Ugh I even misread, the teacher mentioned in the poem didnt even DIE, just got evicted. And the writer wanted to just joke about the old teacher, then felt bad he couldnt get ahold of his friend (then felt bad that maybe his friend was dead, or maybe he had pissed off his friend).
Also, yeah, I heard Ted Leo and Aimee Mann have some kind of collaboration going on. I think I heard about it 2 weeks ago, my mind is still too blown to even try to check it out.