The Beastie Boys' Adam Yauch is dead.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/beastie-boys-co-founder-adam-yauch-dead-at-48-20120504
Adam Yauch, one-third of the pioneering hip-hop group the Beastie Boys, has died at the age of 47, Rolling Stone has learned. Yauch, also known as MCA, had been in treatment for cancer since 2009. The rapper was diagnosed in 2009 after discovering a tumor in his salivary gland.
Yauch sat out the Beastie Boys' induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April, and his treatments delayed the release of the group's most recent album, Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2. The Beastie Boys had not performed live since the summer of 2009, and Yauch's illness prevented the group from appearing in music videos for Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2.
Yauch co-founded the Beastie Boys with Mike "Mike D" Diamond and Adam "Ad-Rock" Horowitz in 1979. The band started off as a hardcore punk group, but soon began experimenting with hip-hop. The band broke big with their first proper album, Licensed to Ill, in 1986, and further albums Paul's Boutique, Check Your Head and Ill Communication cemented the band as a true superstar act.
In addition to his career with the Beastie Boys, Yauch was heavily involved in the movement to free Tibet and co-organized the Tibetan Freedom Concerts of the late Nineties. In 2002, he launched the film production company Oscilloscope Laboratories.
Though never a huge fan, I shared two connections with Adam: 1) he (supposedly) did a stretch in rehab with one of my dearest childhood friends (she died a junkie years ago
), and 2) we shared a birthday. Same year. 
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MCA brought it each and every time. A brilliant performer.
RIP, MCA.
if indeed he actually did; she was known to embellish these kinds of things. 
who (she said) was in rehab with Adam. I had known her since she was "no years old" , and fell for her when she was maybe 6. Needless to say, that only got stronger as she grew up -- but then she got hooked. If she ever had gone for me, would I have rescued her from the drug lifestyle -- or would she have pulled me down into addiction with her? We'll never know.
In various ways, drugs and alcohol have caused a lot of problems, pain, loss, and sorrow, for me in my lifetime. Doing the working rock & roll thing, long term, usually exposes a person to the lifestyle in a big way. I had my own serious excessive flings, but was never an addict. Drug and/or alcohol addictions have killed some friends and family, "taken the souls" of friends, and a few talented bandmates who I loved also. Alcohol and meth helped to ruin my incredible LTR with my soul mate, and alcohol destroyed a later potential LTR as well.
I'm almost positive that it's close to impossible to "rescue" anybody, including the people you love, from drug/alcohol addiction, so, trust me on this, don't ever waste much time beating yourself up over your loss. Her addiction wasn't ever your dog.
