A Couple " Baby Boomer" Takes On Bernie Sanders (..and A Bit of My Own)

Here in the U.S., one of the hot topics you'll see online currently at this point in time in 2016, is the upcoming presidential election. On the Democrat side, there's a particular candidate that rather popular with our youth with a clever catchphrase to boot, "Feel The Bern!", they're running around posting on their social networking pages! And good for them, I suppose... naive as it is. Better than being apathetic. Anyway, despite all that, I personally haven't been sold on what "The Bern" is selling. I find him to be likable, but rather naive and short-sighted for a man his age and of his intelligence, and as far the promises he's making, let's just say I feel like he's writing some checks that he definitely will not be able to cash if, and that's a big fat IF, he actually does get elected president. Anyway, here's a couple of takes about The Bern from a couple guys from a forum that I follow, who I don't necessarily agree with or have much in common on a personal level  for that matter, but that are much  better at articulating this kinda jargon that I am:

Here's Eric- "Bernie boys and girls need to take care to consider what they are being promised. Free education for all, for example.

I went to college for free in CA. I also could rent a room here for under $50 a month. And I did. The big food price and gas price inflation were only beginning. Now to rent an apartment here costs $3000 a month and a house costs at least a million dollars.

We have the Affordable Care Act, which still needs to be made more affordable. Bernie wants single payer, and he also wants free education for all, and says the rich will pay for it. That way he gets 85% of the youth vote.

But I suspect we are also going to need a compromise Affordable Education Act, and an Affordable Housing Act then too. Because there's not an unlimited supply of rich people forever to pay the sky high housing prices that teachers have to pay to live where I used to get college for free.

Now, what happens to the bern, when Bernie has to compromise in order to get any of these things? Will you turn on him like you turned on Obama, and not vote in the midterm election of 2018, thus killing off any hope for anything for another 8 or 16 years?

Bernie says the bern will rally the people to vote and then make congress act. He will probably still have a Republican congress, unlike Obama in 2009; but it's also true that Obama turned over health care to the congress and didn't rally the people to push harder for a more affordable affordable care act, with a public option and so on.

So, Bernie will bern and push for what he wants. But the chances are he will eventually compromise to get something rather than nothing, if he can get anything at all. Then will the "bernie-bots" here call him a neo-liberal, and say Republicans are better than he is? Remember Bernie wants single payer? But he said quite forcefully that he helped write the Affordable Care Act. He compromised to get his veterans health bill passed too. Yes, he will compromise to get things done. What will you guys do THEN? Will you call him untrustworthy? Will you say that you might as well have voted for Hillary? Yes, you probably will.

I'm all for feeling the bern. He'll have my vote, if I have a vote. Let's also make sure not to get berned by our own ignorance, and bern our own house down."

And there's these word's from one, I'll call "PW", in response to The Bern's supporter's over Gloria Steinem's words over his young female supporters. I thought this was a pretty damn good response, myself: 

Pretty poor choice of words, admittedly. Not an excuse, but Bill Maher's show is a constant romp of sarcasm and sometimes guests get caught up in it and say something they regard later. Steinem has done so much in her lifetime; frankly, I find it odd the willingness of so many to throw her under the bus with a single mistake - pretty dainty skin.

I can also emphasis with the frustrations a lot of us older Progressives are having with younger Progressives' locking onto Sanders much like they did in '08 with Obama. Again, it seems like its all visionary with little regard to how to make it actually happen. It seems we're headed to exactly the same frustration and soon abandonment of President Sanders that we got with President Obama when progress on the Progressive agenda (e.g., no single payer or public option) but I believe it will be much worse because the GOP will not be awe of Sanders for the first couple years and will continue to control the Congress, and the promises Sanders is making eclipse even those that Obama promised - Bernie has a lot farther to fall from grace with his supporters.

At the risk of digging myself a little deeper into inter-generational friction, it's this mostly-unstated assumption that President Sanders will make a real difference, i.e., Progressive progress, by bringing "people power" to Washington. I think this is what grates on older generations, particularly Boomers who were actually involved in the 1960s movements. They marched, they fled to Canada, they protested, they got jailed, they got beat up, some even gave their lives. It took years for Civil Rights (more a Silents endeavor), stopping the war, equality for women, getting the environment movement started, and much is left to do. 

