculator or sophisticated computer and without any reference material. And he had to hurry, because the Soviet Union had already taken a big lead in the Space Race.

Over time, the work Kraft did in writing those rules, as well as hiring a talented team of flight directors and controllers, helped NASA fly the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. Kraft became, in the words of astronaut Neil Armstrong, the “control” in Mission Control. Today, NASA’s Mission Control in Houston bears his name—the Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center.

“A giant has left us,” said Wayne Hale, a flight director for more than three dozen shuttle missions and later the space shuttle program manager.

A personal remembrance is here

https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/07/christiopher-columbus-kraft-nasas-legendary-flight-director-has-died/?amp=1

From Variety

Rutger Hauer, ‘Blade Runner’ Co-Star, Dies at 75

Rutger Hauer, the versatile Dutch leading man of the ’70s who went on star in the 1982 “Blade Runner” as Roy Batty, died July 19 at his home in the Netherlands after a short illness. He was 75.

Hauer’s agent, Steve Kenis, confirmed the news and said that Hauer’s funeral was held Wednesday.

His most cherished performance came in a film that was a resounding flop on its original release. In 1982, he portrayed the murderous yet soulful Roy Batty, leader of a gang of outlaw replicants, opposite Harrison Ford in Ridley Scott’s sci-fi noir opus “Blade Runner.” The picture became a widely influential cult favorite, and Batty proved to be Hauer’s most indelible role.

More recently, he appeared in a pair of 2005 films: as Cardinal Roark in “Sin City,” and as the corporate villain who Bruce Wayne discovers is running the Wayne Corp. in Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins.”

In “True Blood,” he played Niall Brigant, the king of the tribe from which the Stackhouse family is descended and the faerie grandfather to Sookie, Jason Stackhouse and Hunter Savoy. Hauer also recurred on ABC’s medieval musical comedy “Galavant” as Kingsley in 2015.

He was a natural at horror and vampire roles, starring as Van Helsing in Dario Argento’s “Dracula 3D,” and as the vampire Barlow in the 2004 miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s “Salem’s Lot” along with Rob Lowe, Andre Braugher and Donald Sutherland.

Handsome, energetic and fluent in several languages, Hauer made his first mark in the late ‘60s in the Netherlands as the star of Paul Verhoeven’s medieval TV series “Floris.” He vaulted to the top ranks of Dutch stardom in 1973 opposite Monique van de Ven in Verhoeven’s sexually explosive drama “Turkish Delight,” which became a box-office smash and garnered an Oscar nod as best foreign film.

After three more Dutch features with Verhoeven that became art-house successes in the U.S., Hauer segued to a Hollywood career with a flashy role as a terrorist in the 1981 Sylvester Stallone thriller “Nighthawks.”

Hauer increasingly turned to action-oriented parts in the ‘80s: He toplined the big-budget fantasy “Ladyhawke” (1985), reteamed with fellow Hollywood transplant Verhoeven in the sword-and-armor epic “Flesh & Blood” (1985), starred as a psychotic killer in “The Hitcher” (1986), and took Steve McQueen’s shotgun-toting bounty hunter role in a modern reboot of the TV Western “Wanted: Dead or Alive” (1986).

His major artistic triumph came in Ermanno Olmi’s Italian production “The Legend of the Holy Drinker” (1988); his sensitive turn as a homeless drunk and petty criminal who finds redemption in Paris carried the feature, which collected the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

During the ‘90s, Hauer gravitated to more routine roles in American and international productions and played the vampire lord Lothos in the original film version of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

He debuted as a small screen star as Nazi official Albert Speer in the 1982 telefilm adaptation of Speer’s book “Inside the Third Reich.” His most admired TV work came in projects that turned on World War II themes: He received Golden Globe nominations for his performances as the leader of a concentration camp revolt in “Escape From Sobibor” (1987) and an SS officer in the alternate-universe drama “Fatherland” (1994).

