Ron Bennington on: Celebrities Dying
"The point is this: if Axl Rose died, we'd like him a lot more. And then Slash would be at the funeral going, "This is the best friend I've ever had in my life, I loved him so much." And that is the funniest thing about the Oscars. Because John Hughes was like, the anti-Oscar guy. People that would like serious movies would look at John Hughes and say, "Look how destroyed the world is." And now, let him die, and, "I forgot to tell you, after hating him, I loved him very, very much. Even though I screamed at him and spit at him, I loved him like a brother." We're awful people, and the word 'people' actually should just equal 'bad people.' You shouldn't even bother saying 'bad people', you should just say, "Oh, that's a person," and we'll all know they are bad. Bob Dylan is a genius, but I don't care for him. Because he's walking around and breathing and I'd like him to die. I wish every celebrity was dead so I could love them all incredibly. We were bringing up yet another Doors documentary narrated by the great Johhny Depp, who I wish would die, because I love him so much. But the funny thing about the Doors was that when you die, yes you can become a legend. Mick Jagger is still alive, who wants to do a documentary about him?
We love and cherish dead celebrities. Two words, my friend: James Dean. You could even go back before that to the silent film actor Valentino who died at like 26 or 27, and they'd go every year and put roses all over his grave. And look how much we like JFK and Lincoln. Love them! Love the way they died in office. Fantastic. Who wants to look at Kennedy's presidential record when we could just think about his beautiful corpse and his lovely bride? ALL I want to think of is just how gorgeous they were when they died, and then I'll actually be so happy with that person. Most people feel that Mick Jagger should have died when he was cool. And now of course everyone feels that way about Axl, although I DO like Axl now that he's become Mickey Rourke. I think I like him even better now that he's living in a trailer and playing 1980s wrestling video games.
It's one of the strangest fucking things in the world. And you can come back from anything, once you die. We now re-adore Michael Jackson. We hated him for twenty fucking years, despised him, kid toucher. Now, out of all the people from We Are The World, he's the only one invited back. And if he was alive, he would not have been invited back. Dead? Yes. And of course, we don't want that Michael Jackson right before he died, we want him at his peak. I really wish Drew Brees would have died two minutes before the end of the game. He would have been my all-time favorite quarterback.
Take Amy Winehouse. If she would have died a week after winning the Grammy, she would have been perfect. And here's the funny thing about that: they were furious because they had a death watch for her. "She is dying!" And when she didn't die, you just couldn't have taken more from us. Britney Spears did the same thing. She was supposed to die, everyone was waiting for her to die, she stayed alive, and we're furious about it. We just want people to die. It's death porn. And then when they die, you can look at their young lion pictures and say, "yes, this is life." Because God forbid life is about getting older and getting wrinkles and gaining weight, or getting disease. Life is just about this beautiful little flower that opens and then disappears. That's all that life is. Lindsay Lohan, they would have loved for her to have been naked on the bathroom floor with a fucking spike in her arm. That would be thrilling for us. And it wouldn't hurt her reputation, look at Michael. His death erased the last twenty fucking years of his life. And now it's back to little Michael Jackson, the one that we all cherished, and will forever be a boy in our hearts.
What we really would like, is two beautiful celebrities, at their height, to give birth to a beautiful, stillborn baby. And then that baby will become the biggest celebrity, the biggest dead celebrity in the world. Kurt Cobain had perfect timing, and of course, it was his own. And there was Kurt backlash before that. We were sick of him and Courtney, Pearl Jam was bigger, they were better before, they 'ruined Seattle' (because it was perfect before Kurt hit). And then the second he died, that day, we could all hit our knees and scream, "Why? We loved you so much, why would you leave us?" And now a little eight year old kid can have a Kurt Cobain dead celebrity clock, and it's perfect for him. Look at Fez: he's praying for Courtney's death. And what I love about Fez is he couldn't pick out a Hole song if you laid it down for him, even though he's worked in radio for decades. Has no idea. But the idea of her, and her tragic death is always there for all of us Americans.