It seems the younger Progressive believe if they can only get a new savior in the WH, one who is just more to the Left that Obama, and everything will just fall into place - Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and the Freedom Caucus will either behave or be shown the door. Push the younger Progressive on the unlikelihood of that and most will just tell you that your just missing the "Bern." Those few that can get beyond their sanctimonious "discovery" of Progressivism, provide some version of people power but are pretty vague about what that is - they give you that look of pity of not understanding the latest social networking device or trend. 

I walk away with the sense that they are assuming that unrelenting shxtstorms of blogs, posts, tweets, videos, podcasts, even polls are going to make it really happen. Maybe President Bernie will provide the perfect People Power App so you can dial it up just like Uber or AirBnb - instantaneous protest with instantaneous political movement.

I don't think anyone actually involved in the movements of the 1960s believes that. I think that they would find it humorous except its not only pitiful, it is dangerous to the Progressive agenda. I think that is what is frustrating enough to Steinem to make her misspeak.

Not that long ago, the big stink about Millies was their assumption in the workforce that they just needed to show up in the morning for their first day and expected to be promoted that afternoon - that's basically what their Boomer parents raised them to expect. The Great Recession has disabuse any Millie that may have actually had that particularly outlook. But perhaps that sense of deserving without a lot of effort has transferred itself to the political world?

Then there are the Boomers that have jump on the Bernie bandwagon; maybe those, particularly the younger ones, that didn't get the chance to be part of something in the '60s? Maybe even a few Xers who want to be part of some 'revolution' other than slam dancing and the Beastie Boys. Last chance?

For me at this point in time, nothing is "set in stone" as they say (whoever the fuck "they" is), but I tend to see Bernie Sanders as an "Ideal World Candidate". If we lived in an ideal world, then maybe Bernie would be the man! As for myself? I live in the REAL world, so that's where I'm at, and that's where I shall remain 

