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Showing posts from May, 2012

"Licensed to Ill"

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(Photo courtesy USA Today) I am not usually one to be affected by celebrity events. I tend to treat these “momentous” celebrity news stories with an eye roll and an angry rant about all of the important news in the world being supplanted by the trivial. But oddly, the reports yesterday of the death of Beastie Boys’ Adam Yauch hit me hard. I could not understand why at first. Sure, I grew to like the Beasties, after forgiving them for their peppy frat-boy (yet admittedly funny) tunes of the mid-eighties. As a diehard music fan, particularly in my 20s, I know I saw them live at least once during what now in my mind is a blurry haze of my concert-going days. I distinctly recall the throngs of tens of thousands of Beasties fans jumping up and down in unison at one of the Tibetan Freedom Concerts that Yauch organized in Washington, D.C. Nevertheless, why was I moved by the death of a rich, famous musician I did not know and of whom I was merely a casual follower? One word: Cancer.