Score Score

31 Dec, 2020 //Uncategorized //Joel Moss

Score-Score

It looked hopeful at its start

As we celebrated the ball drop

But then, there was the pesky Trumpian part

And the unwatched, streamed-release of Mall Cop

Then the shit really hit the fan

And by shit, I mean pandemic

Which got mired in moronic denial

Making health and safety polemic

The world got all locked down

There was panic and sickness and death

But big, dumb Donnie just kept pulling shit out of his ass

Like some zoo baboon on meth

The economy fell through a hole

Toilet paper was rare as gold

And hundreds of things you never thought you needed

Were back-ordered for months and pre-sold

Social distancing became a thing

You couldn’t see grandma or gramps

Only about half of the country seemed to give a crap

Divided into two distinct camps

Of mask-wearing to deter the spread of Covid-19

And rallies to pass it around

Resulting in more than 300,000 in the US alone

Tragically buried six feet under ground

The whole year was a political nightmare

Non-stop fake and real-ish news

As social media erupted with millions of acolytes

Following baseless, cockamamie views

Whew,

Joe Biden won the election

Trump said, “Joe stole the vote!”

But the most voters in history said otherwise

And something else to note

Democracy relies on truthfulness

Where everyone’s truth is heard

So, emboldening despicable liars

Is categorically absurd

Yeah, more than 150,000,000 voted

Trump was defeated, he lost, he’s done

But he’s been whining that he won’t go

Because that would ruin all of his fuck-up-the-world fun

Consequently

Sleep was not a thing this year

Who could have peacefully closed their eyes

When the world was spinning out of control

Run by the worst of the worst kind of guys?

And none of them worse than our guy

He’s a shameless, amoral prick

And the fact that his peeps are nearly half of the country

Literally makes me sick

But

He’ll be gone in twenty days they say

Please, just make him go!

We’ve endured way too much of dimwitted Don

Now it’s time for a little Joe

And I’m hopeful

When I thought I might never be again

That we will soon be governed

By more decent, qualified men

And women

Not like the awful ones these last few years

Who have been pure, evil voices

Belying the worst of our fears

Enough Kellyanne, enough DeVos

Bye, bye Kayleigh Mc

Crawl back into the holes you slithered from

And don’t ever, ever come back

Because there’s work to do across the board

Health and rising oceans

Immigration, infrastructure

Rashes and their lotions

Systemic racism, gender inequality

Policing in the street

Homelessness and anyone

Without enough to eat

We can do so much better

This isn’t Yang or Yin

It’s past time to get back to making life better for all

In the World we’re living in

Divisiveness will end us

Let’s correct that, if we can

Just look back at 2020 for what not to do

Then

Let’s make a better plan

•••

We almost ran out of alphabets

For this year’s record hurricane streak

We got all the way through the ABC’s

And halfway through the Greek

Covid-19

Wildfires scorched millions of acres

Ringing bell after fire bell

Hundreds of thousands spent weeks on end

In a real, live burning hell

Brazil set fire to the Rain Forest

There were tsunamis and mudslides and quakes

We shouldn’t fuck with Mother Nature

It’s not good…for goodness sakes

Covid-19

Iran accidentally shot down a Ukrainian plane

167 passengers died

Bibi Netanyahu is Israel’s corrupter-in-chief

In Hebrew or English, he lied

Prohibition had its 100th anniversary

As did US Women’s right to vote

Trump’s impeachment ended without a Senate trial

And that was all she wrote

Great Britain Brexited the EU

Harry and Meghan left their nation

Astronauts launched to space on a Space X rocket, twice

To the International Space Station

Auchwitz was liberated 75 years ago

The temp in Antarctica reached 65º

Those who heeded Trump’s Covid cure of injecting bleach

Are…duh…no longer alive

Covid-19

Men’s Warehouse and Lord & Taylor filed for bankruptcy

As did Hertz, Neiman Marcus, J C Penney

And a shitload of others, but I can’t list them all

There were simply way too many

But

I will list the Boy Scouts of America

Diddling lawsuits left them in the lurch

Do you think there’s any connection

Between scouting and the church?

Covid-19

George Floyd was murdered before our eyes

His death spurred world-wide rage

Please, please let’s get it right, this time

Before we turn the page

Covid-19

Lev Parnas, a Rudy henchman

Confessed his evil ways

The NY Times endorsed Warren and Klobuchar

During the early primary days

Bill Barr’s a whacked out, dishonest AG

Most legal scholars would concur

Harvey Weinstein is a rapist

And will spend most of the rest of his life in stir

We signed some bogus agreement

To talk of peace in Afghanistan

But I guess it was merely a photo op

For Trump to show he could pronounce Taliban

The Navy fired the Teddy Roosevelt captain

For trying to pandemically protect his men

But when it turned out to be just a Presidential tantrum

He was hired right back again

Covid-19

China got tough on Hong Kong

For getting uppity with President Xi

Australia overturned Cardinal Pell’s sexual abuse conviction

Which seems pretty fucked up to me

A British WWII vet, Capt. Tom Moore

Raised $39,000,000, that’s right

By crowd-funding for his 100^th birthday

So, the Queen dubbed him a knight

A Myanmar jade mine landslide killed 200

India and China fought a little war

North Korea blew up the diplomatic embassy with the South

Confused by what diplomacy’s for

PG&E pled guilty to 84 counts of manslaughter

During the 2018 CA fires

Kanye kinda ran for President

But I don’t think there were too many buyers

NASA Headquarters were named for Mary Jackson

Its first black female engineer

SCOTUS ruled that half of Oklahoma is Native land

Not all? Oh, dear…oh, dear.

