IN EAST OF EDEN, one of several works vying to be his magnum opus, John Steinbeck argues there is only one story in all history, one theme underlying every human life: in their own hearts, did they choose good? Or evil? At the beginning of a new year that hasn’t quite started yet because it’s a bank holiday today, here are some folks I’ll miss and a few I’d have shot myself.
Marcelle Cook, under 40: Barbados’ and Brown Sugar restaurant’s lovely, warm, caring and bright proprietor was cruelly subtracted on Christmas Day itself, an act of God that will give rise to next Monday’s column by the Rev. BC Pires, Sermon on the Blunt, but for now, I simply note her passing with a heavy heart.
Christopher Hitchens, 62: the writer best known as the star Vanity Fair columnist and the scourge of any believer in a debate on God and religion, brought great erudition to bear upon everything from American manners through the King James Version of the Bible to the cancer that killed him; why God didn’t take a few dozen imams, priests and pastors instead is beyond me.
Steve Jobs, 56: in the iPod, iPhone and iPad, he may have done the most to advance learning since Gutenberg invented the printing press.
Amy Winehouse, 28: if she’d actually gone to rehab, would we have the song? She may have lived a lot longer if she’d cut the excess, but I’m still jamming Jimi Hendrix every day of life, and he died at the same age as her in 1970! She’ll share vocals with Gil Scott-Heron, the poet-musician who first said, “The revolution will not be televised”, in a dead rock ’n’ roll band including Clarence Clemons, 69, the E-Street Band’s saxman, Thin Lizzy’s Gary Moore playing lead guitar, percussionist Ralph MacDonald, 67, who wrote the song, Just The Two Of Us for Trinidad and Tobago, with Gerry Rafferty (Baker Street) playing rhythm guitar and singing backup with Dobie Gray (Drift Away), and Jeri Leiber (Hound Dog) and Dan Peek (A Horse With No Name) writing songs.
The club bouncer will be Jake Lamotta, the boxer who inspired the Martin Scorsese/Robert De Niro film Raging Bull, who will be filed under “Art”, not “Sport”, like:
Basil D’Oliveira, 80: the South African-born English cricketer who precipitated world awareness of apartheid kicked the bucket.
Peter Roebuck, 55, the English cricketer/Aussie sportswriter, next to whom I often sat in Press boxes, took his own life while in Eastern Europe, and the world lost Vaclav Havel, 75, Czech playwright and politician.
I reckon Peter Wickham will miss George Gallup Jr, 81, the pollster who gave him a gig.
Sidney Lumet: director of Dog Day Afternoon and Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead, two of the most original heist flicks ever made.
The film world also lost Ken Russell, 84, Tommy and Altered States director; Peter Yates, 81, director of Breaking Away and Bullitt; Peter Falk, 83, the best American TV detective ever (Columbo); and the great Elizabeth Taylor, 79.
On the plus side, Kim Jong-il and Osama Bin Laden, responsible for the deaths of many thousands, finally snuffed it or were snuffed out; but the murder of Muammar Gaddafi suggests one dictator may be gone but Libya will remain much the same.
• BC Pires was crossing his fingers up to Press time that the entire Republican Party might croak.