You couldn't have done better than Heath Ledger. You die, and then open a big comic book movie? You've given us the celebrity death and now you're playing the Joker? Thank you. If only you could understand how much we love you now that you're dead. I hope somewhere in heaven you are looking down on this Oscar that we have for your dead body. And if they had brought out his crying baby and widow, the place would have went crazy, or better, they push out a coffin, they open up, there he is, in the coffin, Joker makeup, we put the Oscar in with him, we say, "Goodnight sweet prince," we kiss his corpse, and then push it into a fire, and the place goes fucking crazy. Death porn. Of course you would watch. You'd be fucking masturbating, with tears running down your face, and you'd say, "This is all we want. This is what we were after. We want our celebrities to live as long as flies." A lovebug would be perfect. A 3-day celebrity who fucks and gets hit by a car and dies, is all we want.
The beautiful thing about Nick Drake, who everybody loves, is very few people knew him when he was alive, and this is the perfect celebrity. The work is done, it's incredibly sensitive, beautiful voice, too sensitive for this world, much like Starry Night and Van Gogh, this world is not good enough for you, so let's just hold onto your dead memory and love it. I saw that VW commercial and I had to have one, I just said, "I have to have everything Nick Drake has." And then I'm going to ride around with my hipster friends, and I'm going to say, "We're too cool for this party, let's just drive around and listen to Nick Drake. I was so fucking into him, and oddly enough I had written him three days before and let him know. I had tickets for the concert! I had them!"
Brandon Lee: dead son of a dead legend. Did he leave a baby behind? When does that baby die? When does that baby play Karate Kid and then die? I would love that whole family so much. I just have posters of dead people. Posters of dead people, that's all college is, by the way.
"I love Che."
"What did he do?"
"I dunno, I just love him. He's on a t-shirt."
The only people we hate more is soldiers. A wounded soldier we want no part of. A dead soldier, we would love to bring up, and then hopefully say that he would have voted for us. When the Republican convention was in New York, and they had porned up 9/11, had the 9/11 porn tapes going, it was THE love we have for dead people in this country. We really wish we had 300 million dead people. And that's why we love those movies, that one guy survives but the rest of the world is dead, 'The Road' type thing, because then we can finally love America. We don't love any decade until it's dead. The 70s we're crazy about now. The 80s? LOVE! Only now are we starting to adore the 90s. Crazy how we love a dead decade, and the dead stars of a dead decade. John Travolta you fucking prick, you lived. We would have loved your 70s John Travolta, and your 90s Travolta, but this live John Travolta, losing hair and gaining weight? Ugh. How many people have Sublime tattoos now that never would? 'Lovin' is what I got' was hippy shit, and I love it now that he's dead. And people freaked out when his dog died too. When Louie the dog died it was the worst day of my life. He left behind a newborn too, right? I love him. Mackenzie Phillips lost her dad and I love him. Her dog died, her dad died, and she fucked both of them. Crazy Mackenzie."
We love and cherish dead celebrities. Two words, my friend: James Dean. You could even go back before that to the silent film actor Valentino who died at like 26 or 27, and they'd go every year and put roses all over his grave. And look how much we like JFK and Lincoln. Love them! Love the way they died in office. Fantastic. Who wants to look at Kennedy's presidential record when we could just think about his beautiful corpse and his lovely bride? ALL I want to think of is just how gorgeous they were when they died, and then I'll actually be so happy with that person. Most people feel that Mick Jagger should have died when he was cool. And now of course everyone feels that way about Axl, although I DO like Axl now that he's become Mickey Rourke. I think I like him even better now that he's living in a trailer and playing 1980s wrestling video games.
It's one of the strangest fucking things in the world. And you can come back from anything, once you die. We now re-adore Michael Jackson. We hated him for twenty fucking years, despised him, kid toucher. Now, out of all the people from We Are The World, he's the only one invited back. And if he was alive, he would not have been invited back. Dead? Yes. And of course, we don't want that Michael Jackson right before he died, we want him at his peak. I really wish Drew Brees would have died two minutes before the end of the game. He would have been my all-time favorite quarterback.
