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The Top Ten Deaths Of 2012

A note about the Mousemas Eve fundraiser:

Backers: 4
$115.00 Pledged of $500 Goal
3 Days to go

I received no donations yesterday. This is mildly disturbing. Why? Because I went ahead and preemptively bought the 34-person party bus for Monday night, so now I’m out $750. Even if I get 34 people on the bus, and they each pay $20, that’ll leave me $70 short of the cost of the bus. And whether or not people actually pay when they say they’re going to? That’s a big IF. None of you want to see me incur a huge bill, right? A big Christmas bill that I can’t afford to pay by myself? SO DONATE TO MOUSEMAS EVE 2012! It’s as easy as clicking that big DONATE button on the right-side column of this page. Or you can click here if you’re really lazy.

In all honesty though, don’t you enjoy reading this website? Aren’t you appreciative of the music I share with you? And the stories? Have I made you laugh at all in 2012? Have I turned you onto a band or album you were not previously aware of? Well, now’s the time to pay it forward and thank me for all that I’ve done for you. Or, hell, consider it an act of charity because I’m too poor to be going around buying party busses I can’t afford. Again, as of 6:45pm tonight 950 people have looked at this blog. If all of you donated $5 I’d be able to fly my sister out here to celebrate Mousemas Eve with me. I’m not going to, but my point is, we’ve still got quite a hill to climb before we reach my measly $500 goal. And now there are only three days left to achieve that goal. In case any of you have forgotten, here is a link to last year’s video that depicts how amazing Mousemas Eve is, and here is a link to the rewards you’ll receive for pledging some money to this year’s Mousemas Eve celebration. Remember, donating is as easy as clicking the little button on the right-hand side of this page that says “Donate Via PayPal” and then sending me some amount of money. It really is that simple.

***

Fuck Whitney Houston. Fuck Andrew Breitbart. Fuck Dick Clark. And Mike Wallace. And Davy Jones. And Robin Gibb. And Junior Seau. And Adam Yauch. Fuck all those famous people who stole the headlines with their shocking or saddening deaths. Famous people die just like the rest of us. Sometimes in their sleep, sometimes on the shitter, and apparently more than I thought drown. No joke, I think I read about at least 15 public figures who drowned between the months of January and July. I only got through half the year and I found some ridiculous stories. Maybe we avoided the apocalypse in 2012, but there was no avoiding certain death for hundreds — maybe even thousands — of public figures across the globe this year. Take for example Mr. Sukumar Azhikode, described on Wikipedia as “85, Indian writer, critic, orator, cancer.” What does that mean, like…he was a cancer on society? That’s a really harsh obituary if it is i fact true. Almost as bad as Kandi Barbour, who is simply described as “56, American pornographic actress.” Hmm…I wonder how she held up in her later years. Holy shit, she was found dead on a street in San Francisco? She was living on the streets at the time? Yeah, that’s brutal. I would definitely NOT want to hit them skins in her final days if she was a crusty street woman. No thank you. I’ve had enough close calls in my sex life to flirt with what I imagine would be certain disaster.

By the way, 2012 was NOT a good year for cartoonists. Al Rio, 49, Brazil, was found dead and the cause of death was determined to be suicide by hanging. Blaine, a Canadian political cartoonist, died at the age of 74. Ernie Chan the Filipino-born American comic book artist died too. So did Robert L. Washington III! Vicar, 77, Chile, died in January after a long battle with leukemia. Carlos Loiseau, 63, was an Argentine cartoonist who died of cancer. He did not have as cool a name as Vicar, though. There were a bunch of interesting names that turned up dead in 2012. Like M.R.D. Foot, or the Mexican wrestler MS-1. Lithuanian basketballer Stasys Stonkus (if he appears in the next iteration of NBA Live I’m so buying that game), MARTHA STEWART (not THAT Martha Stewart), Van T. Barfoot, Jaap Boersma, Widjojo Nitisastro, Tan Boon Teik (died of internal bleeding, I wonder if he fell down some stairs in a bar like my sister did last month), Bodjie Dasig, P.S. Appu, Dick Wearmouth, Tippy Dye (sure did!), Viro the Virus (is that his real name? Honestly?), Dwayne Schintzius (noooo! He was one of my favorite New Jersey Nets when I cared about basketball!), Ngô ?ình L? Quyên (yeah, I don’t know how to pronounce that either), Shanmugasundari,

Not as cool as my #10 death of the year, though. Which brings us to this year’s installment of…

The Top Ten Deaths Of 2012

10. Eleftherios Katsaitis (d. 6 January 2012) – Greek born British orthodox hierarch, auxiliary bishop of Archdiocese of Great Britain. How did he die? HE WAS SMOTHERED. How fucking insane is that!? I can’t even imagine. This is like some DaVinci Code shit. A bishop gets smothered, no signs of forced entry? At the very least it’s reminiscent of David Morrell’s 1991 thriller The Covenant Of The Flame. Right? Who else here has read THAT book? Am I the only one, really?

