Alright folks, everyone is overly preoccupied with end-of-the-year lists and why shouldn’t I be the same? Thus, I am subjecting you to my top ten losses to humanity of 2021. Let the second guessing begin. For starters, this blog has not run the full year so there will be some on this list that haven’t been mentioned before since they passed prior to my mindless rambling began. No, Eddie Van Halen is not eligible because even though he made the blog, through a moment of weakness on my part, he did not pass this year. And I am telling you right now, Charlie Watts didn’t make the cut. One sentence for each, everybody knows the rules. In descending order, here is this year’s top ten losses list:
19. Fannie Fox - With a moniker like the Tidal Basin Bombshell, you can’t miss making the list.
18. Aleksander Doba - When you Kayak the Atlantic you make the list.
17. Arlene Pieper Stein – While she didn’t kayak the Atlantic, she was the first woman to officially complete a marathon. That gets her here.
16. John Richards - When you make it your life’s (there it is) work to protect the proper usage of the apostrophe, putting you on this list when you die is the least I can do.
15. Rod Gilbert – So Johnny A doesn’t strangle me.
14. Ed Lucas – When a baseball blinds you as a youth and you become a baseball writer, you deserve all the credit you get.
13. Jim Steinman – Writing the tunes for “Bat Out Of Hell” will get you on this list every time.
12. Tempest Storm – When you strip into your 80’s not because you have to, but because you can, you should make every top ten list.
11. Edwin Edwards – When your winning campaign slogan for Governor of Louisiana is “Vote For The Crook – It’s Important,” you deserve to be on this list between a stripper and a groupie.
10. Connie Hamzy – When you can lay claim (lay being the operative phrase) to having slept with John Bonham, Keith Moon, Richard Carpenter (and you thought he was a goody two shoes), Mick Fleetwood, Alice Cooper, Huey Lewis, Doc Severinsen, Waylon Jennings, Rick Springfield, Glen Frey, Don Henley, Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Frank Zappa, Geddy Lee, Peter Frampton, Eddie Money, Neil Diamond, Rick Neilsen and all three members of ZZ Top, how do I keep you off this list?
9. Stu Rasmussan – More politicians need to be as real as this first transgender Mayor.
8. Ed Asner – I just loved this guy and now he has to deal with Betty White for eternity.
7. Colin Powell – We need more of him.
6. S. Prestley Blake – the Co-founder of Friendly’s (along with his brother) who consumed Fribbles to make it to 106.
5. Henry Goldrich – He ran Manny’s Music on 48th Street which defined much of my youth.
4. Phil Spector – Murder aside, he changed music as we know it.
3. Henry Aaron – Perfect in every way.
2. Ron Popeil - The maker of the Pocket Fisherman would have been No. 1 were it not for the post-it note.
1. Spenser Silver – When, along with Art Fry (let’s give him his due as well), you invent what to me is the most basic and useful tool we have in America, how can you not be No. 1?