Social Networking: The Dirt

One of my young "Facebook" friends, a female co-worker in her early twenties, put up a post yesterday regarding some strange guy she didn't know (I'm assuming it was a guy, I never bothered to get involved in the debacle) that sent her a "friend request" . In said post, she went on about how she asked the guy if he actually knew her, at which responded by simply saying something like, "I dunno, you work by where I live" or something like that. Okay fair enough, that's rather odd and a bit unsettling, I admit, but I do have a point I plan on making that I'll get to in a bit... Anyway, naturally, most of the folks that responded to the post were all people I knew from work, ages ranging from I'd guess, 21-26, with the exception of one guy in his early 30's, and of course, their responses, were of the "WTF?!?/Make fun of the Creepy-Stalker-Dude" variety. Comment after comment, they just kept coming. Eventually to me, it was like, "Okay, you made your point, Creepy Stalker's gone, are you and your friends gonna go beat him up or are you gonna sit here on Facebook and sound smug? Move on already, good lord!"
See, thing is, it's not that it made me annoyed or anything, what this post did was remind me that a particular time, a better time, in "technological history" is over you might say and this young woman's post, and in particular, everyone commenting, made me realize that these people have no idea! Believe it or not, there was a time back in the early days of social networking sites, late 2003 to 2005ish, that getting random messages from a man or woman (likely depending on one's sexual preference) was considered completely normal & fun. From my recollection, as well as many of my peers at the time, all of whom aged in the range, from their late teens to late 40's, and from all walks of life too. And yes, "Facebook" was around, but it wasn't even close to the giant it is today. In fact, it was around back then that I started my first FB account, I started it, and then didn't touch it for a couple years... I'll get back to that. Maybe.
Anyway, for most of us back then, it started with a little site called "Friendster". I'd first overheard my room mate, Scott talking about it. It had become the rage among the "who's who" in the main social circles in Santa Cruz, CA and was spreading like Ebola throughout the Bay Area, so much that it's servers were having trouble handling it's popularity! Rumor was, and I don't know if it was true or not, that you needed an invite from another member to join. I was hanging out with these two girls Christa and Lindsay pretty regularly at the time and Lindsay was on it and "secured our invites". Once I was in, my room mate Scott, showed me how to navigate it, and it was on! Not too long afterwards, I received my first message from my first "stranger", and it all took off from there. We would find our friends, or would just casually just "browse" peoples profiles that looked interesting, and if we liked what we saw or read, we'd send one another a friendly message, and often times got a friendly response in return! I cannot (for the record, I was sober, doing the 12 step thing, so memory's not in question) recall a time that I EVER got a negative response or got accused of being "creepy". I know these days, I'd likely get reported....
That's what I'm trying to say, back then, social networking sites and for those of us that used them, things were different, it wasn't what it is today, and I should also mention, they weren't dating sites like OKCupid or Match either (not that people didn't "hook up", that definitely happened!), it truly was a unique experience, which was why it was so appealing back then. Sadly, I don't think I can truly explain it to anyone who didn't experience it back then to truly understand, I'll probably just end up sounding "pervy" to your average Millennial Generation user the more I keep trying, so I'll just leave it at that. As I mentioned earlier, "Friendster" just wasn't able to handle it's popularity, it's servers couldn't take the load and it became just frustratingly slow. Then came "Myspace"...
"Myspace" came just as everyone was at their wits end and saved the day! I'd guess within a two month span, everyone on "Friendster", packed their shit and migrated over to "Myspace", whose servers not only could handle the load, making it much faster, but if you knew anything or anyone with some html. coding knowledge, you could do some pretty cool customization stuff to your page! It was still the whole fun, cool, way to meet new people thing that "Friendster" was, only better! I can honestly say that I still have a handful of friends left on my current "Facebook" page today that I met that way. I mentioned meeting more than a few women locally back then, also I even met two that actually purchased plane tickets and flew out to visit me, one them, I still keep in touch with today! And the messages I would get from women, although random, they weren't what I would call "weird" or "out there", They were usually just friendly, "Hello, I'm , _____ etc. etc." the "out there" stuff came later after I got to know them better, haha! but it was all good, we were adults, we were having fun with new technology and we weren't tripping out on it and taking shit WAY too seriously like what was to come... Basically, what I'm trying to say, is the first couple years of social networking sites were awesome! A lot of fun, and those of us that used them, naturally, we took what we had for granted, and like what happens to most good things, sooner or later, it was discovered by the Powers That Be as "a powerful marketing tool with enormous potential" (and they were right)and they introduced it to the masses, and worst of all, it was discovered by the "youngsters" and That. Ruined. Everything....
I'd guess around 2005, is when the high school age kids discovered "Myspace", that seems to be the year when the party seemed to end so-to-speak, at least from my recollection. That's when "Myspace" introduced the "private profile" option, and you started reading/hearing ridiculous stories in the news about "child predators on the social networking, "Myspace", which was completely overblown. What it actually was, in my opinion was the rise of the "Myspace Whore", which was basically a 13-16 girl (though her profile says she's older), with literally thousands of online "friends", that was constantly posting selfies of herself while scantily clad, in suggestive and provocative poses, while often times her loving parents being completely unaware of all this, or that their little angel even had a "Myspace" account, or that "Myspace" even existed! So you can imagine the chaos that erupted when the proverbial cat was let out of the bag... In just about all cases, the actual truth eventually was revealed but the damage was already and done, and the good old days were definitely over.
SO "Myspace" had it's reign for a few years, having it's technological hand in a little bit of everything, over-saturation in just about everything including music, videos, was even responsible for creating a few awful social media celebrities, it was fucking ridiculous! However, "Myspace", eventually got just to be too carried away with the html. coding and the customization, basically spreading itself much too thin, and I got to the point to where I couldn't stand to click on anything anymore, cause I got sick of having to turn off my computer speakers so I wouldn't have to listen to someone's shitty taste in music. I was officially "over" "Myspace". Then I remembered, that I had a "Facebook" account that I made back '04 that when I started it, was so basic, I wasn't even sure what to do with it so I just left it alone. I went and checked it out, and yep, still there where I left it! So I started filling out the profile info. I liked how nice, quiet and BASIC it was... Over the course of the next few weeks I started noticing activity on "Facebook". I was starting to get "friend requests" and other notifications, which lead me to suspect that I wasn't the only one who'd had about enough of "Myspace".

