Wednesday, March 31, 2010

R.I.P. Undercover Black Man

David Mills, a writer who was once on the staffs of both "NYPD Blue" and "ER," died of a brain aneurysm on Tuesday in New Orleans. He was 48. He was also on the staff of the upcoming HBO program "Treme," which is set in the city where he died.

I never met him, but because of his "Undercover Black Man" blog, I almost feel like I knew him. I read the blog every day, and one of my proudest moments as a blogger was when he added mine to his list of links. He also commented on my posts every once in a while, and I'd tell anyone who would listen, "hey, that guy used to write for NYPD Blue, and he just commented on my blog!"

To me, Undercover Black Man represents the very best that a blog can offer - on one day, pointed commentary about President Obama, on the next, a link to a video of a classic R&B tune, the day after that, a link to a totally ridiculous video that would fall under one of his categories: "Random Wrongness," "Random Hotness," even "Random Japaneseness."

I'll miss reading him, and send my condolences to his friends and family. A tribute from one of those friends - Alan Sepinwall - can be found here.

R.I.P.

Update: Another tribute, by Steven Rubio.

Update: Another tribute, at A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago, which includes a link to some of Mills' greatest posts.

Update: Another tribute, from his friend and colleague Shyonelung.

2 comments:

Mon-sewer Paul Regret said...

Alan Sepinwall's was the best I've read so far. Something about Mills made a lot of us feel like we knew him, so the loss hurts more.

Kit (Keep It Trill) said...

Found out from Raving Black Lunatic. Shocking. I wasn't a regular reader, but daggonit, he was so young.