Jimi Hendrix Jimi Hendrix Experience performs at the 1968 Miami Pop Festival
TOO SOON
It turns out the old adage about living fast and dying young is true: Pop stars do perish younger than other people.
The Atlantic reports on new research that suggests popular music stars experience higher rates of accidental death and suicide.
A recent study conducted at the University of Sydney focused on more than 12,000 musicians who have died since 1950 toward the cause of learning whether pop icons actually do die younger than other people.
The study, which covered all musical genres from punk rock to calypso, concluded that pop stars live approximately 25 years less than the average American citizen.
The same study also showed that pop stars were five to 10 times more likely than the average person to die from accidental death and two to seven times more likely to commit suicide.
The good news (at least for burgeoning pop stars): Incidences of accidental deaths and suicides have been trending downward in the last decade.
The study showed that accidental deaths of pop stars peaked in the wild and crazy sixties – cases in point: Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, et al – while suicides and homicides both reached an apex in the nineties.
So what accounts for the premature mortality rate among pop stars? It's not a simple case of sex, drugs and rock and roll.
Study author Diane Kenny says it's more a matter of young musicians not receiving enough support to cope with the fast-living lifestyle into which they are dropped.
"The pop music 'scene' fails to provide boundaries and to model and expect acceptable behaviour," said Kenny, a professor of psychology and music. "It actually does the reverse – it valorizes outrageous behaviour and the acting out of aggressive, sexual and destructive impulses that most of us dare only live out in fantasy."
JUST SAY NO
Students at the University of California, Berkeley, have launched a petition to prevent Bill Maher from speaking at their commencement ceremony. In the wake of Maher's recent controversial comments about Islam on his HBO series Real Time with Bill Maher, a group of students began a Change.org petition demanding the university rescind the invitation to have Maher speak at the graduation ceremony in December. The petition introduction states, "Bill Maher is a blatant bigot and racist who has no respect for the values UC Berkeley students and administration stand for." As of Thursday, the petition had gathered more than 1700 signatures.
Source: Salon
DOUBLE DUTY
How on earth could Jimmy Kimmel host two events – the Country Music Awards and his nightly ABC talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live! – at the same time? Enter hologram technology. ABC has announced that Kimmel will employ a hologram version of himself to simultaneously helm the 48th annual CMAs in Nashville from a remote location, while still filming his talk show at the same time. Both events will take place on November 5.
Source: Hollywood Reporter
OFFICE CHITCHAT
If you're looking to remain at your current place of employ for as long as possible, get thee to the water cooler. New research from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania suggests that socializing in the workplace can often result in employment longevity. The study scrutinized e-mails, messages and calendar information of more than 8,000 workers over a two-year period and concluded that social interaction with co-workers was key to job retention. Study author Lynn Wu also compiled a list of words that were vital to job security during times of constraint. Among them: lunch, coffee, football and baseball.
Source: The Atlantic
BETTER WAY
There's more to prepping teachers and students for random acts of school violence than just telling them to lock the doors. The Washington Post recently published an essay by Launa Hall, who teaches a pre-kindergarten class in Arlington, Va. Ms. Hall references the lockdown drills that her school has enacted in the wake of several U.S. school shootings, and suggests there must be more effective preventive measures. "Instead of controlling guns and inconveniencing those who would use them, we are rounding up and silencing a generation of schoolchildren, and terrifying those who care for them," writes Hall. "We are giving away precious time to teach and learn while we cower in fear."
Source: Washington Post
PEE-WEE REDUX
It appears the rumours were true: There really will be another Pee-wee Herman movie. Actor Paul Reubens, who created the quirky character for the TV series Pee-wee's Playhouse (1986-1991) and played the role in the films Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985) and Big Top Pee-wee (1988), confirmed the plans for a third film on Wednesday night's edition of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Said Reubens: "There is going to be one. I was hoping I could make this huge announcement tonight, but it's a week away, I think from being announced." Reubens declined to name the director of the new film, but revealed that production will commence next February.
Source: Hollywood Reporter