Dammit, 2016!
Llynara
Posts: 4,772
Man, I am DONE with 2016! Now I hear that George Michael has died. He was only 53! OMG, what the heck is going on?
Why are so many great musicians, artists and actors getting swiped off the planet? I really hope we don't lose any more. I was surprisingly heartbroken to hear we lost another one, and such a beautiful voice. So many great memories with his songs.
Post edited by Llynara on
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I know, Careless Whisper all time makeout song
So many great ones. "Last Christmas" is one of my favorite Christmas songs, and "Kissing a Fool" is so good. Many other great and fun ones. I always thought he had the most magnificent voice. Losing him and Prince in the same year. Wow, that hurts!
Who do we contact about returning this year for a refund, or better yet, replacement?
While tragic (I loved his music) if you look at the big picture realistically 6,316 people die each hour.
While I mourn the lose of loved ones, I make it a point to leave nothing left unsaid because you never know when that time will come and it will come.
I don't know but I want one!
When we mourn celebrities, we are often mourning a part of our lives and past that we are reminded is gone forever.
Yes, but the alternative of not dying is unthinkable unless you want to give up sex, or live shoulder to shoulder over every square inch of the planet. Dying at the current rate is just about right.
WHAM!
...this year just seemed worse than most in this respect, even hitting home here with DraagonStorm.
I'll refrain from going into other bad aspects of this year partly for TOS reasons.
http://variety.com/c/people-news/obituaries-people-news/
Absolutely this. i was thinking about it last night, wondering why I was so shocked and upset over a lot of the celebrities that have gone this year. George Michael hit me hard - not because I was a massive fan of his, as I wasn't particularly (i did like his voice, thought he was talented, but I never ran out and bought his albums)...but because Wham! was my era. I'm a massive 80s girl, and Wham was the 80s. Remembering the places I was, the people I was with, the things I was doing, the way I was living, when Wham were huge.
Quite a few of the celebrities we are mourning for this year, were quite old. So their deaths - while a bit of a shock - are almost 'understandable'.
And I start to think - my heroes/crushes/people who dominated the acting/singing world when I was 'coming up'.....they are dying. Is it like when elderly people realize that their friends are all dying and it suddenly hits home that they too, are elderly and are comign closer to death themselves?
There's 115 people listed here http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/05/world/gallery/people-we-lost-2016/index.html
A lot more than I was aware of, but there were some famous ones I didn't know about too.
Just wow.
I'm an 80s girl too, and it's hard enough watching the people we looked up to getting old, let alone dying! It reminds us how temporary and fragile this life truly is.
jakiblue: I thought about it a lot with David Bowie passing (which still just cuts me). I have some friends who were up in arms about everyone adulating 'a rapist.' (There was an incident of statutory rape in the 70s that is highly argued over and whatnot).
Now, it's a weird case and I'm not going to make a big deal about that, but it occurred to me that it didn't matter.
I didn't know the man personally. I'm not friends with his family, and likely will never meet any of them. His life doesn't have any direct connection to mine.
BUT
But his face, his music, his movies are sewn through my life. The Man who Fell to Earth. Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence. Labyrinth (those PANTS rawr). Heck, Zoolander.
Not to mention the music I heard as a kid in the late 70s, as a teen in the 80s, his evolving style. He was a weird, magical, numinous figure in popular culture. Never afraid to transform, and inspiring others to do the same.
David Bowie as a human doesn't connect to my life at all, it's the shadows of him that rear large, that have BECOME part of me, part of my personal story.
And looking over the long line of others, this year? Many have that same strange power.
Ugh! One shouldn't waste a lot of time being an OCDing or being a hypocondriac about death. There are EMS, doctors, morticians, coroners, and many professionals whose job is to professionally handle such events. If you have the money, pay for your funeral arrangements and then proceed to try and avoid them being used for as long as you can.
As far ar the 80s go well there are people that where born and die all the time after the 80s and before the 80s or any time period you can to name so, well, it's not that you were more guilty or insensitive then, it's that you were more innocently ignorant. Personally, I don't hear of famous peoples's death via the news as I avoid the news; most of them I've heard via these forums.
I do know I don't want to be that person buying the 'Year in Deaths' at the end of the year from our news media organizations as it seems too unseemly to be profiting long after the fact from others' grief.
You articulated that so well. It's sometimes hard for us to explain why losing someone we've never met can hit is in a way that is usually reserved for people we know personally. But when you have a person who, due to what they did in their lives, heavily INFLUENCED US, even helped shape us into the person we've become, that is HUGE - regardless if you knew that person personally or not. If what a person did, through their art, moved you, helped you develop your ideals, helped shape your values ...that person has an irreplaceable impact on your life.