He was born Jan. 23, 1944, in Breukelen, the Netherlands, near Amsterdam. Though both his parents were acting teachers, he took a circuitous route to the craft. He ran away from home at 15 to join the Dutch merchant navy; after returning to Amsterdam in 1962 he briefly studied acting, but exited school again for a stint in the army.

Finally committing himself to the stage, he became a member of the touring experimental troupe Noorder Compagnie, in which he acted, directed and served as costume designer and translator for several years.

His major break came in 1969 when Verhoeven cast him in the title role of “Floris,” an Ivanhoe-like knight who becomes embroiled in court intrigue upon his return from the Crusades. The show proved wildly popular, and Hauer reprised the part in a 1975 revival of the series, “Floris von Rosemund.”

By that time, the steamy, affecting “Turkish Delight” had firmly established him as the Netherlands’ top B.O. attraction. He reunited with Verhoeven and his co-star van de Ven for the period drama “Katie Tippel” (1975); he renewed his collaboration with the director with the World War II saga “Soldier of Orange” (1977) and the bold contemporary drama “Spetters” (1980).

Hauer made an almost immediate and intense impression as Batty in his sophomore American feature “Blade Runner,” an adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” He wrote his own dialog for the film’s climactic face-off with his adversary Ford. Though the film swiftly fell off screens, it remains a genre landmark today, in no small measure because of Hauer’s electrifying performance.

Olmi’s “The Legend of the Holy Drinker” brought him possibly the best notices of his career, but it failed to attract great attention beyond art-house audiences, and Hauer soon became a familiar and prolific supporting player in a variety of genre pictures, several of which went direct to home video. He shot seven features in 2001 alone.

He was active in social causes as an outspoken sponsor of the environmental organization Greenpeace and the founder the Starfish Association, a non-profit devoted to AIDS awareness.

He is survived by his second wife of 50 years, Ineke ten Cate, and a daughter, actress Aysha Hauer, from his marriage to Heidi Merz.

/youtube blade runner tears in the rain

Nobel prize-winning author Toni Morrison dead at the age of 88.

YouTuber Grant Thompson of King of Random dies in paragliding accident.

https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/grant-thompson-dead-youtuber-dies-at-38/

too bad the fekking gobshite bot can’t shut up in this one thread.

Peter Fonda, star of ‘Easy Rider’ and scion of Hollywood royalty, dies at 79

Peter Fonda, a scion of Hollywood royalty who starred as a hippie biker in the 1960s generational marker “Easy Rider,” shunned stardom and emerged decades later to the finest review of his career for playing a reserved beekeeper with explosive depths in “Ulee’s Gold,” died Aug. 16 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 79.
A statement from his family said the cause was respiratory failure due to lung cancer.
Mr. Fonda grew up in the shadow of his father, Henry Fonda, and older sister, Jane Fonda, both of whom won Oscars for acting.
After struggling in school and family drama — his mother committed suicide — he embarked on an acting career that reached its zenith in 1969, when he starred in “Easy Rider,” which captured the counterculture epoch like few other films.

Along with co-stars Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson, Mr. Fonda — often wearing a Captain American helmet — rode a motorcycle throughout the West, a rebel in search of a cause.
It took almost 30 years for Mr. Fonda to return to stardom, when he starred in “Ulee’s Gold” (1997) about a beekeeping widower caring for his granddaughters. The role earned him an Oscar nomination.

(From WaPo)

/image Peter Fonda

/youtube easy rider Peter Fonda we blew it

One of my favorite TV car show hosts, former Mythtern, offroader and racer Jessi Combs died in a jet car crash on Tuesday, while trying to break her own speed record; she was trying to achieve 619mph.

She used to be a host on TNN (later Spike TV) weekend car block, the offroad show. She was also on Mythbusters for a while, worked on All Girls Garage on the Velocity channel, and likely much more.

Watching her was a happy thing, and she made the shows she was on, better.

