Obituary Archives - Sensitive Skin Magazine

John Giorno, RIP

B. Kold

The great poet/performer John Giorno has left this earthly plane. Here's a piece we published by him way back in 1994, an excerpt from his book, You've Got To Burn To Shine. John Giorno The Movie of Andy Warhol's Sleep ...

Mike Golden: The Unbearable Beatnik of Lite – & Dark

bart plantenga

I come from a long line of people who drank rat poison. They got headaches every time because they thought the skull & crossbones over the instructions was just a cool logo. Mike Golden [RIP], bless and rest his littl...

Matty Jankowski, RIP

Ron Kolm

There was a posting on Facebook on Saturday, January 12th, by Joe Maynard, an old friend, saying that a buddy of ours, Matty Jankowski, had just passed away in Florida. It was a very moving tribute, and it also contained a l...

Tom Wolfe – Requiem for a Writer

Vincent Zangrillo

Tom Wolfe liked to match. When I saw him on the cross trainer at the gym in Southampton, pumping away, vigorously chewing a chiclet, his head bent over his Ichabod Crane frame, tall but exceedingly lank, his blonde bob part...

Mark McCawley RIP

bart plantenga

“I had become periodically insane, with long bouts of horrible sanity...” --Mark McCawley, “Sick Lazy Fuck” I knew something was up on 3 counts: I had just posted something on the 19 April death of Richard Lyons ...

TAYLOR MEAD IS DEAD. A PISS-POOR OBITUARY IF EVER THERE WAS ONE.

Norman Douglas

In light of the fact that the guys doing my old job at The New York Times dropped the ball on this one, I suppose I must accept that I wouldn't have gotten much more out of any obit they published than this: Ten years ago...

Taylor Mead, RIP

Nick Zedd

I met Taylor Mead in 1989 when we both acted together in a science fiction movie shot in the Hall of Science at the World's Fair Grounds in Queens. I'd seen his acting in the seventies when I moved to NYC and saw Nude Restau...

George Kuchar, RIP

Mark McCawley

George Kuchar, RIP. Kuchar and his twin brother Michael practically invented the "camp" genre. He prided himself on making films with non-actors, script, or theme, for almost no money. The 8mm movies he made in the 60s were ...

Gil Scott Heron RIP

City of Strangers

I discovered Gil Scott Heron the summer of 1991, after I returned to Montreal following a riotous five months in NYC. It was the first time I'd lived in the city, and I felt like I'd caught the tail end of an era. In one s...

Billy Bang, R.I.P.

Bernard Meisler

Billy Bang, the great jazz violinist, moved on to the next plane, April 11, 2011. When I first came to New York, in the early 80s, Bang was the man in the LES jazz scene. Bang was born in Alabama as Billy Walker, but as a...