I grew up in a really racist family. But Michael Jackson's music helped shape me into a person that my family wouldn't or couldn't - a person that embraced all people, no mater our differences. And Robin Williams, through his art, was there for me during my dark days. During some deep depression - even helping me to laugh when I thought that things where too dark to allow for laughter. His body of work thought me a lot growing up. That's why losing Robin Williams and Michael Jackson hit me so hard. These people influenced me and helped shape me into who I am.
We don't have to know someone personally to be deeply effected by the realization that they no longer exist in the world. And that they will never again create something new that will shape you or touch you or make you see things a little bit differently than before you experienced it.
Sorry - tried to link a facebook image but didn't work.
Try this (it will mean more to our British members):
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/11/12/23/3A4FE2B600000578-3930820-image-m-13_1478991661151.jpg
Just a way of "thinning the crops". Gotta make room for all the incoming newborns.
Well, with all due respect to the artists themselves but I also think it's fair to say that many haven't exactly followed very healthy lifestyles. And that can, and will, have it's effects. Obviously that doesn't make it any less sad, but I do think that in some cases one shouldn't be too surprised either.
Healthy lifestyles are all well and good. But one can lead the healthiest of lives to avoid dying of this or that, but at the end do you really want to die of nothing?
And the next in line: Carrie Fisher
Seriously. I'd easily give up the Cubs winning the World Series (in an incredibly exciting game for those who follow baseball) for just half the deaths (and a few other ... changes...) we've had this year...
I think what's hardest about all of these deaths is that so many of them define my generation. It's music I grew up on, actors I remember fondly from those old sitcoms, and of course Princess Leia was a huge part of my childhood (I was four when A New Hope was released). I almost feel like I'm watching my youth crumbling away a piece at a time.
In the UK, we've also lost another actress called Liz Smith. She was a serious actress, but she's mostly well known for her role as Nanna in a TV comedy called "The Royle Family". Also, the authour of Watership Down, Richard Adams, has died too. As well as a lady called Vera Rubin. She was a scientist who helped to discover Dark Matter. The difference is that, the people that I have listed were aged 85-95.
The loss of Carrie Fisher has hit me. But that's probably because she's the same age as my Mum. Carrie Fisher seemed like such a nice and wonderful lady and, like many, I loved her as Leia in the Star Wars films. Especially:
"Why, you stuck up... half-witted... scruffy-looking... Nerf-herder!"
My heart just hurts. I was seven when the first Star Wars movie came out. I saw it in a packed theater on opening weekend. What an experience. No one had ever seen anything like it, everyone cheered the good guys and booed the bad ones.
I remember watching that huge screen, thrilled to see a strong female character who was brave enough to stand up to Darth Vader and risk death for what she believed in. There were so few strong females in tv and movies back then. She was one of them. I remember wanting to be brave like that, fighting for what I believed in.
Maybe she was "just an actress" but she played MY hero. It's so hard to let her go.
This one is an especially hard one; she was one of my first celebrity autographs. My group of friends used to watch in the San Francisco Chronicle for two theaters, the Coronet and Northpoint. When they were closed for a special event, it generally meant that LucasFilm was having a screening. We had hoped to go the the benefit for the UC Berkeley’s Pacific Film Archive for the Empire Strikes Back but couldn’t afford it so we decided to stand in front of the Coronet in the hope of seeing someone. A 20th Century Fox rep came out and asked us if we wanted to see a film. We said sure! We entered surrounded by reporters from the New York Times, Newsweek, Time Magazine and others. They gave us a nifty press packet, and a tee-shirt. We watched the movie and loved it. As we prepared to leave, Miss Fisher was there greeting people as they departed. My rule is that you have to get them to speak to you when you get the autograph. I remembered that she had just married Paul Simon so I asked her what was like being newly married. I got a lovely five minute conversation though all I remember was how low her voice was, how petite she was, and how lovely her skin was. She graciously signed the press packet which sits in a drawer which I haven’t opened in years.
This... Its a reminder of our own mortaliy creeping up on us. A reminder for many of us that are no longer young..
What a wonderful memory! Thank you for sharing it with us.
And 2016 has claimed even one more: http://www.aol.com/article/entertainment/2016/12/27/actress-carrie-fisher-dead-at-60/21642781/
The other one that hit me hard this year was Gene Wilder. Taking Willy Wonka and Princess Leia in the same year is just mean!
Not only that, my dad looks so much like Gene Wilder. Same crazy hair, same expressions, some of the same bizarre humor (maybe that's where I get it from!) I was heartbroken to hear Gene died. I told my dad he better take care of himself. He's supposed to live forever.