Yahoo! News – Timothy White, Billboard Editor, Dies
Okay, I’ve not posted much lately, and now I dive back in with some very un-fantasy-like posts.
For about 24 hours once, perhaps 15 years ago, I felt like I was friends with Tim White. I had cocktails with him one evening, during which he turned me onto the darkest, oddest and catchiest roots reggae band I’ve ever heard (Ras Michael and the Sons of Negus, check them out), and then talked with him at his book party the next night at Private Eyes, a goofily futuristic nightclub of the time (1985 or thereabouts) that featured, well, a lot of video screens showing videos.
I’d always admired his writing at Rolling Stone, but my brush with greatness went no further. I don’t think we were ever again in the same room, though I’ve turned many onto Ras Michael over the years. But his passing, by heart attack, in his office at Billboard at 50 seems far sadder than John Entwhistle’s nearly simultaneous passing by heart attack at 57 in his hotel room just before the Who kicked off their latest reunion tour in Las Vegas, simply because there’s this somewhat personal connection.
Of course, that brings us to Darryl Kile. I had no idea Darryl Kile was such a great guy. Was this common knowledge out here in fan-land? Because if it was I missed it.
Back to the personal. It isn’t that I had no connection to Entwhistle. The Who at Forest Hills (with Patti LaBelle) on the Who’s Next tour was probably the best big rock show I’ve ever seen, and I cut out of high school the day The Kids are Alright premiered in New York City, taking the train in from the suburbs to see the first show on the first day at the arty theater on East 57th Street at which it premiered. It was a kickass crowd of other fans who saw no reason to go to school when the Who had a movie opening.
But Darryl Kile… The only thing I can say is that Darryl Kile seems to have lived the life. His friends say he was loyal and forthright, honest and true, and he suffered when he was unable to make things go the way he wanted them to. But he also prevailed so that things went most of the way he wanted, and he left behind a trail of love that should be the envy of anyone.
He died too young, yet I can’t think of anyone else whose accounts were in better balance. Death sucks, but nothing else helps us put living in perspective, does it?