The 2020 Census was cut short

“We’ve counted plenty,” said Trump

Louis DeJoy took over as Postmaster General

And turned the Post Office into a dump

Covid-19

The UAE officially recognized Israel

How is that even a deal?

Now there’s peace and love in the Middle East…thanks, Jared

Spoiler Alert…that isn’t real

Tucker Carlson’s head writer got fired

For posting racial slurs

Tucker teetered on both sides of the line

That racism and fascism blurs

As people of color keep being shot down by police

With none of them being brought to justice

We have to commit to equal rights before the law

Or no one is going to trust us

Because people are taking this cause to the streets

All around the Earth

To show universal understanding

Of what freedom and fairness are worth

Mississippi even changed their racist flag

The Confederate symbol is no longer on it

The mayor of DC renamed two blocks of 18^th Street

And painted Black Lives Matter upon it

Covid-19

Convicted then pardoned Joe Arpaio, ran for sheriff again

Arizonans said, “Take a walk!”

Hurricane Laura was the most powerful in more than a century

Deniers…can we talk?

Iowa suffered a devastating derecho storm

Crazy winds ravaged the state

Michigan was ordered to pay $600M in reparations for tainted Flint water

Unfortunately, too little, too late

There was a massive explosion in Beirut

Tons of fertilizer ignored for years

Tens of thousands attended the Sturgis motorcycle rally

And exceeded the CDC’s worst fears

Lt. Col Vindman blew the whistle

Then was bullied out of his job

Trump commuted Roger Stone’s conviction

A bromance, slob to slob

Covid-19

Jerry Falwell, Jr. left Liberty U.

Because of his sexual deviation

Which only got worse when he defended himself

With the pool-boy explanation

A GOP-led Senate panel

Said Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded

And anyone who doesn’t believe it

Is sociopathicly deluded

Michael Flynn got pardoned

Who cares if he committed treason?

Fires raged through CA and six other states

In history’s deadliest fire season

Both parties had weird conventions

The DNC spoke of morals and hope

The GOP’s platformless message was some Qanon bullshit

Then they unanimously nominated a dope

Steve Bannon was arrested for bilking millions

In a dastardly Build the Bridge scheme

Tens of thousands gathered at the Lincoln Memorial on the 57^th Anniversary

Of MLK’s I Have a Dream

Covid-19

Trump got the Covid

He said it was barely like flu

And everybody should just stop worrying

Because all you have to do

Is helicopter from your front lawn

To the best hospital in your state

Where twenty or thirty medical experts

Analyze your fate

Then treat you with experimental drugs

And wave the cost of beaucoup bucks

Sorry if that’s not an option for you

I guess your life just sucks

Covid-19

The World Food Program won the Nobel Peace Prize

For trying to keep hunger at bay

The Pope cited his support for same sex unions

Which is a big deal for the Pope guy to say

NXIVM came tumbling down

Keith Ranieri was sentenced to life

Jared Kushner is a smarmy little shit

And so is Ivanka, his wife

The Republicans rammed through Amy Coney Barrett

The whole process made me seethe

She once wrote an opinion in a police-choking case

Claiming, “The Constitution cites no right to breathe.”

Two Brown students published drug research

On promising therapy for ALS

Trump ordered all troops out of Somalia

Wakanda’s next, I guess

NASA bounced a probe off an asteroid

Grabbed a chunk and flew away

Gunmen assassinated Iran’s top nuclear scientist

In the middle of the day

“There’s a pizza joint in DC,” says Q

Where Dems keep dead babies in the fridge

John Lewis was honored with a six-day, nationwide memorial

And one last ride ‘cross the Edmond Pettus Bridge

Demonstrations erupted around the world

After cops murdered George Floyd in the streets

And although four were arrested and charged

Trump supported their actions with tweets

There was a Qanon Rep elected to Congress

She believes that alien DNA

Has infected all of the Democrats

Is there really anything more I can say?

The “acting” Secretary of the Navy, Thomas Modly

Resigned…he was simply a dope

Trump, Melania, Kellyanne and Kayleigh got Covid

As did Stephen Miller, Chris Christie and Hope

Space Force, I guess, was some bullshit diversion

While the Chinese actually went to the Moon

THERE ARE NOW CORONA VACCINES

And perhaps, you’ll get one soon

Russia hacked…well, everything

Though Trump never made a peep

But he pardoned a bevy of bad, bad, baddies

Because they’re the company he prefers to keep

I think he’s collecting henchmen on his way out

To help burn the country down

Like the inspired Christmas Nashville bomber

Another dangerous, Trump-loving clown

Most schooling just went viral

In-person teaching made kids sick

As struggling parents with inadequate tools or info

Were forced to crazily pick

Between keeping their children safe

Or sending them off to class

So, they could go to their frivolous jobs

Swimming in the roiling Covid morass

Which only prolonged the lethal pandemic

No need for rocket science to see that

Besides, our educational system is so woefully inadequate

None of our kids are going to be that

The new Penn Station opens today

I hear it’s shiny and nice

Not nice is that no charges will be filed

For the Cleveland cops who murdered 12-year-old Tamir Rice

If you were wondering about the Word-of-the-Year

The OED just took a pass

You’d think that one of those stodgy old Brits

Coulda pulled something out of their ass

And Merriam Webster didn’t fare much better

Really, “Pandemic” was the best they could do?

