A sad day for entertainment in general. A big loss for Comedy and another for Music. These two people weren’t super famous but they contributed to those who capitalized on the work they laid down.
First up would be The Amazing Jonathan. I saw him occasionally on syndicated Stand-up Shows which were pretty common in the Eighties or what many comedians called the Comedy Boom period. Although Penn & Teller and Harry Anderson were more famous and successful the “magician who tells jokes” sub-genre as both were frequent guests on SNL, Jonathan held his own. His schtick was more often the tricks going badly or outrageously. Near the end of his life, I recall he took up residency in Las Vegas and then got sick and it turned into a rather odd documentary. The point of the movie or according to others, I guess, was…is this guy bullshitting? Doing whatever to get attention? Trying to pull off a weird joke like Andy Kaufman? I have no idea and by the time the flick came out, nobody seriously cared. It’s a shame. I really enjoyed the stuff I had seen. Marc Maron (damned autocorrect changes his surname to something insulting) reposted his interview with Jonathan from 2014, maybe I should listen to it see if there’s an answer. When Marc had Bob Zmuda (Kaufman’s prankish writing partner) on, much got solved despite former Taxi show runner Sam Simon casting some doubt.
Mark Lanegan is less known to me beyond being the former lead singer of The Screaming Trees. Their hits were OK but the band couldn’t break out of being lumped in with the rest of the mediocre Seattle Grunge crap. In 2002, I did see him come on stage to sing lead on a song with Queens of the Stone Age ignorant of him being a member than and being a co-writer for their hit “No One Knows.” Mark went on to other bands when Josh Homme probably kicked him out since QotSA is really just the singer yet not much success.
Thanks for everything gentlemen. You contributed to my early adult years, keeping the Eighties and Nineties from being dull with your contributions.