The next place

This week I was saddened to hear about the death of someone who helped bring a little bit of happiness to my otherwise miserable and sad existence: Of course I mean former Nebraska running back Lawrence Phillips.

For over twenty years, I watched the team hoping they would win their first national title since 1971 and in 1994, him and his team mates finally beat the University of Miami (FL) in their home stadium, the Orange Bowl, to win a championship after getting screwed over by the refs the previous year. They repeated the next year setting a record in points per game. Somewhere in my storage locker there are two shirts acknowledging the titles he helped bring to the school.

What happened in 1995 was a precourser to his future as a domestic incident occurred but he was allowed to play. After three unremarkable seasons in the NFL, he was done with football and eventually ended up in jail serving a long term sentence for multiple things when his dead body was found in his cell this morning probably from suicide.

Two days ago David Bowie died at 69 from liver cancer. When I first starting listening to rock music, I did not hear much of his work and when I saw his videos in the 80s, my brain lumped him with the artists which replaced the music I grew up hearing.

Eventually I got to hear more of his work but to me he falls in the same category I put Springsteen, Zeppelin, and the Eagles as they are groups whose music I don't try to listen anymore but whose impact on music I respect. If any of those with them die, I would feel the same way I do about Bowie. Sad that the person died but that still won't make me a fan of their work. (Less than a week after this was published, Glen Frey, the man who founded the Eagles died.)

Others equate his death as that of a hero. I'm not bashing that in any way shape or form. However, I have heard and seen many tributes that I really don't like.

David Bowie was a bisexual man who was very promiscuous and sometimes with teenage groupies. Living the rock star life, I know he put many things into his body (cocaine, alcohol, other drugs, Mercury?) which can cause a long term effect.

So with those facts, why are people believing that David Bowie would go to heaven? Put his lifestyle onto a non musician that has no specific fame and any Christian would say that person would go to hell.

If all the scientific discoveries over the past five centuries are wrong and there is an eternal plane of existence after death, Lawrence Phillips and David Bowie are in hell and when my body ultimately fails (Feb 17, 2034 if my instincts and calculations based on them are correct) I will be going there myself.