RIP X3

[yendi]

So soon after we lost three actors (Peter O'Toole, Tom Laughlin, and Joan Fontaine) in one day, the last 48 hours have seen a few more people pass.

1. Al Goldstein has died.

I grew up in NYC in the '80s (or, more accurately, I hit puberty in the '80s). And we had cable, which means we had Channel J, which means I watched a lot of Midnight Blue (as well as The Robin Byrd show and the various High Society/Vivid shows consisting of porn movies that were interspersed with 900-number commercials).

Goldstein wasn't a good man by any standards (the obit makes that pretty clear). But he was a fascinating man. There are likely thousands of people who watched a fat naked man interview people and go on rants late at night; few people could have made that happen, or made it interesting, but he did. Plus, he gave Al "Grandpa Munster" a platform long after he would have been forgotten.

I never read his magazine, but Goldstein was still a huge part of my teenage years.

2. The news has started to break on social media that Ned Vizzini has died. No link, since the most reliable source is friend-locked, but it sounds like a genuinely tragic loss. I've never read him, but have been told nothing but great things about his books.

3. And Richard Heffner (not the Hef one would associate with Goldstein) has died. I watched nearly as much The Open Mind as I did Midnight Blue in the '80s, and it remains one of the few public affairs shows I was ever able to stand. I was amused to find myself also being assigned some of his books in college. Truly a great mind.

Comments

[nounsandverbs]

I started reading Ned Vizzini when he was writing articles for New York Press as a teenager. Most recently, I read the book he wrote with Chris Columbus to my kids. Very sad loss.