1988 was tough

There is a fine mp3 site called The Aquarium Drunkard. Today he put up some selections from a man I saw once, Roy Buchanan. His name had the dread phrase “the late” in front of it.
This is news to me, twenty years after the fact. It seems like August 14, 1988, his substance abuse issues got him locked up. A few hours later, he was found hanging by his shirt .
Mr. Buchanan opened for the Jefferson Starship at the Omni in 1976. He was a technical virtuoso, making sounds out of his guitar that were not supposed to be made. He was always on the verge of superstardom, but never seemed to get into the upper circles of fame. Meanwhile, Gracie Slick spent too much time at the hospitality table, and gave a poor performance.

At this time, I would look on the index page of New Yorker magazine at newstands. There is a list of cartoonists who had cartoons in that issue, in the order of appearance. I would look for Charles Addams, and see if I could find his cartoon.
Charles Addams drew the cartoons that were the basis for the Addams Family. He liked to say that he modeled Uncle Fester on himself. Many,many stories are told about him.
Sometime in the late eighties, I noticed that he no longer had cartoons in the magazine. I continued to look until about 1991, when I found a book about him. The reason I didn’t see cartoons anymore was that Mr. Addams died September 29, 1988.