A bunch of people died this week: Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson. I’m writing this to mark the spot in time, so I’ll have an idea about where I was and what I was doing when I look back. Ed McMahon died. He was the only one of this group that didn’t die early. He may disagree but he was eighty-six. He never showed up at my door with a big – figuratively and literally – check. Star Search was a giant waste of time for its entire run. The high point of the entire show was Sinbad. What I remember Ed McMahon fondly for was being Johnny Carson’s sidekick. MJ and I have been together so long that we remember watching the Tonight Show with Ed and Johnny. Now they’re both gone and Doc Severinsen is the last one standing.
I think I’m two or three years too young for Farrah Fawcett to have ushered me into puberty. By the time I noticed Charlie’s Angels Cheryl Ladd was on the show, and Farrah was getting blackballed by Aaron Spelling (allegedly). I remember her first comeback in the television movie Extremities. She played a victim of an attempted rape who turns the tables on her attacker. I would have called the movie Payback Is a Bitch, but I don’t think Middle America was ready for that in 1986. She went on to be a respected performer and freaked out on the David Letterman Show. She was also in a long term relationship with Ryan O’Neal and along with Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn they were pioneers in not getting married because marriage tends to ruin everything. She and O’Neal were going to get married but time ran out. I wish I wasn’t such a teenage girl but that makes me sad.
Michael Jackson was guano crazy – the high nitrogen stuff. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until he died that I really remembered what an incredible performer he was. And it wasn’t the constant replaying of his music videos that jogged my memory. It was the news of his death. All of my animosity – well a large portion of it anyway – disappeared and I was left with the King of Pop. I became an adolescent listening to Thriller. I had it on vinyl. I listened to the whole album every day after school when I was in seventh grade. I remember dancing around with my sister listening to it in our living room on Dellwood Ave. Thriller became Billie Jean and Billie Jean became Beat It. I feel like a jackass because I don’t have the album on my iPod. I have Off The Wall, but so what. Thriller is the greatest pop record ever. Now that he’s gone, I feel bad for him. He was pulled in so many directions by so many people from the time he could walk until he OD’d on Demerol. He was a troubled guy and it’s probably better that he’s dead.
Three true icons, not pseudo-celebs, died this week and I’m feeling old.
4 comments:
This post is so you. Cynical, sentimental, funny, sad.
Billy Mays died this week too, strange week.
Only you can be wistful and hilarious at the same time.
Let's not forget Bea Arthur (even though she didn't die this week).
On the day of Michael Jackson's death, I heard some cast members talking about him in the green room the way we would if it were someone who was really famous during our parent's generation. Like when Bob Hope died.
They had no idea how big he was; how much he was like our generation's Elvis. He even died the same way... too early and on drugs (allegedly).
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