At this point, I've had a "Facebook" account for approximately twelve years now, although that original one, I disabled about a year and a half ago after going into "exile" (you can read about that in one of my earlier blogs if interested), My current on, I'm much more selective about who I add to it and follow and have really no interest in collecting the 900+ "friends" & personalities that I managed to acquire on my previous one. These days there's also no shortage of social networking sites out there on the web, they're a hot commodity these days, and there's one for just about everyone. At this point in my life, I'm not getting as much out of sites like "Facebook" as I used to, but I don't foresee myself getting rid of my account either, although I do have most of my less that 150 friends (at the present time) on "unfollow". I've noticed that I'm becoming more of a "Twitter" person lately, and I tend to gravitate more toward sites that none of my usual friends aren't on (yet) just cause they're more interesting, and it's not the same rambling nonsense about the same bands/politicians/"insert pop culture reference" you read or hear about constantly. Even for me, it's not the same, and just typing this line right at this very moment is sort of an epiphany when I realize how much my own attitudes have evolved on the subject over the course of the last 12 years, not to mention my original point when I first started putting this blog together, even more interesting than I originally thought! Go fucking figure...

This lesbian girl I Know’s Take On A Particular Popular Television Show (reblog II)

In order to avoid a long-ass intro, refer to the first reblog for an explanation, but once again, this is a reblog from a forgotten blog from Tumblr, with no memory or when it was originally composed 

The Lesbian Girl's Post(a friend):
“American Horror Story: Coven 
Misogynistic & Racist. Offensive & Catty. Women have magic powers & guess what they do…fight each other, pine over a boys, and desperately try to maintain their looks. I HATE it!”

I don’t watch the show personally, and I don’t give a shit about a person’s sexuality, to each his own, live and let live and all that, although at the same time I don’t completely understand why some people base their whole existence and lifestyle around what gender they prefer to fuck, but I guess whatever, I have better things on my mind. Anyway, I saw the above comment about that TV show and it kinda got under my skin and I guess I’m blogging about it to gain some sort of understanding of why exactly it does so. “A bunch of women with magic powers”... So by this particular lesbian girl’s logic, I can see her point in them getting along with one another, but what’s so wrong with pining over boys? does she want them to exclusively pine over girls? is this an “anti male” issue? Then there's the desperately trying to maintain their looks part... To be honest, that seems rather silly, cause although I haven’t actually watched the show, I’ve seen the commercials and most of the women look pretty damn attractive to me, however, I’m speaking from a hetero-male perspective. The lesbian girl that posted this is attractive from my perspective, but from my personal interactions and friendships with lesbians over the years, they seem to have their own ideas and perceptions beauty and attractiveness that differ from mine. As far as any kind of misogynistic and racist overtones, I’d have to actually watch the show, but I have a feeling this lesbian girl is blowing it out of proportion. The reason that I say lesbian girl when I refer to the person who made the comment above is because I know of more than a few females that are NOT lesbian, that identify as heterosexual or bisexual, one of whom I’m very close to that really enjoy that particular television show, that have never made any mention of any of the negative things the lesbian girl is complaining about. In fact all these other girls speak very highly of it, and the one that I’m close to is trying to push it on me, but I’m pretty resistant, haha! Just not my thing.

Anyway, like I said, the lesbian girl’s comment got under my skin and my first thoughts were, “Well, what the fuck should they do, get rid of all the males with magic spells, lick each others boxes, pine over girls, and look like shit all the time?!? Would that make you fucking happy?” I dunno, I’m probably missing the point and overthinking but then again, maybe I’m not…  Who knows? 

Sober & Straight Edge: There's A Difference (reblog)

This is "reblog", I guess it's called, from a neglected secondary blog that I sorta started sometime back whenever it was that I started my Tumblr account. Anyway, this is one of two, it might be edited a bit, and I have no clue when it was actually composed or what the "inspiration" was for it at the time, but after reading them, I figured I'd post them both here, maybe edit them a bit. Maybe not...

These days I’m am pretty much what one might call, “stone cold sober”, as for as how I go through life. Not a bad thing to be, in fact I rather dig it, it’s pretty much “my thing”,  but there’s this silly little label called “straight edge” that  I occasionally get lumped into by some ignorant & clueless little fuckwad that never fails to irritate the piss out of me. I’ll say right here and now that there’s no fucking way in hell I would ever identify as “straight edge”. In fact, FUCK straight edge!
 I feel that to be fair, I should mention that straight edge is something that started off with good intentions but evolved into some serious bullshit that I want no part of. I actually take offense when someone refers to me as straight edge, but they’re lucky I’m sober, cause if I was drunk I’d probably punch them in the mouth for calling me that :D

About Christmas...

