2011 in Review: Top Five Worst Deaths

As noted in a previous blog entry, this was a year in which some truly horrible and death-worthy people died.  But it was also a year in which some great and visionary people died.

5	REM I’m not going to apologize for their being the significant college band of my college days.  Yes, they are mostly a parody of themselves now.  But back before MTV would show them, they were greatness.  RIP World Leader Pretend.
4	Peter Falk Columbo is one of my all-time favorite shows of all time forever, always.  And that would not be the case without the greatest of Peter Falk.  And try to find a funnier movie in the 70s than The InLaws.
3	Christopher Hitchens One of the great thinkers of the last half century.  His writings in The Nation, Slate and The Atlantic were go to articles for me the past decade.  I wish I was 1/10th as literate as he.
2	Steven Jobs There were personal computers before the Mac, There were MP3 players before the iPod.  There were smart phones before the iPhone.  There were tablet computers before the iPad.  But, through his leadership and guidance, the gold standard for all of those products were set.  If only more tech companies would follow his ethic of “we’re not going to sell crap that’s barely usable”.
1	Valcav Havel There certainly is something romantic about a writer leading his country against socialist totalitarians and into freedom and democracy.  It doesn’t hurt that I’ve personally seen the greatest that is the modern Czech Republic.   Mmmmmm beer and pork knuckle.   What???

2011 in Review: Top Five Best Deaths

This was a great year for horrible people to die. Or for great characters to die horribly.  As morbid as it may seem, this is a list of my favorite deaths of 2011.

 

 

5	Muammar Quadafi – Sirte, Libya  Finally our long national struggle to spell his name the same way twice is over.
4	Osama bin Laden – Abbotabad, Pakistan My Tea Party friends tell me killing bin Laden is the only good thing Barack Hussein Obama has ever done. OK, I don’t have any friends in the Tea Party. And by “friends in the Tea Party”, I mean “friends”.
3	Kim Jong-Il – Pyongyang, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Truly one of the most horrible humans in a family of horrible humans.  He let his people starve as he ate and drank and fucked like a king.  But I hear it was an excellent golfer.  And he was most certainly a snazzy dresser.
1 (Tie)	Gustavo Fring and Uncle Tio – Santa Fe, NM *Spoiler Alert* But really, this happened months ago.  And if you’re not on board with Breaking Bad by now, then too bad*. They essentially died together.  Although Gus lasted a few glorious seconds longer.  And I included Uncle Tio because I was having a hard time coming up with a fifth great death. And this is as good of a time as any to go off on my Gus Fring rant.  While Breaking Bad is the greatest TV show ever (sorry about that. The Wire, you’ve been usurped), the character of Gus Fring, no matter how great he was, was simply unbelievable.  One becomes a drug lord for the money, the glamor the women and the power.  Not to pretend to be a manager of a chicken joint.

* But if this has persuaded you to try Breaking Bad and you wish to order the first season on Blu-Ray, may I recommend this link -- Breaking Bad: The Complete First Season [Blu-ray]