Wow, interesting. I just recently saw Blade and the Sinead clip where he comforted her like a week ago.
Two significant sports deaths today. The infamous but also legendary baseball man Pete Rose has died at 83. Long life, not shocking. But Dikembe Mutombo also died today at the age of 58. Brain cancer. That really stinks.
I've waited on them both. Back in my casino days, late 90s. I used to bring Pete Rose his racing forms. He was still denying the gambling allegations but spent a lot of time in casinos. Dikembe was hanging out with Dominique Wilkins, IIRC. They were, uh, tall. Really tall.
I mostly remember his songs - Help Me Make It Through the Night, Sunday Morning Coming Down, and of course Me and Bobby McGee.
Definitely one of the best songwriters in the business. One of my favorites was one called "Here Comes That Rainbow Again," in which he compressed two pages of a scene in Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath" into something like twenty lines. It's the only song I know with the theme of "random acts of kindness." It's been recorded by many people, but the best one was done by Leo Kottke and Emmylou Harris:
Yeah, it’s weird. I'm in my early 50s but only lately learned that he used to be a big name A-list star. Growing up I was vaguely aware of him, thought the doubled name was odd and possibly affected, but had no idea he had been a Big Deal. I remember him from films like Millennium and Blade, neither of which were really Oscar caliber. Only after he died did I learn that he wrote Me and Bobby McGee.