She flies ever faster now… Rest in Peace Jessi

https://www.foxnews.com/auto/jessi-combs-dies-jet-car-crash

V sad to read that Valerie Harper has died of brain cancer.

Best known for playing the character of Rhoda Morgenstern (Mary Richard’s best friend) on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda.

Valerie Harper, Who Won Fame and Emmys as ‘Rhoda,’ Dies at 80

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/30/obituaries/valerie-harper-dead.amp.html

She had a long and memorably career.

/youtube Rhoda Valerie Harper

Edward Joseph Mahoney Dies at 70

MoviePass passed away

Dear MoviePass™ Subscribers,

Over the past several months, MoviePass™ worked hard to relaunch its groundbreaking subscription service and recapitalize the company. While we were able to relaunch the service for some of our subscribers with an improved technology platform, our efforts to recapitalize the company have not been successful to date. As a result, it pains us to inform you that effective at 8 a.m. E.T. on September 14, 2019, we must interrupt service for all current MoviePass™ subscribers.

Robert Frank, transformative and visionary photographer and filmmaker, died last week at age 96. I was just too busy to post about him.
.
The Robert Frank collection at the National Gallery of Art
https://www.nga.gov/features/robert-frank.html

How Robert Frank’s Vision Influenced And Inspired Generations Of Photographers
https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2019/09/12/759470766/how-robert-franks-vision-influenced-and-inspired-generations-of-photographers

NYT articles
Obit
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/10/arts/robert-frank-dead-americans-photography.html

Robert Frank’s Legacy: Nine Photographers Reflect
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/13/obituaries/robert-franks-legacy-nine-photographers-reflect.html

An Artful Tribute to Robert Frank, Master Photographer
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/13/opinion/letters/robert-frank-retirement-campus.html

How Robert Frank’s Photographs Helped Define America
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/how-robert-franks-photographs-helped-define-america/amp

Wikipedia

Robert Frank (November 9, 1924 – September 9, 2019) was a Swiss photographer and documentary filmmaker, who became an American binational. His most notable work, the 1958 book titled The Americans, earned Frank comparisons to a modern-day de Tocqueville for his fresh and nuanced outsider’s view of American society. Critic Sean O’Hagan, writing in The Guardian in 2014, said The Americans "changed the nature of photography, what it could say and how it could say it. [ … ] it remains perhaps the most influential photography book of the 20th century."1 Frank later expanded into film and video and experimented with manipulating photographs and photomontage.[2]

Frank’s 1972 documentary of the Rolling Stones, Cocksucker Blues, is arguably his best known film. The film shows the Stones on tour, engaging in heavy drug use and group sex. Frank said of the Stones, “It was great to watch them — the excitement. But my job was after the show. What I was photographing was a kind of boredom. It’s so difficult being famous. It’s a horrendous life. Everyone wants to get something from you.”[18]
Mick Jagger reportedly told Frank, “It’s a fucking good film, Robert, but if it shows in America we’ll never be allowed in the country again.”
The Stones sued to prevent the film’s release, and it was disputed whether Frank as the artist or the Stones as those who hired the artist owned the copyright. A court order restricted the film to being shown no more than five times per year, and only in the presence of Frank.[30] Frank’s photography also appeared on the cover of the Rolling Stones’ album Exile on Main St…[31]

(I saw this film [at the Frick? The Whitney?] In I think the early 80’s after a friend of mine saw it at an NYU film school showing.
By today’s standards, the film is prob just a mix of interesting and boring. By the standards of the time, the Stones might have been banned from performing in many locations due to potential local outrage after rich rock star lifestyles were documented on film.)

(Hint: the film shows lots of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.)

Oilman T. Boone Pickens Jr. Dies at 91

He started going after Wall Street energy companies when he noticed that he could acquire oil and gas reserves more cheaply on Wall St than by looking under the ground.

He was a pioneer in the much unloved art of corporate raiding, inventing his strategies on the instant.
He had more the heart of a wildcatter and gambler than many of the other raiders of the era.

