This author has an understanding that death is generally sad, but that many deaths can actually make you smile. In these cases, after you say “aw, damn, s/he died?!?” you smile because you think back to someone’s heyday and the legacy they left. You can smile if someone has lived a life that was fairly full and healthy. Like that guy that came up with Gumby. You hear that he passed and you begin to think “man, I used to love Gumby!” Ghetto people might think of Eddie Murphy doing Gumby on SNL or a Gumby fade back in the new jack swing era…but I digress.
The deaths that don’t bring smiles, that are sad as hell, are those where one was robbed of promise and potential upon death or somewhere down the line prior to death. Like young actors and athletes. Say, Len Bias or MC Trouble or River Phoenix. Someone where the next big thing they were up to was just around the corner (see John Ritter, for example).
Or in Teddy Pendergrass’s case, he didn’t get to continue or finish his career on his terms. The man gets paralyzed in a car accident in 1982 and that was that. Similar to how you think about what might have been had Jay Williams of Duke and the Chicago Bulls not hopped his tail on a motorcycle and crashed it or had Christopher Reeve not had that horse-riding accident or had the D.O.C. not crushed his voice box or Lauryn Hill not decided to start poppin’ out babies by a Marley kid…or if John Belushi and Chris Farley didn’t have drug issues…or if Eazy-E had wrapped it up…no telling what they might have had left in the tank, what ideas they had swimming in their heads. Death or no death, it’s always sad when the end comes way too soon, and the whole deal is cheapened into being a moment in time.
Ain’t like this author can’t live with that, one doesn’t need it to be 1979 or ’86 or 2001 or whatever, f*ck all that, one should embrace the future, the show gotta go on. Still though, all rambling aside, back to the point–what was the point? Ah, doesn’t really matter. The ghetto knows one thing though. Teddy cuts sure came in handy for getting some draws off. Those of you about 28-35, just ask ya mama. Her ready *ss probably threw hers on stage when he rocked the Total Experience back in the day. Couldn’t have him, so she settled for your daddy!
Don’t shoot the messenger.
Stuff Ghetto People Like 