Control: Chadwick Boseman RIP

Everybody dies. Everybody. Death doesn’t care who you are in the real world — you will die. That guy who claimed that he had overcome death? Dead. A princess from the Star Wars movies and a brilliant writer? Dead. A pop star with a convoluted story? Dead. A brilliant actor from Harry Potter in which he played the legendary Severus Snape? Dead. And the Black Panther, the legendary Chadwick Boseman? Dead.

I was going to spend today’s blog entry talking about the novel that I labored on for ten months, but that doesn’t seem right somehow. There is a certain glory in superheroes. They are larger than life, amazing characters with supernatural abilities. They have so much pathos that they seem to become family.

I remember people. I remember Rylan Hooke who died in a confrontation with the police. He was maybe thirty and a wonderful person. I remember all four of my grandparents: my grandfather Kenehan, who died of Parkinson’s when I was very young; my grandmother Kenehan, who enjoyed books and Scrabble and cooked very good cookies; Nana, my wonderful political science teacher grandmother, who loved the New York Times and Democrats; and my Grampy, who loved the Detroit Tigers with me and died the year that they won it all.

I remember Aaron Furness. He was the greatest, kindest, fastest middle school student that there ever was or could be. I remember all the dead. I remember Toni Morrison who I never met but who was the greatest writer of my era. I remember all the fallen. And now — Chadwick Boseman, a famous actor, has died from cancer.

The rich can’t buy everything. They can’t buy a cancer cure or a remedy from death, not yet. How was it that he succeeded so gloriously and I sold three copies of V Max One so far? I don’t know, but I’m happy that he succeeded. He will be missed — I don’t know what the Marvel Universe can do going forward.

Chadwick Boseman portrayed leaders of the Black community like Jackie Robinson and James Brown before landing the Black Panther role that I loved. That movie — Black Panther — was perfect. The villain, Killmonger, was a sympathetic person with believable motives and impressive skill set, and yet Boseman’s Black Panther was the perfect hero, good and free.

Thanks, and take care, friends.