All these years I thought I despised Christmas. Well turns out, Christmas isn't so bad, in fact, for the most part, it's fairly harmless. What fucking sucks, is Christmas Eve! Here's why:
First of all, Christmas Eve is when those folks that are the type to get all full blown miserable/depresso triggered by holiday bliss (or lack there of), this is definitely when it's gonna happen, and I for one DO NOT wanna deal with that if I don't have to.
Second, people begin acting extra and nice, which okay, maybe that's not necessarily a bad thing, but insincerity and bullshit is still insincerity and bullshit, and if you're anything like me, you can see right through that nonsense, and it comes off anywhere from comical to excruciatingly irritating, depending on the source.
And Third, there's that overly sentimental way that some people tend to act toward and look at me that. Just. Creeps. Me. The. Fuck. Out.
So, uh... yeah, no thank you, none of that for me, I think I'll just play like the family pet on the 4th of July and hide under the bed till tomorrow or something like that. That's Christmas Eve to me!

Christmas Day, on the other hand, once the mayhem and chaos of attacking the tree and opening presents is all over and done (if that's part of your ritual, that is...), and everyone involved is sitting around in a "wasteland of wrapping paper and empty boxes" procrastinating the clean up process, it all feels rather calm and kinda anti-climactic when you really think about it and really, Christmas becomes just another inconvenient day of closed businesses, unless you live in a larger city where they understand that imposed  "cabin fever" around the holidays is not good thing

And as for myself... I'm basically indifferent for the most part when it comes to the whole Christmas thing. I don't mind getting new clothes and all, but other than that, I can take it or leave it. I am willing to "play along" to make certain people happy but don't expect any "Halmark Card moments" out of me and any drama that presents itself is cause for my immediate exit. Other than that, fuck it, Merry Xmas!

Night of JOLT!

I saw this picture this picture online of this can of Jolt and remembered the only time that I recall drinking it. It wasn't all that great as far as taste went, and I don't really remember felling all that "jacked" as I was already a fairly high strung person at the time as it was. Anyway, here's the story:
It was mid-1987 and I was very hostile, angry and punk as fuck! I had moved out of

my parents house in late spring into a one bedroom apartment at the invitation of a friend I'd known since we were kids. I had no job, no source of income and pretty much no clue about how life worked, but naturally, like most guys at that age, I thought I had it all figured out and I knew it all. After I moved in, a couple other friends moved in as well. I took over the bedroom closet which functioned as my room, and we had our own little party pad going! For about three months anyway before we all got tossed out on our asses... 
Anyway, I was far to stubborn and prideful to go crawling back home to my parents house so I decided I'd just "live on the streets" or where ever I ended up, which worked out half the time, since I didn't have much as far as possessions, blankets and some clothes and a few things I could stash here and there or at friends houses. Other than that, I'd just party every night somewhere and usually just crash where ever that was or go home with someone and crash and their house, and if nothing panned out from that, it was still warm enough to where I'd find a rooftop, a doorway or side of a building to crash for the night. I tried a laundry room at a nearby big chain motel but got chased out by a manager. 
It was during this time that I experienced my first vicious hangover of my adult life, which fortunately I was able to sleep it off for a couple days at a friends house, after which I decided to cut alcohol out of my life and just stick to drugs. Understand, drugs for me back then consisted of mostly weed, it was very rare that I imbibed in anything else. 

