with a multi-faceted history as a pleasure-seeking heroin addict, hell-raising alcoholic, flamboyant waster and a reckless and extravagant host of homosexual orgies.

I always wanted to get to know him better. Now I'll never have the chance. sniff....

The last line of that obit is one of the funniest things I've read in a long time.

Yep.

Frock coats and lederhosen and tall hats and full drag with fishnets!

Although it was clearly hazardous and occasionally lethal to be one of his friends, I can't help feeling that this world is diminished without him in it. And it's possibly that my entire life has been retroactively diminished by not knowing he ever existed until after he didn't anymore.

And it's possibly that my entire life has been retroactively diminished by not knowing he ever existed until after he didn't anymore.

It's funny because it's true.

Dude, I've been in fandom for a while now. I am a member of the Most Ancient and Venerable Order of Sir Wanks-a-Lot. Our armor is made of teflon and we crown ourselves with beanies. Our honorary weapons are shiny laptops. We have etchings. We would like to show you them.

The great-great-grandson of Prince Otto, Germany's Iron Chancellor and architect of the modern German state, the young von Bismarck showed early promise as a brilliant scholar, but led an exotic life of gilded aimlessness that attracted the attention of the gossip columns from the moment he arrived in Oxford in 1983 and hosted a dinner at which the severed heads of two pigs were placed at either end of the table.

I didn't think Paris Hilton could seem even more lame.

I didn't think Paris Hilton could seem even more lame.

See what happens when your country has low standards for celebrity? If only we demanded more of our wealthy heirs and heiresses, we could have celebrities like von Bismarck.

While von Bismarck was not arrested, he was questioned as a witness and there were those who wondered - not, perhaps, without cause - whether he might be the victim of a family curse.

Quite the curse -- party like a lunatic and people around you die. Quite mysterious and sinister to be sure.

It's a really cool book, lovingly written. If there are repercussions here, we'll deal. Whatever happens, we'll still be proud of you and excited at your success. I thought about the identity thing myself, but the main people I bitch about are my family, and they are neither readers nor technically savvy. I can change my user name if they ever figure out the internets.

Best dog suit evah! [link]