Outside Pissing In: Charles A. Hohman’s Deranged Ravings, Cravings and Gravings

Oh, it is on, motherfuckers!

It’s a brand new year, so let’s talk about death! Last year was my best deathlist since 2005 (if you go by names) and 2003 (if you go by points). Four of my top ten perished, including the top two (Bo Diddley and Charlton Heston, respectively), plus numbers six and seven (Earl Butz and Estelle Getty, resp.). Per usual, the lower shelves faired worse, adding only one more kill (Margaret Truman, number 4 on the middle shelf). And I had a couple of embarrassing ill-fated moves, picking Tony Martin instead of his wife, and Tom Kennedy instead of his older brother. Nevertheless, I still beat Gavin senseless, and made a respectable if unremarkable showing.

While it was not a remarkable year for my deathlist, 2008 was a pretty remarkable year for celebrity death: full of too-young holy-shit surprises (Ledger, Russert, Carlin, Mac, Hayes), and seismic names among the older folks (Newman, Heston, Buckley). Looking back, I cannot recall a year since I’ve followed the death game, not even the non-stop death feast of 2003, when so many stars died while they were still relevant. What’s surprising about 2008 is that death was not only fertile, but unpredictable: only one of stiffs.com’s top ten most popular 08 deathpool names ended up actually dying. And for such a productive year, 2008 eliminated relatively few nonagenarians. Hell, if we judged the year strictly on the 85+ crowd, it would have been mediocre, even disappointing. Instead, we’re saying farewell to an exciting, amazing year in death, and I hope 2009 continues rather than reverses this upswing.

Moreover, last year, back when this list didn’t go beyond MySpace, I prefaced my deathlist with a rant about reporting false deaths. Yet after January’s Slim Whitman fiasco (in which The Tennesseean prematurely killed off the country singer, and a number of reputable death sites jumped the gun and reported it), 2008 was largely devoid of credible death hoaxes. I mean, nobody really believed that Miley Cyrus had actually died.

But enough backward-thinking: here’s a glimpse of what I predict (and hope) the 2009 deathscape will look like. For strangers and lurkers, here’s what this is all about. The following is a list of thirty celebrities I think will die in 2009, ranked in order of likelihood. The top shelf is the main list used for competitive purposes, unless I’m competing with someone using multiple lists, or lists greater than ten. The second list is a credible list, the one I’d submit if the first ten people were all in the same plane crash or something, and the third is more for fun, based on hunches and gambles and shrugs. As a rule, I don’t repeat names in consecutive years, so none of 2008’s still-living contenders are game, though a few from older lists do reappear. The lists are in descending order, meaning number one is ten points all the way to number ten being one point. Or if you want to look as it as a top thirty list, number one on top shelf would be worth 30 points, and number ten on the bottom shelf would be worth a single point. But I’m at the point where I’ve just stopped counting the points.

I dream of one day having the disposable income to enter an online death pool (probably stiffs.com, the most reputable such pool I’ve found), and start competing for money and glory, but those big-league pros remain intimidating. The probable 08 victor doubled my number of successful names, and I’d much rather wipe the floor with amateurs than pony up dough to get my clock cleaned and my ego trounced. So behold: Charles A. Hohman’s 2009 deathlist!   

TOP SHELF

1. Robert Novak
CURRENT AGE (as of January 1, 2009): 77
CLAIM TO FAME: Arch-conservative commentator (Crossfire and other CNN programs) and columnist; Valerie Plame rat; Grade-A douchebag and Daily Show punchline
WHY HE’LL DIE: Resigned from “journalism” due to malignant brain tumor; prognosis is dire; eyebrows may also be eating away brain cells

2. John Wooden
CURRENT AGE: 98
CLAIM TO FAME: Legendary UCLA basketball coach; two-time Basketball Hall of Famer; quotable self-helpster; so beloved in Indiana that even Birch Bayh bows down to him
WHY HE’LL DIE: Supervised 24/7 after a nasty fall in 2008; suffered bleeding in the colon in 2007; not at all young

3. Nate Dogg
CURRENT AGE: 39
CLAIM TO FAME: Smooth-voiced G-funk singer; provides the hook on countless classic hip-hop songs including “Regulate,” “Area Codes,” “Can’t Deny It”; Da Bomb Blunts spokesman
WHY HE’LL DIE: Reportedly paralyzed and using a breathing tube after two strokes within a year; was on life support for a while; recovery seems unlikely

