April 18, 2003

GRATEFUL UNDEAD

In the interest of being fair to CNN for poking them in the ribs about their pre-obits they mistakenly posted, I'll admit that I have a little fun with mortality on a Web blog I run at Reaper's Delight.

It's just a couple of my friends and I participating in a non-parimutual dead pool, but it's highly competitive. There are some great picks in there, not the least of which is Warren Zevon, Ahmed Chalabi, and Eddie, the dog from Frazier.

My pics for 2003 and the reasons for my choices:

1. Prince Michael Jackson II - 1 - He's one balcony away from dropping me 99 points. (By PMJII I'm referring to his youngest baby. Not MJ's first.)



2. Eminem - 30 - These days everybody wants to play like they got something to say but nothin' comes out when they move their lips. Just a bunch of gibberish. The mutha$!%#ers act like they forgot about Death.



3. Billy Graham - 84 - I'm hoping that everyone else will pick JPII to shake his way over the side of his Popemobile, so I can sneak in with the original BeeGee. I like to think of him as the other white pontiff.



4. Gary Busey - 58 - He may be too stupid-crazy to die, but I'm just guessing that the Bucked-Toothed Bonehead will find a way to fly off the back of his hog and grate himself along a particularly abrasive off-ramp of the Pacific Coast Highway.



5. Gregory Peck - 86 - How best to kill a mockingbird? One peck at a time.



6. Alexander Solzhenitsyn - 84 - When he goes, only the Amish, the lead singer of the Spin Doctors and Billy Bob Thornton will possess ugly facial hair.



7. Maurice Gibb - 53 - How deep is his love? Maybe 6 feet deep. (Applaud me for not making a joke about "staying alive, staying alive.") DOD: 1/12/03



8. Lady Bird Johnson - 90 - She's survived Texas poverty, marriage to Lyndon, the birth of an ugly daughter, living in the White House, proximity to Robert McNamera, Vietnam, a tragic nickname and - in May - a stroke. C'mon, gravity. Take this tough old bird down.



9. Johnny Tapia -35 - boxer. (Substitution for Zsa Zsa Gabor - 85 - Goodbye, city life!)



10. Johnny Cash - 70 - Because he's mine, he'll soon flatline.



As you can see, I nailed Maurice Gibb, but only because I saw a wire story on him going into the hospital the day before he died (which also was the last day for our picks). I racked up 47 points, but not without a few harrumphs from my competitors.

Out of the 120 celebrities, only two have passed this year, Gibb and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who looked dead for about the past 20 years.


Posted by Jeff at April 18, 2003 08:21 AM | TrackBack
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