O-Bits: Death By Chocolate Edition

From the “With Friends Like These” file comes the story of a man who stole didn’t quite steal from the dead…that would be terrible. What he did was worse: he stole from the GoFundMe page started to help a family defray funeral costs. Which might be even worse. Fox News reports that Jeffrey Grenier started the page after his friend Sabrina Galusha was murdered behind her Manchester, New Hampshire apartment building. He promised her parents he would send them the money raised, but a check never came; Grenier eventually shut the page down. The funeral was paid for by Sabrina’s boss, and GoFundMe has promised to reimburse the family for the stolen funds. But, let’s see: Manchester, mourning, cold-hearted guy…has anyone alerted Kenneth Lonergan?

We’ve got a sweet tooth here at O-Bits, so we’re always happy to order the rich chocolate cake some restaurants call “Death By Chocolate.” We never regret it. But “Death By Chocolate Bar” is something else entirely. Sadly, that’s how David O’Reilly of Ireland went out. According to the Irish Times, the Dublin Coroner’s Court ruled that O’Reilly, a 49-year-old chef, suffered cardiac arrest caused by his choking on a Mars Bar.  (For those who have never been to the UK, a Mars Bar is what happens when a Milky Way mates with a Three Musketeers. One was also at the center of salacious rumors regarding Marianne Faithfull when the Rolling Stones were busted in 1967.)

Finally, when it comes to death and food, you’d expect the Italians to be OK with most things. But in Sicily, a photo shard on Facebook of some workmen barbecuing at a local cemetery has caused a furor. The Mayor of Melilli, a small town north of Syracuse, called it a “deplorable act,” while making sure to note that the cemetery was not a municipal facility, but owned by a private company. And while we can certainly understand why people might not want the smell  of burning flesh when out to visit grandma’s grave, perhaps they’re over-reacting….

 

 

Steven Mirkin

Steven Mirkin’s diverse career has taken him from politics to pop culture to high art, offering him a front row seat to some of the most fascinating events and personalities of our time: writing speeches, fundraising appeals and campaign materials for Ed Koch, John Heinz and independent presidential candidate John B. Anderson; chronicling the punk/new wave scenes in New York and London; interviewing musicians such as Elton John, John Lydon and Buck Owens; profiling modern masters Julian Schnabel, Paul Schrader and Jonathan Safran Foer; and writing for TV shows including 21, The Chamber, Let's Make A Deal, and Rock Star: INXS.

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