4. Robert Byrd
CURRENT AGE: 91
CLAIM TO FAME: Senior U.S. Senator from West Virginia; current President pro Tempore of the Senate; will mark his fiftieth year in the Senate in just a couple days; reformed Klansman and segregationist
WHY HE’LL DIE: Multiple hospitalizations throughout 2008; recently stepped down as Appropriations Committee Chairman due to health concerns; he looks like he’s about 135

5. Zsa Zsa Gabor
CURRENT AGE: 91
CLAIM TO FAME: Serial bride/occasional actress/cop-slapping headline-courting socialite; a dubious celebrity before the age of dubious celebrities, and she claims that Paris Hilton’s great-granddad raped her
WHY SHE’LL DIE: Suffered a debilitating 2005 stroke, which has triggered several subsequent surgeries. And living with that Prinz von whatshisface can’t possibly be good for her health.  

6. Conrad Bain
CURRENT AGE: 85
CLAIM TO FAME: Actor best known as Mr. Drummond on Diff’rent Strokes and Dr. Arthur Harmon on Maude; insufficient mentor to troubled youth; has a brother named Bonar
WHY HE’LL DIE: Looked to be deterioriating at his last public appearance, which was the 2004 TV Land Awards; hasn’t acted in over ten years

7. Oscar Niemeyer
CURRENT AGE: 101
CLAIM TO FAME: Influential Brazilian modernist architect and Pritzker laureate; designed much of Brasilia before a 20-year exile; returned to become president of the Brazilian Communist Party
WHY HE’LL DIE: He’s old enough to not only remember the Bolshevik Revolution; he can remember its impact on his life. Still working even into his three-digit age, despite considerable criticism of recent works; married to a woman forty years his junior

8. Prince Philip
CURRENT AGE: 87
CLAIM TO FAME: Husband/consort to Queen Elizabeth II, daddy to Prince Charles, loose-tongued liability to the British Royal Family; will become longest-serving consort in April
WHY HE’LL DIE: Hospitalized for a chest infection in 2008, allegedly being treated for prostate cancer, has suffered a heart condition since 1992; keeps a busy public appearance schedule despite all this, and the shame of fathering Prince Charles

9. Elizabeth Edwards
CURRENT AGE: 59
CLAIM TO FAME: Recently beleaguered political wife, retired law clerk and a healthcare advisor to the Obama campaign
WHY SHE’LL DIE: Her 2004 breast cancer has spread to other body parts, and has been deemed “treatable, but not curable.” And really, her embarrassed, betrayed heart is probably in even worse shape than her organs.

10. Dan Seals
CURRENT AGE: 60
CLAIM TO FAME: The England Dan of soft-rock also-rans England Dan and John Ford Coley (“I’d Really Love to See You Tonight”); brother of the Seals and Crofts guy (that’s Jim Seals); successful country music star in late-80’s (“Meet Me in Montana”)
WHY HE’LL DIE: Undergoing radiation treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, probably from all that not talking about the linen

MIDDLE SHELF

1. Jim Otto
CURRENT AGE: 70
CLAIM TO FAME: Former Oakland Raiders player; member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and among the 100 Greatest Football Players of All-Time; I only know him through his proximity to death for years on end though
WHY HE’LL DIE: Battled prostate cancer since 2002; had a leg amputated in 2007; suffered numerous injuries during his football career; almost died while receiving joint replacements

2. Merle Haggard
CURRENT AGE: 71
CLAIM TO FAME: Country music giant (“Mama Tried,” “If We Make It Through December,” “Okie from Muskogee”); Bakersfield Sound pioneer; reformed jailbird (pardoned by Reagan)
WHY HE’LL DIE: Looks even more, um, haggard than usual; had part of a lung removed to treat lung cancer; cancelled numerous 2008 shows due to illness; gunning to beat George & Willie (both older) to the grave

3. Al Molinaro
CURRENT AGE: 89
CLAIM TO FAME: Character actor best known as Al Delvecchio on Happy Days (and Joanie Loves Chachi) and Murray the Cop on The Odd Couple
WHY HE’LL DIE: Retired from acting in 1992; opted out of a 2005 Happy Days reunion; his possible death is a running joke on the Don and Mike show; has been overweight to obese most of his adult life—now old too

4. Martin Gardner
CURRENT AGE: 94
CLAIM TO FAME: Mathemagician and intellectual smarty-pants; groundbreaking and often controversial critic of pseudoscience and religion, but better known for his “Mathematical Games” puzzles in Scientific American
WHY HE’LL DIE: A declining workload in recent years, and he stayed relatively silent on the historic 2008 election; brainiacs tend not to shut up unless they’re sick or dying (see Studs Terkel)

