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| From | "Sager, Greg" <greg.sager@bankofamerica.com> |
| Subject | Re: Rick Johnson R.I.P. |
| Date | Mon, 17 Apr 2006 06:25:51 -0400 |
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> Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2006 00:35:49 EDT
> From: CCDatsMe@aol.com
> To: audities@smoe.org
> Subject: Re: Rick Johnson R.I.P.
> Message-ID: <2b5.86bdd53.317323a5@aol.com>
>
>
> In a message dated 4/15/06 9:15:22 PM,
> mrhonorama@ameritech.net writes:
>
>
> > In the Sunday Chicago Sun-Times, Jim DeRogatis
> > eulogizes the late, great Creem writer who passed away
> > in Macomb (where else?), Illinois on April 3. He was
> > probably my favorite of the Lester Bangs school of
> > rock crits, and by far the funniest.
> >
>
> Damn, that's a pity. Rick was far and away my favorite CREEM writer.
As I've said before on Audities, Rick Johnson is one of my favorite writers ever, regardless of format. He was the master at putting the whoopie cushion beneath overwrought proggers, exhausted arena dinosaurs, preening hair metallers, and anyone else who made rock a dreary place back in the late seventies and the eighties. What made him a genius was that there wasn't an ounce of preachiness in his writing; he simply took down his targets by being gut-bustingly hilarious. As DeRogatis intimated, Rick Johnson mixed erudition and puerile pranksterhood better than anyone in the biz.
I had no idea that he was an influence on Dave Barry, but in retrospect it makes sense. Barry doesn't toss around non-sequiturs like a baboon flinging feces in his zoo cage the way that Johnson used to ("Motley Crue guitarist Mick Mars is still Count Chocula for all intents and purposes"), but he sets up his punchlines in a way that is very Johnsonesque.
I'd give anything to see Johnson's work anthologized and made available.
Although he stopped writing a long time ago, I'd always harbored the hope that one day he'd find the right forum and return. A sad loss.
Gregory Sager
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