Stargazer

Keyboard player for Pink Floyd, Richard Wright, has died.

Very sad news:

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1592489/20080810/hayes_isaac.jhtml

Bernie Mac passed away this weekend also:

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hX00V4huhbyfZ94QQsMhzWmpf9nQD92FJNDG0

My mom called me around 11:30 pm (nearly two hours ago) to tell me my dad, Wayne McCoy, had died. Back in early May, he'd had a case of acute pancreatitis and had been in the hospital since then. He got worse, then he got better, then worse, then better... he was scheduled for surgery next week to clean out some of necrotic tissue around his pancreas. But today, they found he was having trouble breathing and discovered a cyst on his pancreas had become septic -- very infected. They were going to try to give him some experimental treatment with antibiotics, but the bacteria were stronger than his failing body. He would have been 70 in October.

I'd actually gone down to see him a couple of weeks ago, a quick flight to Florida one day and then a flight back the next. He was in bad shape then, on a dialysis machine, several IVs and other machines and lots of tubes going into him. It was tragic to see him like that. Up until May, he was still full of life. Not two days before he went into the hospital, I'd talked to him and my mother via a Skype video call, on Mother's Day. They were going to come up here to Maryland the last week of June (last week) to visit, after seeing my brother perform in Aida in New York. That had gotten cancelled, obviously.

He lived a good and happy life, I will say. His love of music especially he imparted onto all of his children. He was also a skilled artist and was finishing up a novel and preparing it for publication. And to the very end, he was still very liberal and a staunch atheist and influenced me greatly in my skepticism and rational world view.

For anyone here in the DC area who knew him, I am going to organize some kind of memorial service or wake or something very soon. More details will be forthcoming.

George Carlin died yesterday. This video is a good representation of Carlin's wit and intellectual insight and how he could smell BS a mile away.



RIP George

Just read that comedian Harvey Korman passed away:

http://www.imdb.com/news/ni0242561/

Just read that SF/Fantasy author Robert Lynn Asprin died. He was also known as Yang the Nauseating and was one of the Founders of the Dark Horde in the SCA.

This was posted on the Kingdom of Caid mailing list:

"I've just received word through DI channels that Robert Lynn Asprin died
suddenly today, on his way to Marcon.

This was the man who founded both the Dark Horde and the Dorsai Irregulars --
and via the intricate twists of the Foglios' brains, was therefore an
important ingredient (as far as I'm concerned, anyway) in the development
of the Jagerkin.

This is a man who rode out Katrina in the French Quarter, and his only
complaints were that the beer was warm and his toilet wouldn't flush.

Raise a glass to Yang the Nauseating -- we'll not see his like again. Shai
Dorsai".

I quite enjoyed his 'Myth Adventures' books as well as the 'Thieves World' series he was editor for.

Just read that Heath Ledger was found dead in his Manhattan apartment, but can't find any more details on it.

EDIT: http://www.wtopnews.com/?nid=114&sid=1331048

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/arts/21cnd-pleshette.html?hp

Just read that Vampira has died:

http://blogging.la/archives/2008/01/rip_vampira_aka_maila_nurmi.phtml

Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person to climb Mt. Everest, has died at the age of 88

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aQdpjcc3T6ZY&refer=home

One thing of note he did recently was show up on a location shoot during the filming of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings... it was caught on tape also and appears on one of the Special Edition documentaries. Everyone on the set crowded around him like giggly school girls at a pop concert and got autographs and all.