Monday, November 15, 2004

All Mixed Up

One of the many things for which my father is useful is the celebrity death notification. A midday email from dad tolled the death of Fred "Rerun" Berry ("and here he was all ready to play Othello!") and I never will forget the early morning phone call that told me Johnny Cash had left this mortal coil.

Today was the death of Old Dirty Bastard. I don't know how it got through the district email filter, but here from an email entitled "Mourn his passing" are the words of my father...
O D B has left us. Yes, the ODB has gone home. What an artist! What a name! Dad
Indeed, Dad.

I wrote some haiku (I will post this in the haiku blog soon and would encourage my fellow haiku artists to comment with your ODB haiku).
Old Dirty Bastard,
once named Big Baby Jesus,
gone. And Wu Tang weeps.

ODB has passed,
once named Dirt McGirt.
What must his teeth be worth?

So then I read in the news of the resignation of Secretary of Education Rod Paige. Bookmark this, it will matter soon.

On my drive home, I start to compose my farewell sentiments for the ODB.

"Secretary of Education Paige caused controversy when he interrupted Shawn Colvin's acceptance speech at the American Music Awards..."

No, that's not right.

"ODB was a vocal proponent of private school vouchers and helped to cultivate the school of thought that everything that is wrong with American public education is the fault of the teacher and can be tested away..."

Crap! That's not it either.

I keep confusing my Old Dirty Bastards.

1 comment:

Tack City said...

Yeah, it's hard when your day is bookended by sad news and good news.
I'll miss Ol' Dirty Bastard.
The other bastard, though, good riddance. Or at least, I assume that's what you terrorists in the Teachers' Union think.
Terrorists!
And to think there are probably a lot of people who assume this will be bad for education. (the resignation of Paige, that is... there aren't people who think ODB's death is bad for education, are there?).