Hey, Merriam, text me, you doofuses

I’ve got some real choice words for you

Entertaining?

The 2020 Rock Hall inductees were Depeche Mode

Nine Inch Nails, T-Rex, The Notorious B.I.G.

Whitney Houston and The Doobie Brothers

Who all musically influenced me

The Grammys all went to Billie Eilish

Parasite won the big Oscar prize

Disney+ made Hamilton available to watch

By millions of streaming eyes

Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson got Covid-19

Performance venues are going broke

There were way to many mean Ellen rumors

To not have fire in all that smoke

Caffè Lena kept the music singing

By streaming LIVE, most every night

Becoming a beacon of muscal hope

In the Save Our Stages fight

Production shut down, theaters were shuttered

Performances, few if any

Working musicians, singers and actors

Had to scratch for every penny

And there’s no light yet at the end of the tunnel

Please, help any way you can

The soul of mankind lives in art and music

The truest gift from man to man

Bob Dylan sold his songs to Universal/NBC

I can’t help thinking that it’s strange in

More than 60 years of protest songs

The times are barely changin’

The Hustler, The Color of Money and The Man Who Fell to Earth

Were movies from books that Walter Tevis wrote

He also wrote The Queen’s Gambit

Which became a Netflix series to note

I’m sure some other stuff happened

In the world of entertainment

But these were most of the hi-lights

Since the devastating viral containment

Sports

People needed their sports rush

Even when augmented

To try to dance around a pandemic

Drastically reinvented

Everything stopped for a while

Some teams came crawling back

But only the NBA did it safely

The others showed a fundamental lack

Of caring

For the players, the coaches and the fans

Even golf was not immune, playing distanced and outdoors

With no one in the stands

All sports were affected

March Madness…cancelled, nada, no

Tyson Fury KOed Deontay Wilder

Who was basically a no-show

Chiefs won Super Bowl LIV

Lakers became 17-time NBA champs

NASCAR banned Confederate flags

Which was received differently by two different camps

Some asterisked titles were awarded

Dodgers won the World Series…weird

Dustin Johnson won the FedEx Cup and was golf’s #1

Without ever shaving his beard

Sofia Kenin won the Australian Open

Athletes shunned the RN Convention

Djokavic was ousted from the US Open for hitting a line judge in anger

Even though that was not his intention

LSU beat Clemson for the National title

Rafa Nadal won his 20th Grand Slam

Naomi Osaka and Dominic Thiem won US Open titles

They’re better at tennis than I am

The Redskins will change their name

The Cleveland Indians as well

Do you think some generic, offenseless swag

Is really gonna sell?

And if you were thinking that sports news

Had played out to the hilt

Sarah Fuller, a soccer goalie

Kicked a field goal for Vanderbilt

In Passing

Qassim Suleimani was an Iranian military terrorist

Trump giddily took him down

Peter Kirstein was the Father of the European Internet

He was an adjective and a noun

June Bacon-Bercey was a groundbreaking TV meteorologist

She sometimes got the weather right

Mamie Kirkland bore witness to the horrors of southern racism

Like burning crosses in the night

Sultan Qaboos pulled Oman from poverty

Harold Burson was a giant in the world of PR

Matty Maher owned and tended

McSorley’s, an East Village bar

Nelson Bryant chronicled outdoor life for The NY Times

Dr. Ronald Melzack studied the perception of pain

Gary Starkweather invented the laser printer

How it works…I can’t explain

Betty Pat Gatliff was a forensic crime solver

John Pawasarat used basic data to address social ills

Charles O’Brien was believed to have conspired to take out Hoffa

Among his other mafia kills

David Glass ran Walmart and owned the KC Royals

Lee Gelber was the dean of NYC tour guides

Greta Beer fought Swiss banks to release billions belonging to Holocaust families

