(I found this image here.)
An explanation: Since the name Gary is going extinct, I thought it incumbent upon me to celebrate more notable Garys than myself. This is the tenth of a series!
Gary Gilmore was, according to Wikipedia, "an American criminal who gained international notoriety for demanding the execution of his death sentence for two murders he committed in Utah. After the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a new series of death penalty statutes in the 1976 decision Gregg v. Georgia, he became the first person in almost ten years to be executed in the United States."
When did you first become aware of him? The song "Gary Gilmore's Eyes" by the Adverts.
Did you know who they were singing about? Not at all. I figured he was someone English I wouldn't know about, & he had died & was giving his eyes to someone else as an organ donor.
You were alive when he was executed. You don't remember anything about it? He was executed three days before my ninth birthday. That sort of thing wouldn't even have been on my radar.
When did you find out what the song was about? A few years later, when someone mentioned to me that the Judy's song "How's Gary?" was also about him. Around the same time, I read an article about the reinstatement of the death penalty in the United States, & his name was of course in the article. Suddenly things started making sense.
He died by firing squad! Not only that, his last words were apparently, "Let's do this."
What do you think of this line, from the Wikipedia article?
The founder of advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy, Dan Wieden credits the inspiration for his "Just Do It" Nike slogan to Gilmore's last words.
I think it's pretty fucked up.
Is his name really Gary? Apparently he was christened Faye Robert Coffman, but the reasons for that are in the Wikipedia article. When his family left Texas, he was renamed Gary Mark Gilmore.
Do you know why he was named Gary? I'm more interested why someone would name a boy Faye.
