When Tina Turner left her first husband - who was also her boss, captor, and brutal tormentor - she snuck out of their Dallas hotel room with a single thought in her mind: "The way out is through the door."
From there she fled across the midnight freeway, semi-trucks careening past her, with 36 cents and a Mobil gas card in her pocket. As soon as she decided to walk out that door, she owned nothing else.
When she filed for divorce, she made an unusual request. She didn't want anything: not the song rights, not the cars, not the houses, not the money. All she wanted was the stage name he gave her - Tina - and her married name - Turner. This was the name by which the world had come to know her, and keeping it was her only chance to salvage her career.
Things could have gone a lot of ways from there. She could have labored in obscurity for decades, maybe making records on small labels to be prized by vinyl connoisseurs in Portland. She could have stayed in Vegas, where she first went to get her chops back up, and worked as a nostalgia act. And, of course, given what she had been through, she might have … not made it.
What happened instead is that Tina Turner became the biggest global rock star of the 80s. I'm old enough to barely remember this, but if you aren't, it was like this: The Rolling Stones would headline a stadium one day, and the next day it would be Tina Turner. A middle-aged Black woman - she became a rock star at 42! - sitting atop the 1980s like it was her throne.
She managed this because of whatever rare stuff she was made of (this is a woman whose label gave her two weeks to record her solo debut, Private Dancer, which went five times platinum); because she decided to speak publicly about her abusive marriage and forge her own identity, and in doing so give hope and courage to countless women; and also because - in a perhaps unlikely twist for a girl from Nutbush, Tennessee - she had her practice of Soka Gakkai Nichiren Buddhism, to which she credited her survival. She remained devout until the end.
Tina's second marriage - to her, her only marriage - was to Edwin Bach, a Swiss music executive 16 years her junior. Of him, she said, "Erwin, who is a force of nature in his own right, has never been the least bit intimidated by my career, my talents, or my fame."
In 2016, after a barrage of health problems, Tina's kidneys began to fail. A Swiss citizen by then, she had started preparing for assisted suicide when her husband stepped in. According to Tina, he said, "He didn't want another woman, or another life."
He gave her one of his kidneys, buying her the remainder of her time on this earth and perhaps closing a cycle which took her from a man who inflicted injury upon her to a man willing to inflict injury upon himself to save her from harm.
Born into a share-cropping family as Anna Mae Bullock in 1939, she died Tina Turner in a palatial Swiss estate: the queen of rock 'n roll; a storm of a performer with a wildcat-fierce voice; a dancer of visceral, spine-tingling potency and ability; a beauty for the ages; a survivor of terrible abuse and an advocate for others in similar situations; an author and actress; a devout Buddhist; a wife and mother; a human being of rare talent and perseverance who, through her transcendent brilliance, became a legend.
Influential RPG adventure writer, artist, and video game creator Jennell Jaquays has died.
She was a founder of the Dungeoneer zine before it was sold to Judges Guild. Her D&D adventures Dark Tower and Caverns of Thracia became classics, often studied as examples of adventure design. She also wrote and illustrated for TSR, Metagaming, Steve Jackson Games, and many other publishers. Her video game career included developing many of Coleco's titles in the 1980s and level design for the Quake sequels at id Software in the 90s, and she co-founded the SMU Guildhall video game program.
She recently was hospitalized for symptoms of Guillain-Barré syndrome, and a GoFundMe to cover her medical expenses is still active.
He was a fantastic actor and so much more than his role on Brooklyn 99. I watched many of his movies and shows, but will most treasure and remember him fondly for bringing us gut-busting laughs and countless memes as Captain Holt.
A Better Tomorrow (1986), dir. John Woo
Farewell My Concubine (1993), dir. Chen Kaige
Days of Being Wild (1991), dir. Wong Kar-wai
Happy Together (1997), dir. Wong Kar-wai
Once a Thief (1991), dir. John Woo
[the anthropocene reviewed by john green / stranger things / the raven cycle by maggie stiefvater / käthe kollwitz “the people” / ted lasso / in memoriam by alice winn / sex education / frog and toad]
Bryan Ansell has passed away at age 68 (11 October 1955 -- 30th December 2023).
Bryan Ansell founded Citadel Miniatures in 1978 in partnership with Games Workshop, and co-wrote the original 1983 Warhammer Fantasy Battles first edition rules with Richard Halliwell and Rick Priestley. He became managing director of Games Workshop in the mid-1980s, and was primary owner of GW until selling his shares in 1991. He also founded Wargames Foundry / Foundry Miniatures, which continues to produce many older Citadel figures among many other ranges.
(Top: Bryan Ansell from Warhammer Armies, 1988; Bottom: Bryan Ansell (Left) with artist Tony Ackland at the 2017 Bring Out Your Lead oldhammer event at Wargames Foundry)
What is up denizens of our doomed planet, it’s ya boy Danny.
To celebrate the conclusion of Season 1 of Dystopia Daily with Daniel Howell - we’re releasing a limited run commemorative t-shirt!
Inspired by bisexual lighting, vapourwave aesthetics and knowledge that our days on this nightmare planet are limited - I hope this garment reminds you of the good times you briefly distracted yourself with some content before the collapse of society.
In celebration of the end of an era paving the way for whatever may follow, we are also doing a THICC AND LARGE SALE up to 50% OFF the remaining items in the store while the Dystopia shirt is live!!
If you want to bag an Exist flag, an equally dank 'Embrace The Void' Hoodie - or perhaps some Sarcastic Stationery for the upcoming end of summer (sorry), go and shove it in your basket like a feral child ripping his friends apart to loot the last can of Prime Energy from the remains of a small family run grocery store.
🌍 shop.danielhowell.com / 🌎 us.shop.danielhowell.com
It has certainly been a wild ride of euphoric joy and endless pain committing to post 16 videos on to the internet in 2023 and now I face a crossroads of fate as to whether and where I create next. Until then, I thank you sincerely for all of your support and I hope that you are surviving.
- Dan