To the extent that the law provides

Daniel arap Moi was the corrupt leader of Kenya

Frieda Caplan introduced kiwi and jicama to American produce aisles

Sy Sperling founded Hair Club for Men

Giving many bald men back their smiles

Louis Nirenberg was a world-renown mathematician

Dr. Leonard Shengold shined a light on child abuse

Katherine Johnson was the NASA mathematician depicted in Hidden Figures

Where gender and race was no excuse

Leila Janah hired the poor in Africa and India

Michael Hertz designed the NYC Subway Map

Paul Farnes was the last who flew in the Battle of Britain

With an RAF pilot’s cap

Stanley Cohen won a Nobel for researching dementia

Rajendra Pachauri shared the Nobel with Al Gore

Lawrence Tesler was a personal computing pioneer

Who knew what ones and zeroes were for

Dawn Mello revived Bergdorf Goodman and Gucci

Philip Leder helped decipher the genetic code

Louis A. Craco founded Volunteers of Legal Service

Where poor people’s fees were never owed

Hosni Mubarak was deposed from Egypt

Joe Coulombe founded Trader Joe’s

Andreas Brown owned the fabled Gotham Book Mart

And sponsored the coolest used book shows

Jean Daniel was a revered French journalist and humanist

Henry Cobb was partners with I. M. Pei

Bobbie Battista was one of CNN’s original anchors

And she had a lot to say

Dr. Stanley Dudrick introduced post-operative procedures

That saved millions in the ICU

Vittorio Gregotti designed monumental statues

Because that’s what he knew how to do…Covid-19

Jack Welch was the big cheese at GE

Lauded in You Don’t Know Jack

Eli Miller was the guy who’d deliver NY Seltzer

And then take your bottles back

Rosalind P. Walter was the original Rosie the Riveter

She worked from dusk ‘til dawn

Peregrine Pollen was a quirky, funny Sotheby’s auctioneer

Now he’s going…going…gone

Javier Pérez de Cuéllar was UN Secretary General

Boris Yaro took the photo when RFK got shot

Charles Smith was a Native American rights advocate

Alas, he died, and now he’s not

Betty Williams was Northern Ireland’s Nobel-winning peace laureate

Michael McKinnell co-designed Boston’s City Hall…Covid-19

Elizabeth Scholtz directed the Brooklyn Botanical Garden

Beautiful, summer, winter, spring and fall

Kevin Thomas Duffy was a remarkable federal judge

Who presided over multiple terrorist cases…Covid-19

Edward Feightner was a fearless test pilot

And one of WWII’s brave, navy aces

Stanley Sporkin was an SEC enforcer

Who took corporate malfeasance to task

If you needed anything butled in the White House

Wilson Jerman was the one to ask…Covid-19

Rev. Joseph E. Lowery was an aide to MLK

He was the “Dean” of Civil Rights

E. Margaret Burbidge was a trailblazing stargazer

An expert on celestial lights

Rafael Gómez Nieto was the last member of the unit

That liberated Paris in ‘44…Covid-19

Nina Balducci was the matriarch

Of Balducci’s grocery store

Lila Fenwick was the first black woman

To graduate from Harvard Law

Linda Tripp was the asshole in the middle of the Clinton impeachment

Who blabbed about things she never saw

John Horton Conway was a truly magical math genius…Covid-19

Richard Passman was a spy satellite engineer…Covid-19

Norman Platnick was The Real Spider-Man

Who knew which spiders we’re supposed to fear

Sirio Maccioni owned NYC’s Le Cirque

David Toren fought to recover Nazi-stolen art…Covid-19

Dr. Lorna M. Breen was a too-caring ER doctor

And her suicide broke my heart

Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and 202 others…Racial, Police Homicide

James Beggs championed the Shuttle as NASA’s chief

Bennie Adkins was a Viet Nam war hero

Henry Geller was the FCC director who promoted televised presidential debates

And reducing cigarette ads to zero

Takuo Aoyagi invented the Pulse Oximeter

Paul Marks led Sloan Kettering’s rise

Dr. Richard Friedman debunked the theory that same-sex attraction was curable

Surprise, surprise, surprise

William Haddad crusaded for generic drugs

Ann McBride Norton led Common Cause

S. David Freeman was called The Green Cowboy

In his fight for clean energy laws

Ben Benson owned Smith and Wollensky

TGI Fridays as well

Denis Goldberg was the only white defendant convicted with Nelson Mandela

As far as I can tell

Motoko Fujishiro Huthwaite was the last of the Monuments Women

Who helped preserve cultural treasures after WWII

Cleon and Leon Boyd were identical Vermont twins

Who groomed the slopes at Mt. Snow for you…Covid-19

Robert May was a brilliant, Big Picture scientist

Cécile Rol-Tanguy fought the French Resistance fight

Stanley Ho was the gambling Czar

Of all bets laid in Macau, day or night

Ralph McGehee exposed the CIA’s less-than-moral Viet Nam operations

Deadly Deceits was the name of his book…Covid-19

John E. Randall was an ichthyologist who identified 834 new species

Loving fish, was all that it took

Annie Glenn’s stuttering led her to become

An advocate for the speech impaired

Larry Kramer founded the Gay Men’s Health Crisis and Act Up

Because he truly cared

Albert Krieger was an infamous mafia and drug lord attorney

Jean Kennedy Smith was the 2^nd youngest Kennedy kid

Helping to end The Troubles in Ireland

Was something, as Ambassador, that she did

Hecky Powell was a South Side Chicago BBQ master…Covid-19

Harry Hoffman was the Waldenbooks guy

Ed Bradley was a veteran TV correspondent

Behind the 60 Minutes, CBS eye

Oleh Hornykiewicz established dopamine as a treatment for Parkinsons

Thomas Freeman was the debate coach at TSU

Herb Goldsmith created the Members Only jacket

I’m still a member…are you?

Alan Hurwitz, a Detroit teacher, became the Zombie Bank Bandit

To keep his habit supplied with crack…Covid-19

Paolo Giorgio Ferri hunted for looted millions of Greco-Roman artifacts

And tried to get them back

Nikita Price advocated for the homeless

After living on the street

Alfred M. Worden was an Apollo 15 astronaut

Which is kind of neat

Michael Hawley was a programmer/tech visionary/pianist

Kirk Smith was a towering figure in environmental science

John J. Mooney invented the catalytic converter

To bring car emissions into compliance

Shirley Siegel was a civil rights lawyer

And NY’s first female solicitor general to boot

James Sherwood resurrected the Orient Express

With its Paris to Istanbul route

Zeev Sternhell survived the Holocaust

And fought fascism until he died

Mary Kay Letourneau raped then married her student

Almost no one was on her side

Paulinho Paiakan was an indigenous Rain Forest defender…Covid-19

Lester Crystal executive produced PBS’s NewsHour

Ola Mae Spinks helped preserve archives of former slave interviews

Because oral history has such power

Dr. William Dement researched sleep disorders

Madeline McWhinney Dale was the first female member of the Federal Reserve

Nadine Taub was a pioneering attorney in the fight

To give women the rights they deserve

Thomas Blanton was a Klansman convicted of a ’63 Alabama church bombing

Four black children died

He got away with it for over forty years

Because so many crackers lied

Mike East was one of three marine guards in Havana

To last lower the American flag

Herman Benson fought union corruption

Because misrepresentation’s such a drag

Emma Sanders was a Mississippi civil rights crusader

Zindziswa Mandela was a South African activist/poet

Gordon Bower researched memory loss

If you lose it…how do you know it?

