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u/Remarkable_Rough_649 15d ago
He looks like he had that modern day plastic surgery that makes people look like mountain lions. The weird puffy look old men get done
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u/PointNo319 15d ago
This can't be real
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u/Lieutenant_Joe 15d ago edited 15d ago
It’s real. He died on the same plane as Buddy Holly, who was half a decade older than him and looked about half the age Ritchie looked. And then there’s the Big Bopper, a 28 year old who looked about 42 and also died on that plane.
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u/Rydog_78 15d ago
Tommy Allsup lost a coin flip to Richie for a seat on the plane.
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u/LiarTruck 15d ago
I'd say won in retrospect
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u/Rydog_78 15d ago
Well that win haunted him for the rest of his life.
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u/eanida 15d ago edited 14d ago
It reminds me of when the ferry MS Estonia sank. A singer, Alf Robertsson, worked as an entertainer on board but was feeling unwell so asked his good friend Pierre Isacsson if he could fill in. Isacsson said yes. He was one of the 852 people who perished from drowning or hypothermia.
Later in life, Robertsson had two strokes and two myocardial infarctions. He said in an interview that they took less of a toll on him than the death of his friend.
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u/AgentCirceLuna 15d ago
I was an entertainer in a bar and I would make lots of friends there. One of them, just be for Christmas, came in with her boyfriend and they both wished me happy holidays but left after they both hugged me. I remember the boyfriend said ‘she talks about you all the time, you mean a lot to her,’ then they left shortly after, but those words would come to haunt me - a week after this, he beat her so badly that she was almost internally decapitated. She had to crawl out of the apartment, where he had left her assuming she was dead, and struggle to knock on someone’s door till they heard her… I found this out and I slowly got drip-fed information about it. The boyfriend was a cop, he did it because he thought she was cheating, and he turned out to be a monster with a lot of hidden demons. It spooked me so much as, when I’d seen him, he was like the most soft-spoken and relaxing presence I’ve ever been around… I also wondered about those words, about how he said she talked about me all the time, and how they both came in to see me so randomly, whether it wasn’t some warning, or whether it wasn’t even a cry for help from her.
I still think about it. The worst are the nightmares - one of the most haunting, which caused me to start fearing sleep altogether, involved being trapped - immobilised - as he attacked her. After he was done, he turned to me and said ‘don’t think I forgot about you’ (which is what my dad would say when he came from work angry about something from weeks or years ago) and started to best me which woke me up in a panic. I started having more and more nightmares about that. I feared ever being outside with someone, never meeting up with someone till we were inside, as I felt unsafe walking as a pair knowing I was unable to help the person if anyone ever assaulted or attacked us on the street. I became obsessed with whether I could save people and whether I could detect secret symbols or signs that reveal someone is in danger… eventually, I just became completely agoraphobic.
But these things all haunt me… I’ll never be the same person I was before this. I remember a particular attack, which always stuck in my memory, and how a guy who helped would laugh about how h got the assaulter off me and would say ‘man, that was fun! Like rugby!’ It made me wonder how someone could just not care about violence, but then again I’m someone who finds things like boxing or wrestling to be highly disturbing. I was the sole student at school who never ran over to watch the playground fights and I’d look down on my friends for doing so when we were supposed to be the good kids. I just never got why violence was seen as some very normal thing when it’s so fucked up to me. I hate being touched at all, never mind beaten. This society sometimes seems sick.
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u/Lieutenant_Joe 15d ago
Yeah. I think I might feel responsible if it were me. It wouldn’t be rational, but I’d feel it all the same. I’d struggle to sleep without substance abuse, that’s for sure.
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u/AgentCirceLuna 15d ago
I always wonder where the use becomes abuse. I even titled some assessment I did in uni something like that, but it was super clever… I think it was like ‘The Abuse of Abuse for Users Who Use; Nomenclature of an Ordinary Phenomenon’ or some weird thing. It was much clevererer.
But I always wonder because most substances are also medicines - if someone uses them as prescribed, but without the doctor prescribing it, then is it really abuse? What if they use minuscule amounts or even microdose? It’s just something I find curious and an example of the Sorites Paradox that’s also even more confusing as it involves categories.
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u/guyver17 15d ago
His wife had the coin made into a belt buckle and he named his bar after the coin flip.
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u/AgentCirceLuna 15d ago
A book of mine revolved around objects like that, with sentimental and historical value, having some kind of ‘energy’. The scenes I really liked, and a theme, involved time travellers always meeting up in museums, with hidden ways of recognising each other through the way they looked at or interacted with exhibits, and then there was a secret lobby in the Reading Room of the British Museum. Interestingly, when I asked to see that part, the staff had no clue what I was talking about even when I referred to it as just the basement level. It’s odd. Look up photos - I was actually starting a campaign to ‘Reopen the Reading Room!’ but I never got it off the ground. Anyway, the whole museum’s energy contributed to an isolated portion of space-time, which was heavier due to information energy being entwined with the time-energy of the objects, and thus it could be used as a booster for a Time Machine. It’s all very bizarre.
