Today is my birthday - happy birthday to me!

Looking over the blog roll on the right side of this page, I'm reminded that I've had the odd distinction of having two separate rock stars be shot to death on past birthdays. Bryan Kuntz memorializes Dimebag Darrell today at This Ain't the Summer of Love (he took the title for his blog well before I took it for my new book). I'd forgotten that Dimebag died on my birthday, now five years ago. I'm a fan of his playing and of Pantera, and the details of his death were notably freakish - isn't it every performer's worst nightmare to be shot to death on stage?

The big one, though, was John Lennon, who died on my thirteenth birthday back in 1980. That one I remember vividly, if only because my friend David Jennings (who would later rechristen himself Diq Diamond and try mightily to get a Chili Peppers-style band up and running) came to school that day wearing a T-shirt he'd redesigned to mark the occasion. It was a plain white T, and he scrawled something to the effect of "RIP John Lennon" or "John Lennon we'll miss you" in what was probably black and colored marker. I can't remember the exact message but I can remember that I'd never seen someone respond to a celebrity's death in such a way, and it was an eye-opener for 13 year old me (Elvis had died just three years before but I was too young then to fully appreciate it). I remember nothing else about that day, just walking to school with David, confused about what it meant to mourn someone I'd never met.