Christopher Dickey was an intrepid foreign correspondent

Flossie Wong-Staal unlocked the mystery of H.I.V.

Emily Howell Warner was the first woman to pilot an American commercial flight

La dee da, la dee do, la dee dee

C. T. Vivian was MLK’s field general

Richard LaPointe spent 23-years wrongfully sentenced to hell…Covid-19

Jane Walentas developed Brooklyn’s DUMBO with her husband, David

And restored and donated the carousel

John Lewis was the Conscience of the House of Representatives

He was an honest, righteous man

He was always getting into lots of Good Trouble

Because, he said, “I can.”

Andrew Mlangeni was an Anti-Apartheid activist

Who worked by Mandela’s side

Herman Cain was the pizza guy who went to a Trump rally

Without a mask, and died…Covid-19

Charles Evers was a Mississippi civil rights leader

Medgar was his brother

Rene Carpenter was the last of the Mercury-7 wives

And some astronaut siblings’ mother

Bruce Blair was a former Minuteman launch officer

Who fought for Nuclear Arms control

Betty J. McBride was a mentoring Special Ed/Music teacher

Who taught that music was food for the soul…Covid-19

Lee Teng-hui led Taiwan to democracy

William English helped design the computer mouse

Ann Syrdal gave voice to Alexa and Siri

So we could bark orders to things in our house

John Hume won the Nobel for contributing to Northern Ireland peace

Doris Buffet gifted lots of brother Warren’s money

Konrad Steffen was a renowned climate researcher

Who warned, Greenland’s diminishing ice is just not funny

Bernard Bailyn was an eminent early American history scholar

Gisèle Halimi advocated for French women’s rights

Irving Kanarek defended Charles Manson

I bet that kept him up most nights

Brent Scowcroft was National Security advisor to Ford and Bush I

Frances Allen made it easier to code

Deidre Davis Butler advocated for people with disabilities

Which was a heavy, heavy load

Peter V. Tytell was a forensic typewriter expert

Seymour’s Schwartz’s Principles of Surgery was the bible surgeons study

Gerald Shur designed the Witness Protection Program

For crooks who ratted out their buddy

Geoffrey Nunberg was an expert on the use of language

Going Nucular was his tome

Ian McRae defied apartheid to bring black South Africans electricity

So, I put him in my poem…Covid-19

Dirk Mudge was first pro-apartheid

Then he fought to make Namibians free…Covid-19

Gene Norman was NYC’s Landmarks and Preservation Commissioner

Who preserved landmarks for you and me

David Graeber claimed, “We are the 99%”

As the leader of Occupy Wall St.

Eleanor Jacobs rebranded and popularized the Earth Shoe

For old hippies to wear on their feet

Forrest Fenn was an art dealer who hid a treasure chest in the Rockies

Apparently, just for fun

Roberta McCain died at 108

Senator John was Roberta’s son

Florence Howe was the Mother of Women’s Studies

And founded the Feminist Press

Lillian Brown was the makeup artist to nine Presidents

And advised them how to dress

Jack “Murph the Surf” Murphy stole the Star of India

He was hastily arrested

Jeanette Carlson fought apartheid in her native South African

And was deported when she protested

Bill Gates, Sr. guided his son’s philanthropy

Dr. Marion Moses was Caesar Chavez’s closest aide

Joe Bruno was a disgraced NY political power broker

For the many shady deals he made

Joan Feynman was an astrophysicist

And writer, Richard’s, sister

Shere Hite was, you know, The Hite Report, female sexual response lady?

