April 26, 2002 // 4:43 p.m. // We'll miss your style the most

So I wake up this morning, thinking it's going to be a great day, because it's Friday, I have a car and Nancy Cartwright is speaking at my school. Like always, the TV is set to CNN, and minutes into the broadcast, I hear about a school shooting that had left at least two dead. I later found out 17 people and the gunmen died.

"Nothing could be bigger than this,"I thought.

And then, the whammy.

Left Eye has been killed in a car accident in Honduras. Shock. It rang through my body. I could barely hear the story. The first thought that ran through my head was Aaliyah's death in August in the Bahamas. I also thought of Aaliyah because 8 people were on that plane, and 8 people were in this vehicle.

The next thought: foul play. Left Eye was the only person in the vehicle to die. Nobody else was even injured. She had recently signed with Tha Row (formerly Death Row) which has a notorious history with violence. Think of them like a record label gang.

As she signed with them, she changed her stage name to Nina, which is actually an acronym translating to, "New Identity Non-Applicable." This new semi-"gangster" version of herself was not popular with the industry, and partially stemmed from her being upset with TLC having to file for bankruptcy after selling 11 million albums, and her label not releasing her solo CD in America. I can remember it was supposed to be released in July, then October 23rd, then it was permanently postponed.

I feel the most bad for G, because he's a big TLC fan. He just called me asking if I had heard about it, I told him yeah, and and that was that. I'm still somewhat in disbelief. Today I played the Fanmail album as a sort of tribute.

So much of Left Eye's lingo, most taken from the Behind The Music on the group, made it into our every day vocab.

"We care." ("Unpretty" video)

"Silly ho." (Song of the same title)

"Scrub." (1st single from Fanmail)

From the Behind The Music:

"Get ready to do your math." That whole segment of dialogue where Lisa explains how "a band can sell ten million albums, and end up broke" was memorized by the three of us.

"It grew...fast!" and "turn on channel 5, Lisa burned the house down!" are such classic lines we remember.

Sheesh. It's just the weirdest thought. Someone dying that you don't even know but feel you knew so well.

So with that, I share one of my favorite TLC songs, "I Miss You So Much"

I never asked for this feeling
I never thought I would fall
I never knew how I felt
Till the day you were gone
I was lost
I never asked for red roses
I wasn't looking for love
Somehow I let my emotions take hold
And guess what all at once
I'm in love

Oh, I miss you so much
I long for your love
It's scares me
'Cuz my heart gets so weak
That I can't even breathe
How can you take things so easily
Baby why aren't you missing me?

Why did I act like you mattered
It was silly of me to believe
That if I just opened my heart
Things would come naturally
Joke's on me (yeah)
I did not ask for love letters
So why did you give them to me (to me)
How could I let your intentions
Get over on me
So in love
So naive (oh baby)

And oh how I hate what you have done
Made me fall so deep in love
God knows you're the only one I want
That I love (oh baby)

Baby why aren't you missing me?
Baby why aren't you missing me?

Note: Dan Rather, in a story about her, called her by her proper name, Lisa Lopes. As he concluded, he said, "Lisa Lopes (pronounced by him as Lowpsss)" I guess proving local reporters aren't the only ones who butcher names.

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