The Immortal

My pick Crescencia Garcia is dead. Obit.

And Crescencia Garcia is dead. Surprisingly zero mentions in the news considering past coverage, not even a brief note.

Crescencia Garcia is dead. Link is a reliable source on Facebook that tracks down members of her military unit. I'm very surprised that this has slipped under the radar considering she's had extensive coverage on the news both for her military service and her COVID survival story.

I feel like this qualifies. Race car driver who died as a passenger in a road rage accident. If only she had driven the car instead of whoever was driving, perhaps things could have been different.

I'm 28 years old and my parents had me when they were very young, so they have only just reached their 50s. My paternal grandparents are both in their 80s and recently celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary and are still going strong the both of them. My maternal grandmother and grandfather on the other hand didn't have things work out in their relationship and they ended up having a divorce. My grandmother remarried, but she and my grandfather remained on good terms until his death from bladder cancer 12 years ago. Unfortunately her husband was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease recently and is wheelchair bound now.

Here's a death that I found out about today that honestly now that I think about it, is a bit surprising went almost completely under the radar even within the media. That of Italian car mechanic, engineer and businessman Claudio Zampolli, who died in 2021 at the age of 82. Zampolli is one of those people who themselves were rather obscure, but managed to find himself associated with multiple completely different notable people for different reasons. So he had formed a joint venture with Italian music composer Giorgio Moroder of all people to create the car company Cizeta-Moroder which created arguably one of the most outrageous products in sports car history, the Cizeta-Moroder V16T. However the company however quickly crashed and fell apart, primarily due to Moroder deciding to leave the company after a dispute on the car's production process. And then there's the Van Halen story of how he ended up starting the Sammy Hagar era back in the 80s, after Eddie Van Halen had stopped by Zampolli's Los Angeles shop to admire a Ferrari that happened to be owned by Sammy Hagar, which lead to Zampolli recommending Van Halen that he should call Hagar and tell him to join the band.

The info I get on astronauts are primarily from events and public appearances which I keep track on, as well as the multiple space/spaceflight related group chats that I am a part of, which include a few insiders and people who've met or even known them personally. It's not necessarily accurate, but at least it's better than not knowing anything at all.

John Devitt dead. He won two Olympic gold medals in swimming. The 4x200m freestyle relay in 1956 and the 100m freestyle in 1960. I had come to hear he was in poor health 2 years ago from an acquaintance who is a neighbour to him. Looks like it was true in this case. EDIT: Fixed the link

And right as I say that, John Devitt becomes a hit for me as well. Here's an obit. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-18/australian-olympic-swimming-champ-john-devitt-dies/102747764

Michael Parkinson is a hit here. I seem to be getting quite a few hits within the summer, question is how much ammo will I have left when the inevitable chaos that happens in December comes around?

Footballer Sergio Rico is set to be discharged from hospital soon and those who did pick him in pools are going to be regretting it now, because he's pretty much in the all clear and will continue to recuperate at home once he's discharged. Even though it's doubtful he will play again, it's pretty clear he's going to live a normal life and definitely won't be dying anytime soon.

Not sure where else I can post this so I'm doing it here. Apollo Flight Director Gene Kranz, known for his contributions in the Apollo 13 mission and for his legendary quote "Failure Is Not An Option" turns 90 in a few days, and he's not in the best of health from what I know of and is needing mobility aids such as a walker.

My great granddad had an entire arsenal of funny jokes or responses to being asked that question. Ranging from "Actually, I died the day I couldn't wipe my arse." to "Well, I do miss my old mates, Benson and Hedges." Loved that man, he ended up living to be 96 years old.

Clearly has declined rapidly, using a feeding tube on occasion at least and looking extremely weak now, yeah he's not making 2025.

Back to the topic at hand. The thing that I am most interested about, is who wrote the post of Lil Tay and her brother's supposed deaths? Was it actually the parents, or did they write it themselves? It's certainly possible that Lil Tay (and brother) decided to fake their deaths to escape the abusive family situation and just start over their lives (likely under new identities). In fact, I think this is what has most likely happened, knowing that there weren't any bodies found, police reports or any other evidence besides that statement indicating their death's. Plus, I can't see a case of murder here, because there would be blood or bodies. An accident would get quickly reported on as well, so that's out of the question as well. I think it's very possible they ran away from home in order to escape the abusive situation going on there, and the brother posted about their "deaths" online in order to prevent their family and any fans or stalkers from finding out. Lil Tay is a minor but her brother is 21 from what I'm finding online, so they can definitely pull this off.