Just in case you might have missed her

RBG was a remarkable woman

Who truly loved the law

Which would be fundamentally more equitable

If seen through the eyes with which she saw

John Najarian transplanted organs

Stephen F. Cohen knew lots about Russian history

Timothy Ray Brown was the first known cured HIV patient

Exactly why, is still a mystery

Jim Dwyer was a crusading, Pulitzer-winning journalist

Robert K. Ruskin fought corruption in NYC

Don Piccard was a intrepid balloonist

Who ballooned across the sea

Mario Molina blew the whistle on aerosols

Causing a hole in the Ozone layer

Faith Stewart-Gordon was the doyenne of the Russian Tea Room

You’d make reservation, you’d eat, then you’d pay her

Bernard Cohen argued Loving v. Virginia before the Supreme Court

Striking down laws against interracial marriage

Alan Boyd was the first Secretary of Transportation

Who regulated your truck and your plane and your carriage

J. Michael Lane worked to eliminate Small Pox

Lee Kun-hee was the twice convicted, twice pardoned Samsung head

Peter Sutcliffe was the Yorkshire Ripper…Covid-19

Few are sorry that he’s dead

James A. Johnson led Fannie Mae and The Kennedy Center

Betty Dodson was the guru of women’s self-pleasure

Cecilia Chiang brought authentic Chinese food to America

At the Mandarin, her San Francisco treasure

Robert Fisk was a dogged war correspondent

Dr. Philip Lee helped engineer Medicare

E. S. Reddy led the U. N.’s fight against apartheid

Which was ended because he was there

Dan Camp created the Mississippi Cotton District

To eradicate a festering slum…Covid-19

Joanna Harcourt-Smith was Timothy Leary’s acid-tested companion

Whose mind expanded more than some

Vincent Reffet was an extreme base jumping, jet pack flier

Lee Hyo-jae was a South Korean crusader for women’s rights

Pat Quinn promoted the Ice Bucket Challenge

To help those fighting ALS fights

Arthur Imperatore founded the New York Waterway ferry service

Tony Hsieh founded Zappos for shoes

Georgina Mace compiled the list of endangered species

Which were often overlooked in the news

Gianni Bernardinello was a baker who fed those in need…Covid-19

Daniel Cordier was a hero of the French Resistance

Debra White Plume was an Oglala Lakota rights advocate

Which improved due to her insistence

David Dinkins was NYC’s first black mayor

Valéry Giscard d’Estaing was the President of France

Lon Adams invented the Slim Jim

The minute he had the chance

Frank Carney co-founded Pizza Hut

Norman Abramson was a wifi pioneer

Paul Sarbanes introduced Nixon’s impeachment

And fought corporate corruption far and near

David Hackett was an historian and Holocaust expert…Covid-19

Doug Scott was among the first to summit Everest’s Southwest face

Lillian Blancas was elected as a Texas judge

Posthumously winning her race…Covid-19

Chuck Yeager was The Right Stuff test pilot

The first to exceed the speed of sound

Almost everything good about flying on Earth or in space

Is because he was around

Deb Price wrote about the lives of same sex couples

Henry Haller was five President’s cook

Jack Steinberger won a Nobel for discovering sub-atomic particles

You can’t see ‘em, even if you look

Richard Hinch was NH’s Speaker of the House…Covid-19

Benny Napoleon was Wayne County’s Sherriff for years…Covid-19

Eight Wisconsin nuns got Covid-19 and died

Holy crap, the tears

Jean Graetz was an early, rare white supporter of civil rights in Alabama

Minoru Makihara led Mitsubishi’s rise

Nancye Radmin was a fashion mogul

Who promoted body acceptance in everyone’s eyes

Betty Campbell-Adams was a dessert evangelist

The matriarch of Lloyd’s Carrot Cake

Joseph Bachelder, III was the architect of the executive Golden Parachute

Oh, for Petey’s sake

Dr. H. Jack Geiger founded Physicians for Social Responsibility

And Physicians for Human Rights

Using medicine to address the social ills that led to illness

In one of humanity’s most important fights

Although his name is not well-known

His tireless benevolence will suffice

As a legacy well-rewarded

With the Nobel Peace Prize…twice

Howard J. Rubenstein was a PR spinner for the rich

Joe Clark was the tough high school principal from Lean On Me

Samuel Little was America’s most prolific serial killer

Now he’s dead, like he’s supposed to be

The Arts

Keely Smith didn’t die in 2020

She passed on 12/16 last year

But her beautiful voice meant so much to me

That I’m memorializing her here

John Baldessari was a conceptually humorous artist

Vaughn Oliver designed Indie Rock covers

Christopher Tolkien preserved his father’s legacy

For armies of Middle Earthian lovers

Syd Mead designed the look of Blade Runner and Alien

Elizabeth Wurtzel wrote Prozac Nation

Edd “Kookie” Byrnes parked cars at 77 Sunset Strip

But always seemed like he was on vacation

Buck Henry was a comedic writing genius

He wrote The Graduate and Get Smart

Bob “Daddy-O” Wade sculpted outlandishly large roadside creatures

Which some might have called pop art

Neil Peart was the drummer/lyricist of Rush

Barry Tuckwell was a French horn master

Ivan Passer took the brilliant book, Creator

And directed a unmitigated disaster

Nancy Lewis brought Monty Python’s Flying Circus

To millions of PBS fans

David Olney was a singer who died on stage

Which upset his touring plans

Norma Tanega sang Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog

Peter Larkin designed Tony-winning sets

In the world of Indian music

Ravi Shankar…as good as it gets

Claudio Roditi was a Brazilian trumpeter

Jimmy Heath was a legend on sax

Edith Kunhardt Davis wrote sequels to her mother’s Pat the Bunny

Which parents read to children over bedtime snacks

Terry Jones was a founding member of Monty Python’s Flying Circus

Margo Lion produced Broadway’s Hairspray

Billy Ray photographed Marilyn Monroe

When she sang at JFK’s birthday

Robert Bechtle was a suburban photorealistic painter

Orson Bean was an actor who sought better ways for kids to learn

Bob Shane was the last of the original Kingston Trio

And like poor Charlie, he’ll never return

Michou was the flamboyant raconteur of Paris’s, Chez Michou

Harry Harrison was the Morning Mayor DJ of NYC

Jason Polan sketched Everything in the Museum of Modern Art and All the People in New York City, Vol 1

For all of us to see

Harriet Frank, Jr. with her husband, Irving

Wrote screenplays for Hud and Norma Rae

Peter Serkin blurred the lines of classical and contemporary piano repertoire

Holy crap, that dude could play!

Wes Wilson was a psychedelic poster artist

Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead

Mary Higgins Clark was the Queen of Suspense Novels

Which she made up in her head

Fred Silverman produced All in the Family, Mary Tyler Moore and M*A*S*H

Jack Burns produced and wrote The Muppet Show

Gene Reynolds co-created M*A*S*H for TV

Just in case you didn’t know

Kirk Douglas was a swashbuckling movie star

Where does one begin?

