Surprised I'm Not Being Accused Of Celebrating Tom Lehrer's Death

USUALLY WHEN A TOM LEHRER,  or a list of many others is mentioned anywhere the usual jackass lies to say that I dissed them when I never did.   That said, I heard what Lehrer had to say before 1975, found it funny and didn't much need to hear it again after that, something apparently he and I agreed on because it was about that time he stopped working in music, writing his wittily cynical songs and performing them very well.  That's the thing about a joke, you hear it once or a few times then its store of substance is gone for you.   I can respect someone whose well of inspiration lasts through a very long life and I especially can respect someone whose well runs out AND THEY STOP GOING TO THE SAME TEAT THAT ONCE GAVE GOOD MILK BUT WHICH HAS DRIED UP.   I recalled reading him answering someone on that point and it was, typically, witty and wise.

If an idea came to me, I'd write, and if it didn't I wouldn't—and, gradually, the second option prevailed over the first. Occasionally people ask 'If you enjoyed it'—and I did—'why don't you do it again?' I reply, 'I enjoyed high school but I certainly wouldn't want to do that again.

Considering the guy who generally takes these occasions to lie about what I said and the milieu in which he says it - frequenting the Baby Blue Blog like so many others is like perpetually sentencing yourself to the nightmare of repeating jr. high - I'll let Mr. Lehrer have that last word put so perfectly.   

He died at 97,  I read, most likely of something like natural causes.  THAT isn't a tragedy.   Marvin Gaye being shot to death by his deranged father when he was far less than half that age,  THAT'S A TRAGEDY.  

UPDATE:  Stupy posted a comment I'm tempted to post containing exactly the kind of lie about what I say above to prove what I was talking about.   I can only imagine what Lehrer would make of him, he pinned down so many specimens of the failure of American education and kulcha.  One of the things he said was that he detested the kulcha and anti-intellectual aspects of the 60s era "counter culture,"  what I call "kulcha,"  which he said contributed to his abandonment of his career in musical satire.   The post-literate, post-truth Stupy is a prime example of that.