Tuli Kupferberg, RIP

When it comes to deaths-in-threes, has there ever been a combination as curious as Harvey Pekar, George Steinbrenner, and Tuli Kupferberg? Here's a shout-out to Kupferberg, who in addition to being one of the best minds of Allen Ginsberg's generation (he's the one "who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually happened and walked away unknown and forgotten into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alleyways & firetrucks") was a founder of the Fugs, the band that bridged the way from the folkies to the punks (and recorded what may be the filthiest country song ever written, and yes I'm familiar with the work of David Allan Coe). Kupferberg also co-wrote 1001 Ways to Beat the Draft, the Chuck Norris Facts of its era. And now he's dead at age 86.

I can't make any grand claims of greatness for the Fugs, but their songs were crude, direct, and frequently funny; they're the Greenwich Village beatniks in the Ramones' family tree. RIP, Tuli.