Anyway, one night I found myself feeling in an especially foul mood. I was dealing with a lot of anger issues back then, and on this night I was particularly on edge. Back then my hair was cropped about a quarter on an inch all the way around with about 3 or 4 uneven clumps about an inch long in random spots. I sported a pair of beat up combat boots, cuffed jeans, a trashy denim jacket and I carried a crow bar in inside pocket of it. So that night, like I mentioned, I was in "a mood" and I had turned down an offer to crash in an empty camper shell in my friends yard, so he kicked me down five bucks. I walked over to the Circle K over at Lomas & Eubank and bought myself a six pack of Jolt Cola and then wandered over and sat on the curb at Hotel Circle just south of Lomas Blvd and drank one can after the other while glaring at the passing traffic. Today, that whole area is totally developed, all kinda of stores and restaurants, in fact, where I was sitting that night, there's a mortuary now, but back then it was just mostly vacant lots and land, and people used to park their used cars along that stretch of Lomas Blvd that they were trying to sell. So I finished about 4 of those cans of Jolt and proceeded to take my crowbar and pretty much make every car sitting on that lot "not fit for purchase". I smashed out every headlight, almost all of the passenger windows, tail lights and anything else I could destroy. I wasn't exactly quiet either. I'm truly amazed I didn't get caught or attract any sort of attention considering there's houses just right across Lomas. Afterwards, I wandered over to nearby Tomasita Elementary School and hid in these tunnel things that they had on the playground and watched the police cars patrol and spotlight the area for a bit before they moved on. I was totally calm and fearless while all this was going on. After a little while, I came out of the tunnel things and walked back toward the mess I made and then passed on by then headed to the rooftop where I sometimes slept where my blankets and other stuff were stashed and crashed for the night. I still had my other two cans of Jolts too!

Rants and Takes On Mortality

I've heard all the typical cliches and other bullshit spewing out of the mouths of friends and others that I thought were friends and just people that it turned out that I didn't really give a flying fuck about after all. Anyway, one of the cliches I'm speaking of for example is this typical tough guy/gal wannabe classic, "I thought I'd be dead before 25", which is a fucking joke considering, if memory serves me correctly (and I have an amazing memory), most of these turkeys did not grow up in squalor or the kind of American neighborhoods that would be comparable to say, the Gaza Strip, which would justify their claims. No, almost all of them came from more or less, the same type of middle to upper-middle class American households of various dysfunction and income. And we all pretty much did the typical teenage "experimentation" to varying degrees as well.

I personally, have never made such an absurd statement, as I came from a pretty straight up, middle class background. Truth is, I just never thought that far ahead, back then. The thought of thinking much past the next week or so would kinda freak me out, so I avoided it altogether, and this was all through my adolescence. 

As I entered my twenties, I was living the whole "rock 'n roll life style" and had gained a pretty self-destructive and nihilistic approach to how I went about my day to day way of life. I didn't really give a shit about tomorrow or the next day or the next year for that matter. For all my bullshit and arrogance, I pretty much lived in the moment and couldn't be bothered with such silly concerns about dying, even though as I started getting deeper into drugs and other shadier endeavors, looking back, yes, I can see now, literally hundreds of times how easily that (ugh!) "coulda been me", but it wasn't, so who fucking cares.

Truth be told, I'm not all that worried about or afraid of dying. It's not for any spiritual bullshit, like I have "nothing to fear because I know where I'm going" kind of rhetoric, because I happen to be one of "the faithless", but I'm not an asshole about it either. I mean if someone's religious beliefs are comforting and it's working for them, and they're not hurting or oppressing others with their beliefs, then fucking awesome, that's great, more power to them! It's those pushy fuck nuggets that irritate the piss out of me, but I'm not gonna go on a big rant about that either because there's really not much, if anything, that I can say about the subject that hasn't been said before, if not better and more articulate, so I'll leave it at that and hope that anyone who may actually read this gets the idea.

I suppose in a way, it's a little bit strange to me when I meet younger people in their late teens and into their twenties who have never known anyone other than an elderly relative that's died. I recall starting to attend rosaries and funerals at a very young age, as well as my first real peer being killed by a drunk when he was only fourteen, and from that point on I became, for the most part, desensitized to it as there more or less seemed to always be a steady number of people around my age or younger that would die from one thing or another . Now don't get me wrong, it wasn't like I would assume being some gangbanger living in South Central LA (for example)seeing my "homeboys" gunned down every week either, but I would guess that the number for me personally, might be higher than any of my immediate family members combined as far as peers go. (For the record, I don't mean come off sounding like I'm bragging or like I'm some kinda "hardcase" either...) 
A lot of the people I kept company with in the 1990's were like me, the hard drinking and drugging, high risk types prone to trouble and "drama". But in those early days of my youth, there were things like illnesses, accidents, the occasional homicide/suicide and freak occurrence. It was later on in my late twenties and into my thirties when the bodies really started to pile up and it got to the point where I stopped going to to funerals and wakes and all that cause they were depressing and I was sick of going to them, as selfish as it sounds, I didn't care who it was at that point anymore.