He was an interesting and colorful guy, and essential portion of American biz history.

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/oilman-t-boone-pickens-jr-dies-11568225782

This next is a memoir from Bloomberg News, by writer Joe Nocera, who knew him for decades.

https://finance.yahoo.com/amphtml/news/fond-farewell-t-boone-pickens-103010110.html

A Fond Farewell to T. Boone Pickens

…
When I first met Boone in 1982, he quickly sized me up as “an East Coast liberal.”

“You probably don’t know many conservatives,” he said (correctly). “I’m going to show you that a conservative can be a good guy.”

And he did, too. Rest in peace, Boone.

And he was a fanatical supporter of Oklahoma State

Ric Ocasek, the lead singer of the new-wave rock band “The Cars,” has died. Ocasek was found dead in his apartment in New York City on Sunday afternoon. He was 75 years old. His estranged wife, model Paulina Porizkova, reportedly found the singer unresponsive. He apparently died of natural causes.

Cokie Roberts
December 27, 1943 - September 17, 2019

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/17/761050916/cokie-roberts-pioneering-female-journalist-who-helped-shape-npr-dies-at-75
“Complications from breast cancer.”

Lil Queenie, another New Orleans native has left us all the poorer.

Leigh Harris, better known throughout the world as Li’l Queenie, has left this awful and beautiful world this Solstice weekend after a long struggle wuth cancer.

Leigh was a force of nature, a voice that couldn’t be tamed, a twelve-times-twelve ass-kicking bitch and the sweetest flower that could grow. She gave the world my land’s national anthem.

If you don’t know her, there’s a good bit here. I imagine you’ll be hearing more about her talent and the influence she had soon.

For those of us who had the pleasure to laugh and joke and drink and smoke and love and work with her, other sets of stories will be retold. Leigh was the foulest-mouthed, hard-drinkinest, pointedly-rudest, smartmouthed cuss that walked on two feet. She was also one of the most sensitive and perceptive people I’ve ever met.

Anyway, you’ll read the accolades in the trades. Tonight, off asses and up glasses, lowlifes.

Wubba Lubba, Dub Dub
J. Michael Mendel, an animation producer who won four Emmy Awards for his work on The Simpsons and Rick and Morty, has died. He was 54.

Damn.
Another one of America’s finest songwriters - He’s gone and nothing’s going to bring him back.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hunter_(lyricist)#Discography

/youtube friend of the devil

Rob Garrison, known to fans as Tommy from The Karate Kid movies and YouTube’s sequel series Cobra Kai — died Friday morning, The 59-year-old actor died at a hospital in his home state of West Virginia, where he had been receiving treatment for “ongoing kidney and liver issues.”

Ginger Baker, legendary, hot tempered, and innovative drummer, most famous for his time as part of Cream and in Blind Faith, has died.

He incorporated strong tribal African and jazz influences into his drumming, sometimes built his own drum kits, opened a recording studio in Africa, is said by Rolling Stone to have “practically invented the drum solo” (whatever one thinks of those), and is said (again, from RS), to have influenced every rock drummer since that time (whether the drummer knows it or not).

Here is a drum solo from Cream’s song Toad.

Rip Taylor, one of Television’s most flamboyant personalities known as “The Crying Comedian” and “The King of Camp and Confetti,” died Sunday in Beverly Hills, publicist Harlan Boll confirmed. He was 84.

Alexei Leonov, the first to walk in space, has passed away after a long illness.

Tonight, lift a glass to the night stars in his honor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Leonov

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/history/shuttle-mir/multimedia/video/v-007.mpg

My 26 y/o nephew Jeffrey died on 9/11/19 by his own hand, after a long battle with depression, Asperger’s, and an inability to recognize to love felt for him by all of us in his family, who would have done anything for him, had he only asked, or been able to let us know how badly he was hurting inside.
The past month has been