Siskel, Kubrick and my Dad

Ever have one of those dreams that are so vivid that you believe they are actually real. And when you wake up, it actually takes you a couple of minutes to realize it was all a dream. I had one last night about Chicago film critic Gene Siskel. He died a number of years back but is best known for working with fellow critic Roger Ebert on the weekly movie review show Siskel & Ebert.

My favourite memory of him is when the two of them reviewed the Burt Reynolds "classic" film Cop And A Half. Ebert went first and actually gave it a "thumbs up" and talked about the merits of a film where rough and tumble cop Burt Reynolds is forced to partner up with 10 year old big mouthed black kid. After Ebert's review, Siskel stared at him in shock for a split second and uttered, "Where's your red suit and hat, Santa?". He then proceeded to lambaste the film for the crap that it truly was.

Anyway, I dreamed I met him at some function and I was talking to him asking where he's been. He told me some crap about retiring out in the country etc etc. Yes, these are the kinds of dreams I have, nothing involving pillow fights with Mariah Carey and Paris Hilton...no, I get stuck with Gene Siskel.

I woke up and thought to myself...what a lame dream. 10 minutes later, I realized he was already dead and therefore the dream was even more bizarre than that.

I remember when he died quite vividly as it happened soon after my own Dad was killed. There are always people believe that deaths come in threes. I think that is the work of fiction in some lame horror movie. I mean anything like that has to be considered a coincidince. But whenever someone close to me dies, I always look for other people who have recently died (a celebrity etc etc) so I don't have to worry about another person close to me dying to make up that "death in threes" theory. Thankfully, within a couple of months of my Dad's passing, famed director Stanley Kubrick also passed followed quickly by Gene Siskel. This doesn't help with having to go through what I did with my Dad, but it helped give everything some closure.

Top 5 Musicians who died too soon.
1. Otis Redding
2. Duane Allman
3. Sam Cooke
4. Jimi Hendrix
5. Janis Joplin