It’s that top ten list time of year and I love it. Every publication puts out their compilation of top ten movies of the year. Top ten books. Inventions. Stylish people. Songs. Dead people. And while I scour them all to validate my choices and opinions – yes, I saw all those movies and they were good so I‘m clearly not wasting my life in dark rooms devouring popcorn and Junior Mints, and no I haven’t read any of those books because I’ve been too busy writing brilliant blog posts, but I’ll order them all and pile them up on my night stand so I wake up looking well rested and well-read. Yes, I agree Halo Top ice cream is a brilliant invention that deserves its place between robots that care for the elderly and disease cures. Yes, I bought those shoes the Olsen twins wore only at Zara and they were $2000 cheaper. Yes, I get it – DAMN is a good album but it makes me anxious and I can’t sing along or clap when I’ve drunk all of my top ten list of favorite wines. But I can’t help wonder if Death is a little disappointed with his list this year. I say this with greatest of respect to those who left us listing things here on earth, but 2016 was a bumper year for Death.
He carved through the world of the famous and brilliant like it was a Black Friday sale at a Westfield Mall, and he got an extra shot in his Starbucks Venti Limited Edition Peppermint Mocha (which is also no longer with us). He hit the music stores snatching Bowie, Glen Frey, Phife Dawg, he steered his cart like a little red corvette to Prince, Leonard Cohen and said wham bam thank you sir and m’am while he took George Michael – and the best use of white shorts on a man – away from us forever. He hit the sporting goods store grabbing the great Mohammed Ali and Arnold Palmer.
He piled his cart up high in the entertainment section snagging Alan Rickman, Gene Wilder and Alan Thicke, for laughs he took Ronnie Corbett and Victoria Wood, and even made it into the less visited literary section taking Harper Lee and AA Gill.
He took the man who invented a way to prevent death, Henry Heimlich, throwing him a heart attack for some irony. And then he rounded it all off, taking the great Carrie Fischer and Debbie Reynolds. He had the obit writers getting writers cramp. I mean he wasn’t an elegant, Rick Owens draped Grim Reaper. He was a bombastic badass that should have got a JLaw kind of GReap hashtag.
2017, by comparisons has been light, if there is such a thing as Death Lite. He stole gems. No one will ever make free falling as joyful as Tom Petty, no one will ever make laughter as warm as Mary Tyler Moore, Bond as delightfully cool as Roger Moore, no one will ever make the words out of cowboys mouths as perfectly formed and matched together as Sam Shepherd – this list is edited – but even in long form it’s light. It feels like the obit writers got off easy.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not wishing for the untimely passing of any of the great heroes of our time. Maybe I just want to taunt GReap for 2016. Say thanks for the much gentler reminder in 2017 that we are not here forever. That we should aspire to be as great as the folks who land up on these lists. And aspire to leave behind as much that is meaningful. We need to make our obits easy to write. Maybe I also want to say thanks for giving us all some time to deal with some figurative deaths, like the timely demise of the sexual harasser. Or maybe I just wanted to write a blog post that ponders something somewhat ridiculous and will maybe land me on a list of most ridiculous bloggers.
Either way, it’s also a good time to say happy New Year everyone. Be brilliant and careful out there. And don’t be too sad the Starbucks Peppermint Mocha is no longer with us, it will be reincarnated again in November.
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