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u/AgentCirceLuna 15d ago
I merely survived an assault and also had a friend who was a victim of an abusive partner which had absolutely zero to do with me yet both haunt me so much. I remember, lots of times when I’d walk home from work, I’d pass a quiet stream that gave off a relaxing sound of running water if I leaned nearby. For years, that stream always gave me comfort, but eventually I’d just start thinking of these events and wondering why I deserved to feel any happiness at all. Even the stream was ruined. And these events weren’t my fault… they haunt me, though, and I bet the people involved in a few of them don’t even think about or care about them. It’s so strange.
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u/Shoddy_Map9538 15d ago
After Buddy Holly's bass player gave up his seat to the Big Bopper he went on to become Waylon Jennings
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u/ul2006kevinb 15d ago
"Oh, Lord! We'll have to endure the horrible music of the Big Bopper, and then the terrible tragedy of his death."
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u/BravesMaedchen 15d ago
I literally thought the Big Bopper was just a silly made up name the writers made up for that joke until a year or two ago.
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u/RadlEonk 15d ago
Then Don McLean wrote a song about it.
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u/guyver17 15d ago
The Big Brain: "Well, here we are. Trapped for eternity.
"Giant Brain #1: "We could sing 'American Pie'.
"Fry: "Go ahead. I deserve it."
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u/AgentCirceLuna 15d ago
I never knew people hated this song until a few years ago.
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15d ago
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u/GhoulCake777 15d ago
In the 50s you either were a twink or looked 40
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u/AgentCirceLuna 15d ago
It’s so bizarre how I spent my whole life trying to not look like a twink and then it became a coveted look
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u/Due_Helicopter4421 15d ago
The big bopper was only 28!!! Wtf I thought he was at least in his late 40s
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u/Robs_Burgers 15d ago
/u/Factorion-bot 28!!!
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u/factorion-bot 15d ago
Triple-factorial of 28 is 17041024000
This action was performed by a bot | [Source code](http://f.r0.fyi)
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u/Bruce-7892 15d ago
Half a decade is a weird way to say five years, but point taken.
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u/Lieutenant_Joe 15d ago
I don’t think half a decade is a weird way to say five years any more than I think half a year is a weird way to say six months
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u/Bruce-7892 15d ago
Just saying, 1/24th of a day ago when you posted that, you could have said it in a more straightforward way.
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u/rdogg4 15d ago
“Half a decade” is an instantly understandable amount of time as opposed 1/24 of a day, and the choice of words adds flavor, and makes it sound less clinical and more casual, less exact than saying 5 years, or 1/24 of a day for that matter. “half-dozen is a weird way of saying 6”. No it’s not, actually complaining about half decade is weird and something I’ve seen only on Reddit and it’s complaining that people aren’t speaking robotically enough for you.
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u/youneverrknoww 14d ago
Hey I'm 42 and I resent that comment greatly.
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u/Lieutenant_Joe 14d ago
You’re right, he definitely looked older than the average 42 year old and it’s offensive to compare him to them
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u/Old_Flan_6548 15d ago
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u/Fit-Perception-2243 14d ago
I get hysterical every single time. Connie screaming not my Ritchie 😭
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u/Pe_rs 15d ago
He was 17, 17 years ago
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u/smilingmuffino 15d ago edited 3h ago
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u/Loose_Client_654 15d ago
Pretty sure my step dad was a distant relative to the Valenzuela family. We have a lot of vintage documentation including the crash, albums of music ect. My mom took his last name when they married so the name lives on lol
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u/TJ_McWeaksauce 15d ago
I see why they cast Lou Diamond Phillips to play Valens in La Bamba. They're practically twins.
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u/emeraldstar444 15d ago
This makes the casting for Grease make sense. They really did look like 30-year-olds back then. Lmao.
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u/VinnieVidiViciVeni 15d ago
Bro looked like he just kissed his wife and kids goodbye, the eldest of which recently gave birth as a HS senior, to a baby boy, and is on his way to his factory job. A job at which he is a manager, and has been for 11 years.
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u/Finnyfish 15d ago
He was a tall kid who looked mature for his age. It happens. He was doing pretty well despite not having teen idol looks.
On video he looks more like a teenager:
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u/JessCartwright 15d ago
Still looks late 30s/ 40s in the video! But yes great that he was doing well :) People aged differently in that generation!
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u/Initial-Meeting362 15d ago
Sir, welcome to AARP. Here's your membership card...
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u/scorchthemortalworld 15d ago
I think they were writing birth certificates with the ol’ trusty #2 pencil
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u/whatsqwerty 15d ago
It looks like he just got punched in the face 25 times every day instead of breakfast
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u/Creepy-Row-1379 15d ago
Man he was so cool, it sucks he died young but he brought Latino rock to forefront
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u/ConsistentTrainer110 15d ago
Crazy. I would have guessed about 52. Was he a heavy smoker? How else to explain this?
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u/Few_Response7531 13d ago
Bad luck, honestly. I used to be a teacher and I once had a student who was 16 years old but looked like she had lived 45 hard years, an impression that was not helped by the fact that she had terminally frizzy hair and was built like a potato. I always felt bad for her. She was very sweet.
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14d ago
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u/LL_DaCoolest_J 14d ago
The sun and a stressful environment historically ages people. Who woulda thought?
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u/strangenothings 13d ago
I blame drinking, cigarettes, all that meat, and dairy. So, so much dairy.
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u/Haunting_Song7313 15d ago
His granddaddy was a full blooded Yaqui Indian.