Mood:
sadTopic: Say hi to David for us...
The 2010's haven't been particularly kind to The Monkees or their horde of teeming fans (including this one).
Especially in the month of February!
If you recall, it was on an Unpleasant Valley February day back in 2012 (on Leap Day, in fact) that a massive coronary claimed the life of 66 year-old David Thomas Jones, the youngest and lone Britisher of the TV cast/group. Now, 7 years hence, we mourn the loss of Peter Halsten Tork (nee Thorkelson), the eldest series regular/band member, over a week after his 77th birthday...and unfortunately coinciding with the 86th birthday of Monkees creator/producer/executive producer/writer/director Robert Rafelson.
The last Monkee to be chosen, Tork was the only other Monkee to appear in all 58 TV episodes and direct one (aside from Micky Dolenz). He bowed out of the group in late 1968, shortly after videotaping the special 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee, but would later on return with 2 of his former mates (and occasionally 3!) for a plethora of reunion tours, 4 new albums, and a 1997 reunion special for ABC, Hey Hey It's The Monkees.
Many of you also know that Peter tackled a knockdown, dragout battle with a rare tongue cancer, adenoid cystic carcinoma, only to have it recur with a vengeance and precipitate his passing, thus casting yet another Monkee wrench into the machinations. With half the original roster gone, The Monkees now share the same boat with the surviving members of the very band which inspired them, The Beatles (also reduced to a duet due to the cancer-induced death of one of theirs). But the mayhem and the melodies he leaves behind inevitably live on...
Thanks for helping us one and all to love one another, Peter. And say hi to David for us...
In Fondest Memoriam:
PETER HALSTEN THORKELSON
(February 13, 1942 - February 21, 2019)