5. Pinetop Perkins
CURRENT AGE: 95
CLAIM TO FAME: Mississippi-based bluesman; sideman (usually on piano) to Muddy Waters and many great blues artists; began releasing solo albums in 1988 (at age 75)
WHY HE’LL DIE: Has had a jam-packed schedule in his later years; was hit by a train at age 91; recording history spans nearly eighty years

6. Marianne Faithfull
CURRENT AGE: 62
CLAIM TO FAME: Foul-mouthed, famously drug-addled English singer-songwriter and actress; one time Mick Jagger arm candy
WHY SHE’LL DIE: Diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006; cancelled numerous tour dates in 2008; fighting hepatitis C for twelve years; lived a rough life and has sounded like death warmed over since about 1975

7. Dick Francis
CURRENT AGE: 88
CLAIM TO FAME: Insanely prolific (read: formulaic) horse-racing mystery writer (Bonecrack, Whip Hand, Come to Grief); retired jockey (and former jockey to the Queen Mum)
WHY HE’LL DIE: Output minimized since wife/collaborator’s death in 2000; suffered many falls in his racing days; exhausted from lifting his pointless manuscripts

8. Jean Harris
CURRENT AGE: 85
CLAIM TO FAME: Madeira School headmistress best known for murdering the Scarsdale Diet doctor, and becoming a media sensation/cause célèbre during her 14-week trial; her 15-to-life sentence was pardoned in 1992; subject of two TV movies (played by Ellen Burstyn and later Annette Bening)
WHY SHE’LL DIE: Underwent quadruple bypass surgery sixteen years ago; has served hard time; now lives in a retirement home

9. Ben Bradlee
CURRENT AGE: 87
CLAIM TO FAME: Executive editor of The Washington Post from 1968-1991, thus presiding over the Pentagon Papers and Watergate controversies; currently the vice president of the Washington Post; honorary Washington College grad
WHY HE’LL DIE: Looking progressively worse on his periodic Larry King appearances (most recently in the wake of Russert’s death); arguably the oldest major Watergate figure still living (depending how you define major—it was a big scandal)

10. Mindy McCready
CURRENT AGE: 33
CLAIM TO FAME: Briefly successful 90’s country music singer (“Ten Thousand Angels,” “Guys Do It All the Time”) and former Dean Cain fiancé; now better known for a teenage affair with Roger Clemens and a series of tabloid-ready personal dramas
WHY SHE’LL DIE: Has become a no-longer-hot mess thanks to multiple suicide attempts (most recently just a few weeks ago) and numerous arrests and probation violations; is considering a reality show, which seems like a healthy idea

BOTTOM SHELF

1. Michael Jackson
CURRENT AGE: 50
CLAIM TO FAME: The once (and only he believes, future) King of Pop, better known to Generation Y as a noseless, faceless, ghostly child-molesting freak
WHY HE’LL DIE: Few public appearances recently, not even for the Thriller 25^th Anniversary re-release; reportedly in need of a lung transplant and battling a litany of serious ailments. Plus, as Robert Palmers and Ron Careys can attest, the beer critic Michael Jackson died in 2007, and that can’t bode well.

2. Jennifer Jones
CURRENT AGE: 89
CLAIM TO FAME: Oscar-winning actress (The Song of Bernadette); known for racially problematic roles (Duel in the Sun, Love is a-Many Splendored Thing); David O. Selznick protégé and conquest
WHY SHE’LL DIE: Semi-retired since Towering Inferno role in 1974; survived both breast cancer and daughter’s suicide

3. Henry Heimlich
CURRENT AGE: 88
CLAIM TO FAME: The pride of Wilmington, Delaware, and a guy you’ll thank next time a potato chip gets lodged in your windpipe; cousin of the guy who played Potsie (no shit!)
WHY HE’LL DIE: Most people assume he’s dead (they also underestimate the novelty of his namesake Maneuver), so he may as well be. For shiggles, let’s hope he chokes to death.

