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RIP someone or another


Wmcmanus

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RIP Ben Stelter, a 6-yo who died of Brain Cancer.  As a hockey fan, it was incredible to see the impact he had on the Edmonton Oilers, and the love they had for him.  Fuck cancer...fuck it hard especially for attacking such young kids....

https://www.nhl.com/news/ben-stelter-young-oilers-fan-dies-play-la-bamba-baby/c-335242756

 

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Not just someone or another...

Just got a pop up notice on Facebook that our friend Matt Dunlop would have been 40 today. Seems impossible. That must mean it has been over 10 years, since I believe he was 29 when he died.

Really liked that guy. He was a good friend, and I sure do miss him.

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This one hurts a good amount.  RIP Chris Sommovigo, only 55. 

Say what you want about cables, but he did some amazing work over the years, some at dirt-cheap prices; some of my favorite cables have been his inexpensive trials, prototypes for some of his later designs.  I have been a fan & customer for more than 2 decades, we conversed a bit about his move to Japan and then back again to the US to help his ailing mother, amongst several other things.  A supremely decent human being for sure....

Very sad to hear....RIP

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RIP to an old friend of mine. We'd known each other since somewhere between 4 and 6 years old. Not really close anymore, but he was a fire dective (or something) when Kristen's mom burned down their house. We had Kristen's step-dad's ashes (Emma, the kids' aunt's father) inside and I was able to catch up with him and get him to go in and retrieve them. They were in a bag inside a cardboard box. He was able to save those before the fire reignited and would have taken the ashes (and some other things we got out with Matt's help.)

His mom was my 2nd grade teacher back when my dad was principal. I heard a lot of chatter about the two who passed away, but woke up this morning to a message from my mom who let me know it was Matt.

He's at least the 2nd or 3rd from that friend group who's died in the past few years (the other being my best friend growing up.) He left behind a wife and I believe two young kids. As someone who lost his dad when he was 10 (and my dad was just a couple years older than Matt and I were/are now), this one was sad.

https://newschannel9.com/news/local/communities-mourn-loss-of-thp-trooper-marion-county-commissioner-in-helicopter-crash

RIP Matt Blansett.

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20 years ago an obscure and legendary Detroit electro producer died, weeks before his 33 birthday:

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James Stinson was one half of the electro duo Drexciya.  At the time of his passing, he was a mysterious figure.  For the dozen or so years that he made music, he recorded under innumerable aliases.  For the last few decades I've observed endless slap fights on sites like Discogs over how he should be credited on specific releases.  Techno fans can be, ahem, a bit narrow minded.  Detroit techno fans are the most singular focused of the lot.  Detroit electro fans make ...every other electronic music snob look easy going by comparison.  The artists themselves often (usually) gave incomplete or flat out misleading information about themselves.  The trope of the "faceless techno producer" was a fairly common occurrence in the 90s.

I've been fascinated by the genre since I first heard it on college radio in the mid 1980s (and had no idea what it was.)  I first heard about Drexciya in a UK music magazine upon the release of their anthology The Quest.  I was lucky enough to find a copy locally.  It was some of the strangest music I'd ever heard.  By 2002 I had a number of their 12"s, none of which were easy to come by.  I joined SoulSeek early that year after the demise of AudioGalaxy.  The day Stinson died, there was much talk about his passing in the slsk Electro room.  I actually didn't have a Discogs account at that point.  Unintentionally, I ended up making one on Stinson's birthday.  

In the two decades since James Stinson died, most of the mystery surrounding him has been lifted.  A large amount of his previous unreleased catalog is available on limited vinyl runs and FLAC downloads.  I've listened to a lot of it and it's quite a mixed bag.  James was a very uncontrained artist and that meant he went deep into experimental territory.  Often that resulted in noodling wank.  Sometimes he struck absolute gold.  There really as not been another artist at all like him.

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R.I.P. Shaun Kitka!

I met my friend Shaun in 1996. He was 18, and he a several other young gay guys were leaving an underage dance club in downtown Anchorage, just as I and a friend were riding past on our bikes. He and his friends were immediately physically and verbally assaulted by two larger and older, homophobic assholes. Nothing gets me to a rage state faster than homophobic bullies! I dropped my bike and grabbed the biggest guy and started telling him what I thought of him while poking my finger into his chest quite aggressively. Two cops that were at a flop bar next door came up and pulled me away from this jerk and started detaining me, when Shaun explained what had happened. One cop actually acted like it wasn't a big deal that young gay guys were being hassled, which further pissed me off! However, the second cop was having none of that bullshit, and after explaining that putting my finger in his chest wasn't allowed, he basically ripped the two bullies a new asshole.

Shaun and his friends were very thankful for my intervention, and insisted on buying me breakfast. We all got to know each other, but Shaun and I became good friends immediately. I became a kind of pseudo Father figure. I introduced him to a long term boyfriend, and later actually moved in with him in Sacramento after that relationship ended. We got along well, but the new boyfriend didn't understand our relationship and was crazy jealous. To the point of being mean to my dog Suzy. I couldn't have that, and that's how I ended up moving to Fairfax the first time, in 2014.

It did strain our friendship some, but we did manage to keep that friendship alive, especially after he told me about his cancer diagnosis a few years ago. He called me on a regular basis. I think that he could share his fears and his hopes with me in a way that he couldn't with his boyfriend. And I think the length of our friendship provided a degree of trust and familiarity that he didn't have with anyone else. He never knew his Father, and in many ways he looked to me for that kind of relationship. I also knew his entire family, as screwed up as they were.

I last talked to Shaun two weeks ago. He sounded great. Things were going well medically, and he was really excited about a new flight simulater he was putting together. I just read about his passing today on Facebook, so it's a real shock! I've been losing siblings the last few years, and that's tough, but Shaun was 42 years old, and that's different. I had some time to prepare with my Brother. This came out of nowhere!

 

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I just talked to his ex and close friend Craig on the phone. It seems that last Tuesday the Dr. informed him that the chemotherapy wasn't working any longer, and that they were stopping treatment. He lasted a week after that. His Mother passed a few months ago, and in a way I'm glad. That would've been extremely tough on her.

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