The recent deaths of musicians Robert Palmer, Johnny Cash and Warren Zevon have sent Belmont-area hipster doofus Stewart Rodney into a morbid listening binge that friends find annoying, sources say.
“I don’t think that guy had listened to a Warren Zevon record in 20 years, and then when Zevon announced last year that he had cancer, suddenly he was, like, the biggest fan ever,” says one source who frequently spends time in Rodney’s house and car. “When Zevon died a few weeks ago, he was playing all these CDs of his all over again, including the new one.”
The source says that Rodney’s florid devotion to the recently deceased continued with the death of Johnny Cash.
“He was at Tower Records when they opened the day Johnny Cash died, and he bought several CDs and was playing them all the time for the next couple of weeks, and going on and on about how Johnny Cash was a giant of American music and culture. I mean, it’s true, but he never bought any Johnny Cash records before. Now suddenly he’s calling him 'John’ likes he’s a friend or something. Once he even referred to him as 'The Man in Black’—unironically.”
When reached at home for comment on the allegations of deathbed fandom, Rodney paused for a minute to turn down the Robert Palmer greatest hits album that was loudly playing in the background, and then defended his actions.
“Maybe it takes death to really bring up how much somebody means to me,” he said.
Rodney added that he had recently had a CD changer installed in his car, and was loading it with Zevon, Cash and Palmer albums in anticipation of a road trip to Graceland.
“I may pick up some Elvis CDs while I’m in Memphis,” he said. “Some of that guy’s stuff was pretty good.”
(The Fabricator is satire. Don’t believe everything you read.)
