He did the Mash.
April 26, 2007 6:35 PM Subscribe
ObitFilter: Bobby "Boris" Pickett, 69 To remember him by: "Monster Mash" video mashup, his official site (with spooky 1998 sound), "The Climate Mash" (2005 eco-political rewrite with Pickett's vocal), and his lesser-known co-creation (with Peter Ferarra): "Star Drek"
This completes two legs of the Boris trifecta.
This guy had better be careful.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:52 PM on April 26, 2007
This guy had better be careful.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:52 PM on April 26, 2007
Bobby was the greatest star evah from Somerville, Mass.
(Where they really do say "evah.")
posted by rdone at 6:59 PM on April 26, 2007
(Where they really do say "evah.")
posted by rdone at 6:59 PM on April 26, 2007
This is the latest in a series of seemly insignificant cultural iconic passings that has unexpectedly left me feeling a sense of profound loss. It's silly I know.
I feel like the foundations of my childhood are all gone now. Kurt Vonnegut. Mel Blanc. Vincent Price. The guy that narrated the Disney animal movies. Peter Sellers. All the Beatles that mattered. And another. And another...
Every year marks another piece of Who I Am gone to become undifferentiated wisps of nothingness. Just shades of memories.
Then there are the real losses. Friends and family. Eventually you get to the age where they start to go. And you apprecieate all that sappy shit old people said to you when you were a kid. The shit I am saying right now.
Not only are most of my grand parents gone but with them the fantasy I kept in the back of my head that, no matter how old I got, we would one day have a big Christmas at their house with everybody. With snow and toys and all that nostalgic shit. I think THIS is why people believe in heaven.
I still expect a five dollar check from my Grandma on my birthday every year. Even though I'm 44 years old and she is long dead.
Then I remember they're gone. The old house is long gone - bulldozed by yuppies. Our family has a center —my parents—and they are 75. It's like a center made of clouds that may go away any day now.
Still. I always think are one Christmas away from being kids again somehow. One Halloween away. My heaven is one big family Christmas. One big trick-o-treat.
Mixed up with all that were these memories of childhood that I thought would always be there for my children. So they would know who I was.
But then you see how the world moves on.
Whoa. Sorry. Way to bring the room down TK.
posted by tkchrist at 8:20 PM on April 26, 2007 [11 favorites]
I feel like the foundations of my childhood are all gone now. Kurt Vonnegut. Mel Blanc. Vincent Price. The guy that narrated the Disney animal movies. Peter Sellers. All the Beatles that mattered. And another. And another...
Every year marks another piece of Who I Am gone to become undifferentiated wisps of nothingness. Just shades of memories.
Then there are the real losses. Friends and family. Eventually you get to the age where they start to go. And you apprecieate all that sappy shit old people said to you when you were a kid. The shit I am saying right now.
Not only are most of my grand parents gone but with them the fantasy I kept in the back of my head that, no matter how old I got, we would one day have a big Christmas at their house with everybody. With snow and toys and all that nostalgic shit. I think THIS is why people believe in heaven.
I still expect a five dollar check from my Grandma on my birthday every year. Even though I'm 44 years old and she is long dead.
Then I remember they're gone. The old house is long gone - bulldozed by yuppies. Our family has a center —my parents—and they are 75. It's like a center made of clouds that may go away any day now.
Still. I always think are one Christmas away from being kids again somehow. One Halloween away. My heaven is one big family Christmas. One big trick-o-treat.
Mixed up with all that were these memories of childhood that I thought would always be there for my children. So they would know who I was.
But then you see how the world moves on.
Whoa. Sorry. Way to bring the room down TK.
posted by tkchrist at 8:20 PM on April 26, 2007 [11 favorites]
what will igor and his baying hounds do now?
posted by pyramid termite at 8:25 PM on April 26, 2007
posted by pyramid termite at 8:25 PM on April 26, 2007
This is the latest in a series of seemly insignificant cultural iconic passings Actually, don't feel bad, tkchrist. This passing really was insignificant.
posted by QuietDesperation at 8:31 PM on April 26, 2007
posted by QuietDesperation at 8:31 PM on April 26, 2007
for tk -
One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
posted by vronsky at 8:56 PM on April 26, 2007 [2 favorites]
One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
posted by vronsky at 8:56 PM on April 26, 2007 [2 favorites]
tk-- you imply that Paul was not a Beatle that mattered.
Therefore, it's not worth your children's while to know who you were.
too harsh?
posted by ibmcginty at 9:37 PM on April 26, 2007
Therefore, it's not worth your children's while to know who you were.
too harsh?
posted by ibmcginty at 9:37 PM on April 26, 2007
Now we know whatever happened to his Transylvanian Twist.
