Get These Pirates Out of My Locker

(Props to Greg)

Or

I’m a Big Griever

Or

Daydream Bereaver

(Kudos to Monty and Pete)

Or

He's on last train to Deadsville…

(Tip o’ the cap to Terrence)

Or

(His Coffin is your) Stepping Stone

(Additional accolades for Terrence)

Or

That was then, death is now

(More merit for Terrence)
Davy Jones, Marcia Brady’s prom date, has died at the age of 66 of a heart attack experienced under exertion, according to the strange woman with him who called 911, making this the first of the 1195 obituaries I’ve written that was for a guy who died in the saddle. Jones, Peter Tork, Mickey Dolenz and Mike Nesmith were compiled by record executives as The Monkees, the American answer to the Beatles, in their surreal head trip of a sitcom. Despite their suspect lineage, the Monkees attracted a constellation of talent, with Jimi Hendrix opening for them on their first concert tour, songs written by Neil Diamond and Carole King, and Jack Nicholson, penning and producing the group’s sole cinematic appearance: Head, named so that the tagline for the sequel could be: “From the people who gave you Head.” While The Monkees won the Emmy in 1967 for best comedy series, how much musical talent the band itself actually had is debatable. On the rare occasions the group was actually allowed to play their own instruments, they had to play the ones assigned by their handlers, which was how Dolenz ended up as the drummer despite never having held a drumstick outside of Thanksgiving. Fronting the Pre-Fab 4 was Jones, whose dreamy good looks and British accent quickly made him the most popular member. Jones other major contribution was being the progenitor of the urban legend that Charles Manson had auditioned for the band, a fallacy that still managed to find its way into some of Jones obituaries. Jones also forced a young English musician named David Jones to find a new stage name to avoid confusion. Which was just as well, because can you really imagine a bloke named David Jones singing about Ziggy Stardust and Spiders from Mars? Peter, Mike and Mickey didn’t attend the funeral to avoid making a spectacle of the event, but they would have been ideally suited to serve as pallbearers, as they clearly were not too busy singing to put anybody down.