Lot of rumors going around that Carl Dean's been in poor health for a while now. I've been seeing several sources he has Alzheimer's Disease and heart disease, but nothing concrete that confirms this. Keep in mind two things here. One, Carl is an extremely reclusive person and has almost never been seen in public. Two, Dolly Parton is fiercely protective of Carl's health and privacy and fully respects his wishes to stay completely out of the spotlight. It's pretty safe to say that if we ever get any news on him, it will be about his death.

Oh right I forgot about A.J Foyt, I'd rank him among immortals as well just because besides the health issues and heart surgery, he survived killer bee attacks twice.

I'd like to mention some different candidates here that weren't on the list, but are probably among the most immortal in their respective field of motorsports. None of these candidates are alive, just so you know. Niki Lauda - Besides narrowly surviving a crash in 1976, he had lung and kidney issues more or less throughout the last decade of his life which included two kidney transplants, a lung transplant, dialysis since around 2017 and several hospitalizations in 2018-2019 before his death. Stirling Moss - Fell down a lift shaft in 2010, severe chest infection in 2016 and was hospitalized for 134 days, declined even further after his retirement from public life and ultimately died in 2020 after being ill for years. Gerry Ashmore - I don't know much info about this but from a comment @Octopus of Odstock mentioned that he had a continuous battle with prostate cancer for 19 years, I'd say that's up there in immortality. Carlos Reutemann - Liver cancer and was almost constantly in hospital or ICU in the last year of life due to dehydration and multiple intestinal hemorrhages. Can't think of any more at the moment, OoO might have more some more names in the motorsport world who classify as immortal. And then you have the ones who are alive. Michael Schumacher, Cale Yarborough, Alex Zanardi, Fred Lorenzen and possibly some future entrants in Henri Pescarolo, Parnelli Jones and so on.

Not exactly unexpected knowing her mental health history and the fact her son Shane committed suicide a year back, but sad news nonetheless. I'll have to give credit to the Northern Irish girl I had gone on a date with many years ago for introducing me to Sinead as well couple other Irish and Northern Irish music artists who I still listen to this day. RIP.

I'm glad that you mentioned the Sultan of Brunei. First of all he's a complete despot having pretty much absolute control over the wealth and riches of his state and known for his very dictatorial and controversial laws. But also if you are a petrolhead or a car enthusiast then you'll hate the Sultan and his brother, Prince Jefri even more. During the time Brunei was very rich, the Sultan and Prince Jefri together had started a massive car collection that includes several highly limited exotics as well as custom cars and one-offs that the Sultan got specifically made for him, and left it all to rot in his palace.

Depends. A non natural cause of death such as a plane/train/car crash, murder, suicide, overdose, freak accident and so on are far more likely to receive more media coverage due to the circumstances of the death, compared to a natural death like a long or diagnosed terminal illness even if the A-List celebrity affected is young. An event which ends up with multiple celebrities dead, usually a plane/train/car crash, war, terrorism/mass murder or a large scale accident (natural disaster, building collapse etc.) will be a lot more shocking than a single celebrity's death. Between one world famous celebrity compared to say a whole band or sports team dying at once, the latter will in majority of the cases receive more coverage.

Tony Bennett is a hit for plenty of us.

I think Tony's death comes off as a bit shocking because he was still active and in incredible shape just until around 2 years ago (though he was diagnosed a couple years before he retired) compared to other DL dementia sufferers who were or are in far poorer health and haven't been in the public eye for years.

Update on Cale Yarborough from his daughter. Diagnosed with a very rare terminal condition apparently. It does seem to be of the slower progressive multiple sclerosis/dementia type of condition, rather than the fast progressing terminal cancer/ALS kind but regardless definitely a solid choice for DPs this point on.

This hasn't been covered yet apparently but ex V8 Supercars driver Dale Brede is dead. Interestingly enough, he was teammates and very good friends with Mark Porter, one of only two drivers to ever be killed during a V8 Supercars race (Ashley Cooper being the other one). https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8271720/accomplished-act-motor-racer-dale-brede-dies-aged-48/