Take Amy Winehouse. If she would have died a week after winning the Grammy, she would have been perfect. And here's the funny thing about that: they were furious because they had a death watch for her. "She is dying!" And when she didn't die, you just couldn't have taken more from us. Britney Spears did the same thing. She was supposed to die, everyone was waiting for her to die, she stayed alive, and we're furious about it. We just want people to die. It's death porn. And then when they die, you can look at their young lion pictures and say, "yes, this is life." Because God forbid life is about getting older and getting wrinkles and gaining weight, or getting disease. Life is just about this beautiful little flower that opens and then disappears. That's all that life is. Lindsay Lohan, they would have loved for her to have been naked on the bathroom floor with a fucking spike in her arm. That would be thrilling for us. And it wouldn't hurt her reputation, look at Michael. His death erased the last twenty fucking years of his life. And now it's back to little Michael Jackson, the one that we all cherished, and will forever be a boy in our hearts.
What we really would like, is two beautiful celebrities, at their height, to give birth to a beautiful, stillborn baby. And then that baby will become the biggest celebrity, the biggest dead celebrity in the world. Kurt Cobain had perfect timing, and of course, it was his own. And there was Kurt backlash before that. We were sick of him and Courtney, Pearl Jam was bigger, they were better before, they 'ruined Seattle' (because it was perfect before Kurt hit). And then the second he died, that day, we could all hit our knees and scream, "Why? We loved you so much, why would you leave us?" And now a little eight year old kid can have a Kurt Cobain dead celebrity clock, and it's perfect for him. Look at Fez: he's praying for Courtney's death. And what I love about Fez is he couldn't pick out a Hole song if you laid it down for him, even though he's worked in radio for decades. Has no idea. But the idea of her, and her tragic death is always there for all of us Americans.
You couldn't have done better than Heath Ledger. You die, and then open a big comic book movie? You've given us the celebrity death and now you're playing the Joker? Thank you. If only you could understand how much we love you now that you're dead. I hope somewhere in heaven you are looking down on this Oscar that we have for your dead body. And if they had brought out his crying baby and widow, the place would have went crazy, or better, they push out a coffin, they open up, there he is, in the coffin, Joker makeup, we put the Oscar in with him, we say, "Goodnight sweet prince," we kiss his corpse, and then push it into a fire, and the place goes fucking crazy. Death porn. Of course you would watch. You'd be fucking masturbating, with tears running down your face, and you'd say, "This is all we want. This is what we were after. We want our celebrities to live as long as flies." A lovebug would be perfect. A 3-day celebrity who fucks and gets hit by a car and dies, is all we want.
The beautiful thing about Nick Drake, who everybody loves, is very few people knew him when he was alive, and this is the perfect celebrity. The work is done, it's incredibly sensitive, beautiful voice, too sensitive for this world, much like Starry Night and Van Gogh, this world is not good enough for you, so let's just hold onto your dead memory and love it. I saw that VW commercial and I had to have one, I just said, "I have to have everything Nick Drake has." And then I'm going to ride around with my hipster friends, and I'm going to say, "We're too cool for this party, let's just drive around and listen to Nick Drake. I was so fucking into him, and oddly enough I had written him three days before and let him know. I had tickets for the concert! I had them!"
Brandon Lee: dead son of a dead legend. Did he leave a baby behind? When does that baby die? When does that baby play Karate Kid and then die? I would love that whole family so much. I just have posters of dead people. Posters of dead people, that's all college is, by the way.
"I love Che."
"What did he do?"
"I dunno, I just love him. He's on a t-shirt."
The only people we hate more is soldiers. A wounded soldier we want no part of. A dead soldier, we would love to bring up, and then hopefully say that he would have voted for us. When the Republican convention was in New York, and they had porned up 9/11, had the 9/11 porn tapes going, it was THE love we have for dead people in this country. We really wish we had 300 million dead people. And that's why we love those movies, that one guy survives but the rest of the world is dead, 'The Road' type thing, because then we can finally love America. We don't love any decade until it's dead. The 70s we're crazy about now. The 80s? LOVE! Only now are we starting to adore the 90s. Crazy how we love a dead decade, and the dead stars of a dead decade. John Travolta you fucking prick, you lived. We would have loved your 70s John Travolta, and your 90s Travolta, but this live John Travolta, losing hair and gaining weight? Ugh. How many people have Sublime tattoos now that never would? 'Lovin' is what I got' was hippy shit, and I love it now that he's dead. And people freaked out when his dog died too. When Louie the dog died it was the worst day of my life. He left behind a newborn too, right? I love him. Mackenzie Phillips lost her dad and I love him. Her dog died, her dad died, and she fucked both of them. Crazy Mackenzie."
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