While we were waiting, the silence stretched, and then, in a conversational sort of voice, the caller asked,

"Hey man, did you hear about Kurt Cobain?"

Cobain, the lead singer of the prominent grunge band Nirvana, had been found dead in his home some time before, an apparent suicide. I said I had heard about it, and, distracted a bit by Paradox, mumbled some absent-minded platitude like "What a tragedy, huh?"

The caller hesitated for a moment, then blurted out in a much less conversational tone, "It was the CIA, man."

I rode out the mental record scratch and replied, "... Huh?"

"It was the CIA," the caller repeated, then added with mounting anxiety, "They did Kurt just like they did Del Shannon."

(For people even younger than those who may not have heard of Kurt Cobain, I should note that Del Shannon was a popular recording artist whose heyday was the 1960s--you've very likely heard his most popular song, "Runaway". His career had been having a bit of a renaissance in the late '80s, after he recorded a new version of "Runaway" to be the theme song of the TV series Crime Story, but then he unexpectedly killed himself in 1990.)

I had no idea how to address this issue, but fortunately just then Paradox awoke from its slumber and I could return to business. "... uhhh... OK! I'm going to need your address so we can mail out your new mouse, sir..."

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

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