He led the slave revolt in Spartacus

With his rebelliously clefted chin

Lucy Jarvis was a groundbreaking producer

She gained access to the Kremlin, China, the Louvre

Paula Kelly danced in Sweet Charity

And I loved to watch her move

Ivan Kral was a songwriter/guitarist

An integral part of the NY Underground

Robert Conrad was a TV star

When The Wild, Wild West was around

Alice Mayhew was a distinguished editor

Steve Jobs, All the President’s Men

Nello Santi conducted Verdi and Puccini

Again and again and again

Roger Kahn wrote The Boys of Summer

Lyle Mays was a jazz pianist/composer of note

True Grit was the most successful thing

That Charles Portis ever wrote

Terry Hands directed the Royal Shakespeare Company

And Broadway’s legendary Carrie flop

Santu Mofokeng photographed apartheid in sublime black and white

Until apartheid had to stop

Monique van Vooren was an actress/chanteuse

And a panelist on a game show

Joseph Shabalala was a gifted South African singer

Who founded Ladysmith Black Mambazo

Barbara Remington illustrated Tolkien book covers

Kamau Brathwait was a revered Caribbean poet

A. E. Hotchner was a writer and friend to Hemingway and Paul Newman

And he liked everyone to know it

Zoe Caldwell was a 4-time Tony-winning actress

Bonnie MacClean drew psychedelic posters for the Filmore West

Clyde Stubblefield, “Funkmaster” drummer for James Brown

Funkily, one of the best

Buzzy Linhart was a Greenwich Village denizen

He sang in all the usual spots

Kellye Nakahara was seen as Nurse Yamato

In hundreds of M*A*S*H episode shots

Ja’Net DuBois sang the Jefferson’s “Movin’ On Up”

A song she also wrote

Orrin Keepnews was a legendary Jazz producer

Something important to note

Lynn Cohen acted in Sex in the City

Diana Serra Cary was Baby Peggy on the silent screen

Clive Cussler wrote sweeping literary fantasies

About places he’d never been

Charles Hobson produced black content on mainstream TV

McCoy Tyner was a revered Jazz Master

Claire Bretécher was a satirical French cartoonist

Who let nothing relevant ever get past her

Tobi Tobias was a dance critic and children’s author

James Lipton loved his Inside the Actors’ Studio gig

Linda Wolfe wrote about mysterious true events

Of crimes both small and big

Anne Marion was a Texas ranching heiress

Who wholeheartedly supported art

Lynn Evans Mand recorded Mr. Sandman and Lollipop

Lead singer was her part

Lee Phillip Bell created The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful

Martin Crowley wrote The Boys in the Band

Ann Grifalconi wrote about different cultures for kids

So, the kids might understand

Lisel Mueller was a Pulitzer-winning poet

J. Seward Johnson, Jr. sculpted hyper-real works

Anton Coppola was well known as an opera conductor

Being Francis’s uncle was one of the perks

Steve Weber played guitar in the Holy Modal Rounders

As a folky, he really could shred

Jamey Gambrell translated contemporary Russian writers

So, we might somehow know what we’d read

Max Von Sydow was an intense Swedish actor

The Exorcist, The Seventh Seal, The Virgin Spring

Ulay collaborated with Marina Abramovic

Performance art was mostly her thing

Barbara Neely created the Blanche White mysteries

Charles Wuorinen wrote Brokeback Mountain’s score

Kenny Rogers was The Gambler

And so, so, so much more

Keith Olsen was a much-loved record producer

Mal Sharpe mastered man-on-the-street interview pranks

Julia Miles crusaded for gender parity in the theater

With very little thanks

Stuart Whitman was a rugged big and small screen actor

Suzy Delair was a Laurel and Hardy co-star

William O. Smith was an innovative classical composer

Whose clarinet concertos really raised the bar

Eric Taylor was a poet/singer/songwriter from Texas

James Hatch collected black theater archives

Terrence McNally penned Ragtime and Kiss of the Spider Woman

Both of which touched our lives…Covid-19

Lyle Waggoner was a TV actor/announcer

Danny Ray Thompson played bari in Sun Ra’s Otherworldly Band

Floyd Cardoz was a lauded Indian/American chef…Covid-19

Or, so I understand

Tonie Marshall won a César

For directing Venus Beauty Institute

Doriot Anthony Dwyer was a gender-breaking musician

Who played the classical flute

Molly Brodak was a poet and memoirist

She wrote of her father’s bank-robbing spree

If you hear Eric Weisberg’s Dueling Banjos while walking in the woods

Hide behind a tree!

Aurlus Mabele was the Congo’s King of Soukous…Covid-19

Ray Mantilla was a percussion king of Latin Jazz

Jeremy Marre made more documentary films of world music

Than anybody has

Manu Dibango was a saxophonist/ambassador of African music…Covid-19

Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator was funny and scary

Richard Reeves was a Presidential biographer

Who wrote well-researched commentary

Richard Marek edited Hemingway, Baldwin and Ludlum

Mike Longo was a jazz pianist/composer/mentor…Covid-19

Honor Blackman played James Bond’s Pussy Galore

I think Auric Goldfinger sent her

Michael Sorkin was a socially responsible architect…Covid-19

Joe Diffie was a Honky-Tonk country star…Covid-19

Alan Merrill co-wrote I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll…Covid-19

