Giving Thanks

A by-no-means-comprehensive list of people I'm glad are dead.

Thirst Things First

Buy her a shot first and then she’ll bum you one of her Parliaments.

Say what you will about Olivia Nuzzi’s provocatively see-through journalistic ethics, but at least sluts are back in vogue. Sluts are fun, they’re good for the economy; take it from someone who spent his early 20s in NYC at the height of the Sex and the City phenomenon, when Manhattan was ruled with a rubber fist by the Cosmo-and-cupcake merchants. Besides, it seems that younger generations are fucking about as often as pandas in captivity, which is giving everything a fidgety, sweating, praise-be-to-Allah suicide bomber vibe. You people need get laid—follow the sluts, they’ll show you the way.

If Only They Could Die Twice

Honorable mentions: Jimmy Savile, Leona Helmsley, whoever invented the KFC Famous Bowl.

1. Adolf Hitler: Even a few years ago this would go without saying, but in America in 2025 it seems depressingly necessary to point out that I’m glad Hitler is dead. I’ll go ahead and say it: Hitler wasn’t a good guy, he did bad stuff, don’t look up to him.

2. Jim Fixx: Of all the exercise one can do, running is the dumbest. Fixx was the guy who kicked off the jogging craze with 1977’s The Complete Book of Running—which, unless it’s divided into “From” and “To” categories (I refuse to check), is completely pointless: Babies run around like goddamn maniacs before they can read a word. Thanks to Fixx, I have to deal with panting masochists in tiny shorts clogging up bike lanes across the globe. Runners should be hunted for sport; at least then all the practice would be worth something.

3. James Pierpont, original founder of Yale University: Fuck Yale.

4. Rush Limbaugh: A vehemently racist, sexist, pill-popping ghoul who normalized the vilification of vast swaths of the country as long as it served his ultimate goal: Lining his own pockets. He almost single-handedly invented the screaming echo chamber of modern right-wing inanity which traffics in pearl-clutching faux outrage and fact-free mudslinging. It took lung cancer to finally wipe that stupid grin off his fat face—so, hey, chalk one up for lung cancer. (See also: Roger Ailes.)

5. Jesus Christ of Nazareth: Game this one out and you’ll realize you probably agree with me. If you believe Jesus was the son of God, then his death was all part of a divine plan to redeem the human race. If not, it’s still good that he’s gone because otherwise he’d be a 2,000-year-old undead hippie roaming the earth, stealing work from doctors and asking everyone if they know who his dad is.

6. Queen Ranavalona I of Madagascar: Self-explanatory.

7. Sir James Goldsmith: While not as well known as Carl Icahn or T. Boone Pickens, Goldsmith is the arguably better (which is to say worse) example of the first golden age of fuck-the-people corporate raiding and financial engineering that strips businesses of assets and human beings of dignity for short-term personal profit. After Goldsmith’s death, Kissinger praised him for his “celebration of the dignity of the individual,” by which he could only have meant the way in which Goldsmith used his ill-gotten lucre to celebrate himself, since he seemingly had few if any real friends—and if Kissinger is praising you as you go into the dirt, you done fucked up. A bully and greed pig to his core.

8. The first passenger to wear sweatpants on a commercial flight: Rot in hell.