Back in 2005, I believe it was, I met and hung out for a couple hours with Bob Noxious at a show in Santa Cruz, CA. In the early 1980's, Bob and his band, The Fuck Ups were one of, if not the most notorious bands in the San Francisco hardcore punk scene, and one of the most despised among some of their more "politically correct" detractors. I was completely sober at the time, and Bob wasn't drinking either, but I had asked him a few questions about the early punk days back in SF (I was really excited to meet Bob as I had been a huge fan of The Fuck Ups for years. Bob was genuinely flattered and really surprised when I mentioned that I had some live bootleg recordings from his early days. I offered to make him copies and we exchanged phone numbers but he never returned my calls) One of the questions I had asked was what what he ended up doing after The Fuck Ups disbanded, and he replied that he had taken off to Oregon and had been living practically in isolation in the woods for a few years, and when I asked why, he said, "Cause everybody started dying, man... It was fucking depressing". 
Bob passed away on Christmas Eve of 2008 of liver failure. Looking back on that night, I recall that he had a whole bunch of joints in the front pocket of his shirt that he was smoking pretty much one after the other, so I'm guessing he was in pretty bad shape even back then.
I guess I bring up that meeting and interaction, because I can relate in my own way with Bob's sentiments on the subject

The one thing above all else that I cannot stand when people die is the living! It's truly astonishing, low and pathetic how so many people turn someones passing into an excuse or opportunity for attention, undeserved sympathy or some other form of narcissistic bullshit. I don't know how many times I've seen someone post on their social networking page after someone dies some sort of  psychotic, melodramatic spew or a "RIP [insert name]"  post followed by some shallow rambling, after which they receive sometimes dozens of "sorry for your loss, call me if you need anything" type responses and then have the nerve to thank these people like they were actually blood-related and actually sitting around bawling... And what chaps me about it is knowing that these shallow, self-absorbed fucks were really nothing more than casually acquainted with the deceased, and in reality were maybe on a "hello" basis with them at shows, or the occasional party, not like they shared a genuine or sincere friendship that justifies those kind of posts. I just find it to be rather tacky and in bad taste. (I'm well aware that I'm not exactly the "poster child" for decorum and good taste, but even I know there some things that should be recognized)
I believe the proper decorum, unless you were close friends that spent actual real quality time together on a regular basis, is to post on the page of the deceased something like a, "RIP, deepest condolences to the family" or something along those lines. I recall the last person I knew that passed (as of this present time) was about five months ago, a guy that I wasn't extremely close with, but we were friends and were former coworkers at a local music venue. Anyway, he OD'ed on heroin in late June, and I learned of it via Facebook from a post by a mutual "friend" who's a known drama queen that I preferred to keep at arms length back then and sure as fuck want nothing to do with now. Anyway, my friend OD'ed up in Denver, and this guy that posted was laying out the drama, with shit like "Fuck Heroin" & "Denver, what have you done to my friend!!!"... Fucking loser. Dude didn't even show up to the memorial. People suck.

I'm not even gonna get into the drama and chaos, not to mention the legalities and all that regarding families, estates and wills, that's a whole other complicated mess better left to the "experts" and those paid and qualified to deal with things of that nature.

So if I you were to ask me how many people have I known that have died? Honestly? I really don't know for sure. It's not like I've ever kept a tally or anything, but there's been quite a lot, that, I can definitely say for sure, and it doesn't seem to end. Not that I expect it to either. I've pretty much accepted death as a part of life without any morbid or silly inclinations toward it. Sure, I find it fascinating just like most people, I enjoy cemeteries, I like looking at dead bodies, I respect human life, although I have certain attitudes toward certain humans and their behaviors but I don't wanna get carried away on a mega-tangent here. I'm well aware that there's a lot of horrible things that happen on a daily basis in this world, but there's a lot of beauty and wonderful things that happen too. I know for some, they're just born to fall by the wayside and fall into the muck, it's unfortunate, but for most of us, it's all about choices and what we decide to do with it these moments. And yes, I'm sure there's motherfuckers that may read this and want to attack me just for saying what I just said, but you know what? They can eat a dick. They have a choices too. Do or Die!