RIP.
posted by evilcolonel at 9:38 PM on April 26, 2007
RIP.
posted by evilcolonel at 9:38 PM on April 26, 2007
Actually, tk, I feel kinda the same. I felt a little bit of Massachusetts pride that he was from not far from me. This passing brings up memories of childhood, and thoughts of childhood's loss.
posted by ibmcginty at 9:40 PM on April 26, 2007
posted by ibmcginty at 9:40 PM on April 26, 2007
My heaven is one big family Christmas.
And that is my hell.
Anyway the loss of things past - like the dreadful HTML color palate used on that Monster Mash website - is sometimes a good thing. The person who designed that site deserves a jolt from the electrodes.
posted by three blind mice at 12:45 AM on April 27, 2007
And that is my hell.
Anyway the loss of things past - like the dreadful HTML color palate used on that Monster Mash website - is sometimes a good thing. The person who designed that site deserves a jolt from the electrodes.
posted by three blind mice at 12:45 AM on April 27, 2007
I work up to Monster Mash on the radio this morning. What a wonderful way to start the day, I thought. Then I found out why they were playing it...
I used to love listening to that when I was little. Ideally in conjunction with playing the board game.
posted by ninebelow at 2:23 AM on April 27, 2007
I used to love listening to that when I was little. Ideally in conjunction with playing the board game.
posted by ninebelow at 2:23 AM on April 27, 2007
I own a copy of this CD. I love it. I also sing "The Monster Mash" at karaoke every year around Halloween. Bobby, come back soon.
.
posted by Faint of Butt at 3:44 AM on April 27, 2007
.
posted by Faint of Butt at 3:44 AM on April 27, 2007
.
posted by MarshallPoe at 5:06 AM on April 27, 2007
posted by MarshallPoe at 5:06 AM on April 27, 2007
This is the latest in a series of seemly insignificant cultural iconic passings that has unexpectedly left me feeling a sense of profound loss. It's silly I know.
Not silly at all; I think it's part of the plan. You're finally old when most everyone you admired/enjoyed is gone, and there's nothing left but the terrible garbage that the kids today think is actually worth something. You won't mind moving on from this world, because somewhere out there in the beyond, there's a chance you'll find... Coltrane, Frank Zappa, John Lennon, Vonnegut, Buster Keaton, Fellini, Hunter S. Thompson... whoever's at the top of your chart, all standing around watching Bobby 'Boris' Pickett and Vincent Price doing the Mash.
posted by LeLiLo at 9:48 AM on April 27, 2007 [2 favorites]
Not silly at all; I think it's part of the plan. You're finally old when most everyone you admired/enjoyed is gone, and there's nothing left but the terrible garbage that the kids today think is actually worth something. You won't mind moving on from this world, because somewhere out there in the beyond, there's a chance you'll find... Coltrane, Frank Zappa, John Lennon, Vonnegut, Buster Keaton, Fellini, Hunter S. Thompson... whoever's at the top of your chart, all standing around watching Bobby 'Boris' Pickett and Vincent Price doing the Mash.
posted by LeLiLo at 9:48 AM on April 27, 2007 [2 favorites]
tk-- you imply that Paul was not a Beatle that mattered.
ahem.
"The Girl is mine"
"Say, Say, Say"
EBONY AND FRIGG'N IVORY!
McCartney is dead to me.
He will have to come up with a pretty delicious veggie pot pie to make up for those.
posted by tkchrist at 12:13 PM on April 27, 2007
ahem.
"The Girl is mine"
"Say, Say, Say"
EBONY AND FRIGG'N IVORY!
McCartney is dead to me.
He will have to come up with a pretty delicious veggie pot pie to make up for those.
posted by tkchrist at 12:13 PM on April 27, 2007
I'll defend Paul's post-Beatles career-- not that I think he's been beyond criticism, but that he's overmaligned.
But, I'm sure all reasonable people can agree that he was "a Beatle that mattered."
I mean, seriously.
He is derided, deservedly to some extent, as being too bouncy and happy and vapid. But in "For No One" and "Rocky Raccoon"-- and we can argue about "She's Leaving Home" and "Eleanor Rigby"-- he wrote some of the Beatles' darker songs. "For No One" knocks me out every time. There is not an ounce of solace in those lyrics, and the upbeat tune makes it all seem cruelly matter-of-fact.
posted by ibmcginty at 3:52 PM on April 28, 2007
But, I'm sure all reasonable people can agree that he was "a Beatle that mattered."
I mean, seriously.
He is derided, deservedly to some extent, as being too bouncy and happy and vapid. But in "For No One" and "Rocky Raccoon"-- and we can argue about "She's Leaving Home" and "Eleanor Rigby"-- he wrote some of the Beatles' darker songs. "For No One" knocks me out every time. There is not an ounce of solace in those lyrics, and the upbeat tune makes it all seem cruelly matter-of-fact.
posted by ibmcginty at 3:52 PM on April 28, 2007
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posted by ColdChef at 6:45 PM on April 26, 2007 [5 favorites]