Goodbye Carrol and Swayze

"Pale Death with impartial tread beats at the poor man's cottage door and at the palaces of kings." - Horace

Over the past few days we have lost two notable and somewhat underrated celebrities. Writer and muscian Jim Carroll and actor Patrick Swayze. Carroll died of a heart attack on the latest 9/11 unfortunately and Swayze finally lost his battle with pancreatic cancer. This was sort of a surprise for me as I thought both of these people were at the time alright, though I knew Swayze was stricken with cancer and, well, Carroll had never really looked healthy.

For those of you modern people who don't know and as a recap for those who did know, I will tell you just what exactly these two are known for.

Patrick Swayze gained a lot of recognition in the 80s as a new sex symbol. He starred in memorable romance films like Dirty Dancing and Ghost around this time. I never saw those two, but the movies I know him for in particular are Point Break, Red Dawn, The Outsiders, Roadhouse and later on in his career Donnie Darko (a surprising acting turn). Then recently got the main role of a new crime series called The Beast as a sort of last hurrah. He was not a perfect actor by any means but he wasn't terrible either. And I never really disliked him in anything I saw. He seemed to go for a lot of dramatic moments that didn't quite work but were loads better than those of other people like Charlton Heston or William Shatner. His role in Donnie Darko was small but significant and kind of hilarious as he portrayed the self-help demigod of 80s conservative women who had a really big secret. Something that surprises people is that I really liked him in the action movie Point Break. Yes he did not have a lot of competition with Gary Busey, Lori Petty, and a very young Keanu Reeves in the cast. And no the performance was not spectacular, but then again neither was Point Break. It was a sad loss especially because I thought he had just kicked the cancer and then to my surprise he's gone. It is truly sad.

Now Jim Carroll. Jim Carroll is known for two things primarily: his autobiographical book The Basketball Diaries and his hit song "People Who Died", also autobiographical. I heard that song before I knew who Carroll was and I loved it. Then I was introduced to the depressing film adaptation of The Basketball Diaries where a young Leonardo Dicaprio starred as Carroll. As a kid, when Carroll was not an all star school basketball player or writing poetry, he was a troublemaker and drug addict who roamed the streets of New York with his fellow druggie friends who did almost anything to keep their habit alive. Jim eventually got sober and went on to become a writer and short lived musician. His story was hard to take and extremely brutal. This also caught me off guard as I had not heard about him in a long time.

These men were talented in their own right and deserved more praise before their deaths rather than after. They will be missed along with everyone else lost this year.

This has been a farewell to two likable people from Your Modest Guru. Thanks for reading.