Johnny Gaudreau. Hockey player. Johnny Hockey was one of my favorites that wasn’t on my favorite team. He was a small guy, who proved everyone wrong. He was a good dude from all the clips and interviews I’ve seen over the years.

I saw the comment that broke it on reddit, some random guy in the Phillies GDT. Said “Johnny Gaudreau is dead”. Spent the night following the rumors until it was confirmed by a retired league ref.

He and his brother, Matt, were in town for their sisters wedding, staying at their dad’s house. They were cycling and a drunk driver killed them both, only stopped because the bikes were still under the truck. His wife was pregnant at the time too.

I cycle, I’ve got brothers and it just hit me so hard. I was fucked up about it for a week at least.

Jim Henson - I was 19 when he died, and it felt like a central focus of my childhood was suddenly taken away.

Fred Rogers (of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood). For my generation, he helped to shape our views on kindness and compassion for humankind. He fought for public access funding in the United States. He helped break color barriers on television. He helped us enjoy jazz.

I have not encountered another media personality who was so genuinely invested in making sure that kids had the tools they needed to deal with the emotional parts of existence. I’m tearing up again thinking about how much he did for us.

Gord Downey of the Tragically Hip.

His music was songs of more than one generation of Canadians. I caught the last few songs of the live streamed final concert. I almost missed it because I was on graveyard shift and slept through an alarm.

I caught my favorite song “Ahead by a Century” and since he passed, I haven’t been able to listen to that song again. When it comes on the radio I either turn it off or leave the room. It is too sad to hear. It has been harder in the last two years because my sister died of the same brain cancer as him. She played music with a few Canadian bands but never met them.

Fairly early on in the COVID days, it got Adam Schlesinger. To this day, it’s the one celebrity death that felt personal to me.

For those who don’t recognize the name, Adam was one half of the songwriting duo in Fountains of Wayne. Who you know best, of course, for “Stacy’s Mom.” God, their songwriting was sublime though. And then Adam did “That Thing You Do”, Ivy, Tinted Windows, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and a ton of other stuff.

Maybe it’s partly the collective trauma of the pandemic, but his death still hurts.

Stephen Hawking. His books gave me a sense of wonder in high school. Those books are a huge part of what inspired my path in life. When I read he had died, I felt a peice of me leave the earth. I cried for humanity, I felt that we all got a bit dumber, as a whole.

Chester Bennington of Linkin Park low-key destroyed me. I didn’t even hear about it when it happened due to a big storm taking out my power for a week. It wasn’t until 4 or 5 days after the news hit everyone else when I finally found out.

You can say whatever you want about Linkin Park, but Chester was fucking talented and its still so upsetting to me to think about it.

And then last year, they made Chester die again when they brought on a Scientologist to be the new lead singer. Now Linkin Park as a whole is dead to me.

Adam Schlesinger, a likely preventable death in this selfish fucking country. He gave so many beautiful things to the world while he was here.

David Bowie. I still miss him a lot. I usually don’t even really know the names and faces of bands I like, and I wasn’t even a big knower of his music, but when I heard he died I cried non stop for a day and a night. He was really something else, this crazy force, changing the whole discourse in music and stardom multiple times in his life. What an awe inspiring character. I wonder who could ever take his place, really.

Adam Yauch from the Beastie Boys was one, and David Lynch very recently was another. Both hit really hard :-(

I was pretty fuckin sad when Judy Tenuta passed.

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Mac Miller for me. We were the same age and his music resonated with me a lot. I understood the drugs, depression, etc.

For a while, I had thought “I could have been successful like him, if i had applied myself”. Not music, but other ways. It had felt like he was everything I could have been.

But then his he died and I realized that I had gotten out of that world (drugs and partying). And that I was the successful one. I had a house, a job I love, a wonderful wife, etc.

I’m not rich. I’m not always happy. I regularly think about my addictions. But Im clean. I’m sober. I’m intelligent. I have a good life.

If I didn’t figure out how to step away from that life, Im sure I would have OD’d. Mac’s death hit me hard, because I went from “that could have been me” to “that could have been me”

A man only dies when he is forgotten.

Technoblade never dies.

Without knowing a celebrity personally, you can still resonate deeply with what their art or identity stand for. I shed a tear when David Bowie died because his fearlessness and experimentation was like a beacon to weirdos like me that told us we would be ok if we left the shores of conformity. Plus, he was the funky funky groovy man, man.