4. Mike Peters
CURRENT AGE: 49
CLAIM TO FAME: Frontman for righteous 80’s Welsh rockers The Alarm (“Sixty Eight Guns,” “The Stand”)
WHY HE’LL DIE: Suffering from chronic lymphocyctic leukemia since 2005; supposedly in remission, unlike the realization that he’ll never be Bono or Joe Strummer (though he might die at 50 like the latter)

5. The Dalai Lama (the current one)
CURRENT AGE: 73
CLAIM TO FAME: Tibetan spiritual leader; head of the exiled Tibetan government; first Dalai Lama to travel to the West; 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner
WHY HE’LL DIE: Announced his semi-retirement in 2008 after a number of surgeries throughout the year; some speculate he is near death

6. Gloria Vanderbilt
CURRENT AGE: 84
CLAIM TO FAME: Blue-blooded American socialite and celebrated designer, first of papers/textiles and most famously, tight jeans; now better known as Anderson Cooper’s mother
WHY SHE’LL DIE: She’s slept with a lot of men in her 84 years (perhaps the only woman to have slept with Anderson Cooper too); she’s a notorious publicity hound who’s stayed suspiciously under the radar lately, even in the wake of her son’s fame

7. Dom DeLuise
CURRENT AGE: 75
CLAIM TO FAME: Portly comedian best known for his Dean Martin Show routines, Mel Brooks movies (Blazing Saddles, Spaceballs) and as sidekick to Burt Reynolds (Cannonball Run, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas); Paul Prudhomme lookalike
WHY HE’LL DIE: Lifelong weight problem plus dwindling workload promise failing health

 8. Clarence Carter
CURRENT AGE: 72
CLAIM TO FAME: Underrated American soul singer (“Slip Away,” “Patches,” “Strokin’,” “Back Door Santa”)
WHY HE’LL DIE: Blind since birth; official website hasn’t been update since 2006; voracious sexual appetite could wear him out

9. Sarah Miles
CURRENT AGE: 67
CLAIM TO FAME: Eccentric British actress who starred in Blow-Up, received an Oscar nod for Ryan’s Daughter, played the title role in Lady Caroline Lamb (directed by her two-time hubby Robert Bolt), before a murder trial derailed her career (she was acquitted)
WHY SHE’LL DIE: Drinks her own urine; fucked a number of screen legends (Robert Mitchum, Laurence Olivier, Burt Reynolds, Steven Spielberg); per a 2007 interview, still completely batshit

10. John Cleese
CURRENT AGE: 69
CLAIM TO FAME: Iconic and prolific British comedic actor, of Monty Python and Fawlty Towers fame; hosted one of the greatest Muppet Show episodes (“This is your guest…”)
WHY HE’LL DIE: Greg, a better authority on Monty Python matters than I, expects him to die in the next few years, as he’s been looking and sounding less than healthy lately.

All years have their death trends, and subsequently, an extensive deathlist will have its own trends. In 2008, A-list comedians were the Reaper’s hot property (George Carlin, Bernie Mac, Dick Martin, Harvey Korman), with TV theme song maestros (Earle Hagen, Neal Hefti, Alexander Courage), twentysomething actors (Heath Ledger, Brad Renfro), Star Trek figures (Alexander Courage, Robert Justman, Majel Barrett), and Kingston Trio members (Nick Reynolds, John Stewart) also croaking in packs. By my foresight, 2009 will take a toll on homicidal women, celebs who’d served time, slutty socialites and country music also-rans (plus one country music legend).

Because there’s more famous men than famous women (fucking patriarchy!), and men die sooner than women, the gender ratio is disproportionate as usual: twenty-two men to eight women this year. The average age of these thirty names: 75.933333, a three-year drop from the last couple years, a few years lower than the U.S. life expectancy too, so let’s hope those 2008 trends can be prolonged. Thanks to Wikipedia, imdb and Dead or Alive? for helping provide and verify the factual info.

Happy New Year! May it fulfill all your death and life wishes! Given this post’s topic, I should’ve been watching the Dick Clark Rockin’ New Year’s Eve, but I just couldn’t pull myself away from MTV’s Miley Sized Surprise New Year’s Eve. (Still not dead, folks!) Did Dick Clark even show up this year?

Do return to this blog for periodic updates on how this deathlist is faring, or bitch sessions about my 2008 candidates dying a year too late. Or better yet, print it out and post it on your fridge so you can keep track without my assistance. Maybe get a copy for your car and your office too. Or hell, commit the damn thing to memory!

Also, keep an eye out for a few best-of-2008 posts in the coming weeks. Because when it comes to year-end wrap-ups, I follow the advice of Yogi Berra and Lenny Kravitz: it ain’t over til it’s over. But 2009 has begun. It’s over. But this blog is just beginning…