09. Leslie Carter (d. January 31, 2012) – If her Wikipedia entry is any indication, the world lost a great piece of ass on the last day of January this year. I don’t know anything about this girl other than she was 25 and she liked to party (she died of a drug overdose). Too bad. She could’ve come out to LA and had a good time…

08. Hirotada Hayase (d. 7 May 2012) – Japanese track and field athlete (1960 summer olympics), blood poisoning – I know what blood poisoning is — I’m not an idiot — but doesn’t it sound like the most malicious thing ever? I mean, cyanide poisoning sounds scientific…but blood poisoning? It’s, like, HOW DID THEY GET INTO HIS BLOOD!? It just sounds implausible, crazy, like it should be the most feared-yet-respected way to kill a man imaginable. I hate to say “Good job, Hirotada” because he’s dead, but, damn. What a way to go.

07. Erica Marshall – 28-year-old British veterinarian in Florida, died when the horse she was treating in a nearby high-oxygen chamber kicked the wall, releasing a spark from its horseshoes and triggering an explosion. That’s just fucked up right there. Almost as fucked up as writing an obituary for a dog, like Lex. “A fully fit military working dog,” and the first active duty dog to be granted early retirement. By the way, working for his handler in Iraq the dog was wounded in an attack and earned an honorary Purple Heart. The injuries he incurred included “approximately 50 pieces of shrapnel that remain[ed] in his body despite treatment.” That’s just fucked up. Let the dog die when it’s in pain. Don’t try to rehabilitate it for two years just so it can die of cancer. That’s the most depressing fucking thing I’ve ever read.

06. Colin Ireland (d. 21 February 2012) – A British serial killer known as the “Gay Slayer” (what an embarrassing nickname!) because his victims were all homosexual men. Oh, wait. That’s not so embarrassing. It’d be better if he was called the “Gay Slayer” because he slit guy’s throats and then dressed them up in nice clothes and did their nails and blew them. That’s pretty gay, right? Oddly enough, Colin wasn’t the only convicted serial killer to die this year. Geoffrey Evans — one of Ireland’s longest-serving prisoners — died as well. According to Wikipedia, “He had been known for vowing to kill a woman a week. He died in a hospital on 20 May 2012 at the age of 69.” Lamest Wikipedia entry EVER.

05. Gemma McCluskie (d. March 2012) – Usually when I run through these death notices they say things like, “Shot” or “Shooting” or “Suicide by gunshot” or “Fell on some bullets.” But McCluskie is unique because her little Wikipedia obit simply said, “Homicide.” God, that sounds so cool. Maybe it’s just presupposition, but “Homicide” definitely impresses more than “Shot” does. I feel like I’m watching an episode of CSI when I read about a homicide. I feel like maybe I’m learning about an America’s Funniest Home Video gone awry when I read about a shooting. Sorry, Gemma. I’m sure you were hot while you were alive.

04. Friedhelm Konietzka (d. 12 March 2012) – He was a German football striker (that’s a soccer guy who kicks the ball towards the goal, right?) and he died via assisted suicide. Pretty cool! Not as cool as, say, Thomas Kinkade, who died via consumption of alcohol and Valium. See, that’s how I’d go if I had a chance. Just a nice and easy sleep that you never wake up from. Then again, I’d never entertain thoughts of killing myself because there’s no point in it. I enjoy my misery too much. I’m a masochist like that. I would NOT choose to die like Nepali actress Meenakshi Thapar, who was kidnapped by an actor who had a minor role in her film, then strangled and decapitated. That could be worse than 14-year-old Indian actress Taruna Sachdev, who died in a plane crash in Nepal. Ugh.

03. Ron Shock (d. 17 May 2012) – First of all, Ron Shock seems like the last name I would ever use if I were a comedian. If I saw them both on a bill, I might think that seeing “Carrot Top” perform was preferable to the guy named “Ron Shock.” That said, he died of urethral cancer, which I think is dickhole cancer. Jesus, you can get cancer in your dickhole now? Great…there goes my ability to get any sleep for the rest of my life.

02. Uroko Onoja – “Nigerian polygamist businessman, died after being forced by five of his six wives to have sex with each of them. Onoja was caught having sex with his youngest wife by the remaining five, who were jealous of him paying her more attention. The remaining wives demanded that he also have sex with each of them, threatening him with knives and sticks. He had intercourse with four of them in succession, but stopped breathing before having sex with the fifth.28-year-old British veterinarian in Florida, died when the horse she was treating in a nearby high-oxygen chamber kicked the wall, releasing a spark from its horseshoes and triggering an explosion.” What a way to go, amiright guys!?

01. Tom Maynard (d. 18 June 2012) – “Maynard’s car was stopped by police in London at around 4 am BST on 18 June 2012, when they saw it being driven erratically. Maynard subsequently fled the scene. At approximately 5 am,[10] he was killed when he was electrocuted on a railway line near Wimbledon Park Station in south London.” Listen, I know a lot of people who have done a lot of things to get away from the cops when they’ve been drinking and driving, but killing yourself via electrocution is not appealing in the least. Fuck, man…electrocution. Is there a worse way to go? I guess maybe he could have gone like American naval officer and astronaut Alan G. Poindexter, who died due to injuries sustained in a jet ski accident in Little Sabine Bay off the coast of Florida. And you’re telling me this guy was a NASA astronaut? Geeez. Nice one, Poindexter!

Death In June – Blood Of Winter [MP3]