2010: THE CAT’S IN THE BAG AND THE BAG’S IN THE RIVER

We bid fuck off to 2010 tonight ,and that’s sad cuz this year contained the last days of  Type O Negative’s Peter Steele and metal’s Babe Ruth, Ronnie James Dio. We also have to prematurely turn the page on Paul Gray of Slipknot (see you in lefty heaven, dude), Bay Area legend Debbie Abono, and Makh Daniels from Early Graves. It’s like we’re leaving them behind in ’10 and will be forced to forge a path beyond 2011 without their support. What a rip-off.

Okay, this is turning into a real bummer and, worse, it’s redundant to our oft-blubbery reportage of these deaths and others. But today, let’s quickly acknowledge that outside of the MetalSucks coverage umbrella fell the passings of two friends of metal, actor Tony Curtis and filmmaker Satoshi Kon. Curtis may’ve been a marquee leading man and master of frantic comedy in the ’60s, but he first delivered the single greatest, metallist, brilliantest line of dialogue in the history of cinema in 1957’s The Sweet Smell of Success (see headline). Even Mike Patton and Tomahawk made it the refrain of their jam “Laredo” (above, at 1:40). Which is odd cuz that album also has a track named “Sweet Smell of Success.”

Then there’s Satoshi Kon, whose mind-mangling 13-part series Paranoia Agent is one of those works that metal people can love for its non-damning treatment of outsider fuck-ups and its flip, fatalist depiction of mankind’s collective narcissism. It brings to bear the desolate panic of Hitchcock, Lynch’s themes of futile struggle against unfathomable evil, and inevitable dead-end violence, as found in Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors. Which is odd, cuz the star of that movie reminds me of Mike Patton.

Cheers everybody! See you back here in 2011!

-ADF