For us all to sing out loud in the car

Krzysztof Penderecki composed innovative music

For films like The Exorcist and The Shining

William Helmreich wrote about walking every street in NYC

Without ever complaining or whining…Covid-19

Wallace Roney was a big Jazz trumpeter…Covid-19

Gerald Freedman directed Hair

Untold numbers of musicians are here

Because Ellis Marsalis was there…Covid-19

Tomie dePaola wrote and illustrated Strega Nona books

Chloe Wellingham was a PBS Senior VP

Bucky Pizzarelli was a Jazz Master guitarist

Who was always nice to me

Wilhelm Burmann was a revered NYC Ballet master…Covid-19

James Drury played The Virginian years ago

Adam Schlesinger wrote songs for Cry Baby and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend…Covid-19

I thought you ought to know

Ken Shimura was a beloved Japanese comic…Covid-19

Hal Willner produced music for SNL…Covid-19

Vincent Lionti was a virtuoso Met violinist

And leader of the Westchester Youth Orchestra, as well…Covid-19

I once played croquet

With Bill Withers, on my lawn

Now there’s a darker place inside my heart

‘Cause there’s less sunshine since he’s gone

Patricia Bosworth was an actress/biographer…Covid-19

Chynna was a model and rapper

Mort Drucker’s caricatures in Mad Magazine

Were a good, old-time knee slapper

Leïla Mechari designed windows for Hermès of Paris…Covid-19

Bruce Baillie shot Avant-Garde films on the coast

Saul Turtletaub wrote Sanford and Son

A show I loved the most

Brian Dennehy was a bigger-than-life stage/screen/TV actor

Robert Loomis edited William Styron and Maya Angelou

John Prine wrote Angel from Montgomery

And gave us more than one thing to hold on to…Covid-19

Andy González was a go-to Latin-jazz bassist

Victor Skrebneski photographed celebrities in turtlenecks that were black

Peter Beard photographed wildlife for The End of the Game

About species that were never coming back

Louis Johnson was a Broadway dancer/choreographer

He danced on screen, for the opera, for fun

Moraes Moreira was Brazil’s Cowboy of Sound

Who used a guitar, not a gun

Allen Garfield, memorable in The Conversation and Nashville…Covid-19

Lee Konitz played sax on Miles’ Birth of the Cool…Covid-19

Jaroslava Brychtova created monumental sculptures in glass

With some kind of monumental glass-sculpting tool

Craig Gilbert created TV’s first reality show, American Family

Albert K. Webster helped build the New York Phil…Covid-19

Glenna Goodacre sculpted the Vietnam Women’s Memorial

With uncompromising skill

Thomas Miller produced Laverne and Shirley, Full House

And most notably Happy Days

Richard Teitelbaum was a trailblazing composer and improvisor

In innovatively electronic ways

Shirley Knight won a Tony and Emmy

Richard Hake hosted Morning Edition on WNYC

William Bailey was a modernist painter

Who painted figuratively

Ann Sullivan was a Disney animator

Oliver & Co., The Lion King, Peter Pan

Michael Cogswell was the archivist/director of the Louis Armstrong Museum

Because Satchmo was the man

John Pfahl manipulated photos of landscapes

And compost photos too

Betsy Wyeth was the muse and collaborator

Of her more famous husband, Andrew

Gene Deitch animated Tom Terrific, Nunik

And also the Tom and Jerry revival

Roy Horn was the Vegas tiger-taming magician

He of the tiger attack survival…Covid-19

Harold Reid was the Statler Brothers bass-voiced leader

Irrfan Khan was in Life of Pi

Matty Simmons produced the National Lampoon movies

He was one helluva funny guy

Bernard Gersten was an exec at the Public Theater and NY Shakespeare Festival

Barney Ales headed promotion during Motown’s rise

Zev Buffman produced Elizabeth Taylor in Broadway’s The Little Foxes

With her magical, violet eyes

Peter H. Hunt directed 1776 on Broadway

Lynn Harrell was the “Gentle Giant” of the cello

Tony Allen was the groove master of the Afrobeat

Whose drumming was anything but mellow

Hamilton Bohanon was a Motown drummer

He became king of the disco beat

Millie Small sang My Boy Lollipop

Her voice was oh, so sweet

Sam Lloyd acted on Scrubs, Seinfeld and Modern Family

John Loengard photographed celebrities for Life through his lens

Michael McClure was a beat poet, playwright and lyricist

Who wrote the words to Janis Joplin’s Mercedes Benz

Maj Sjowall was the Godmother of Nordic Noir

Andre Harrell’s Uptown Records melded Hip Hop and R & B

Hillard Atkinson was an amazing singer for Was (Not Was)

But his friends all called him “Sweet Pea”

Per Olav Engquist was the Literary Lion of Sweden

Barry Farber was a radio interviewer for 60 years

Else Blangsted was a remarkable film music editor

Whose back-story would bring you to tears

Jean Erdman was married to Joseph Campbell

And was an innovator of modern dance

Christo was known for wrapping buildings and bridges

Whenever he had the chance

Richard Wayne Penniman was my friend

As Little Richard, his legend grew

There would have been no Beatles or Stones without him

Shut Up! You know it’s true

Florian Schneider co-founded Kraftwerk

Carolyn Reidy was Simon & Schuster’s CEO

Betty Wright was known as the Clean Up Woman

Everywhere she’d go

Gil Schwartz was a 20-year Communications Director for CBS

While simultaneously skewering corporate misconduct as Stanley Bing

Susan Skaggs owned Different Fur Recording Studio in SF

A place for the best to come play and sing…Covid-19

Ian Whitcomb sang You Really Turn Me On

Lucky Peterson was Prince of the Blues

Louis Desarte, muralist of the Black Experience in Harlem has died

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