Patrick Swayze was okay. I loved GHOST, and he was a hoot in TOO WONG FOO. I'm sorry he died.

But I was shocked to learn today that somebody whose works and life I care a lot more about died on 9/11/2009. Author, poet and punk rocker Jim Carroll. Who, you ask?

He wrote THE BASKETBALL DIARIES, which was made into a film starring Leonard Di Caprio.
Here's a link to his wikipedia biography, just updated to include his death of a heart attack
(at his desk, writing) at the age of 59:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Carroll

This seems to be how it goes with artists I care about. They're not big names and I usually only hear about their deaths months later. Like how I only found out recently that a favorite author JG BALLARD died in April. And when my all time favorite musician Captain Beefheart dies it probably won't make headlines either.
~~~hugs, Laika