Death Be Not Slack
Every time a celebrity dies an angel gets wings.
Every time a major rock star or performer dies in 2024 people launch tirades on social media. 2024 is the worst year for death ever. But is it?
Bowie, Prince, Fish, Shandling, my girlfriend’s dog. They all died and it’s just the tip of the iceberg. The truth is that every year displays a profound loss of the people who made our lives sane and who spoke or wrote the words that made our lives better.
For example, let’s take the year John Lennon died, 1980. In addition to Lennon the world also lost Alfred Hitchcock, Jesse Owens, Mae West, Henry Miller, Peter Sellers, Steve McQueen, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Colonel Sanders.
Or how about 2024? Jack Lemmon, Carol O’Connor, George Harrison, Aaliyah, Ray Walston, and Mohamed Atta all spun off this mortal coil.
What about if social media had been around in 1962? That was a year for the history books. Marilyn Monroe, Eleanor Roosevelt, Hermann Hesse, William Faulkner, and Lucky Luciano.
How about 1968? Helen Keller, Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy, John Steinbeck, Edna Ferber. There is no good year to die.
Or how about the year after, 1969? Brian Jones, Ho Chi-Minh, Boris Karloff, Dwight Eisenhower, Jack Kerouac, Sharon Tate, and Judy Garland. Every year gives and takes.
Fast forward to 1977: Groucho Marx, Elvis Presley, Anaïs Nin, Leopold Stokowski, Steve Biko, Joan Crawford, Maria Callas, and Bing Crosby. Life is not fair.
As of this article in 2024, on April 24, the world population is 7.4-billion (and counting). Today alone will witness over 37,000 births and over 16,000 deaths. It ain’t easy being green.
What a wonderful world it would be if there was a social media site that celebrated the demise of the unknown, the unloved, and the unrequited.
— Michael Bergeron
- Lemon of Troy
