In Three's

What just happened? One minute I was vaguely worried about the situation in Iran, but that was pretty much eclipsed by worrying over the fact that I can't find time to strip the old wallpaper off the walls of my new old house.



Then Ed McMahon died.



I never really watched Johnny Carson, and McMahon was in his 80's. I was mildly sorry that he had lived out his last years fighting to keep his own home. For all the escapist amusement that he has provided for millions of TV viewers, one would have thought that the President could have absolved him of his financial sins. But Ed McMahon didn't touch my life, and I went back to worrying about wallpaper.



Then Farrah Fawcett died.



Farrah Fawcett was the big-haired, tight-bodied, gleaming-toothed poster girl of my early university years - until she was replaced by a scantily clothed Cheryl Tiegs. Farrah went on to amuse us as one of Charlie's Angels, although in that role she was stacked up against Jaclyn Smith and Kate Jackson - both of whom held more appeal for me than Farrah and her big hair. Not that I ever watched "Charlie's Angels" - I think I avoided it with the same degree of disdain that made me perhaps the only person in the Western Hemisphere who has never seen a single episode of "The Love Boat." Farrah Fawcett was a very ill woman when she died. She had struggled privately and ultimately in public with a rare form of cancer. Somehow she largely avoided the ghoulish tabloid death-watch to which most stricken public figures are subjected. Her death was untimely and sad, but not unexpected. Farrah Fawcett had not touched my life in any meaningful way. I shrugged it off and went back to thinking about Iran.



Then Michael Jackson died.



Michael Jackson died.



He died.



Michael Jackson - the frenetic, Afro-headed micro-star of late nights with Ed Sullivan, when I was so glad that, tonight, it was the Jackson 5 and NOT the dweebish Osmond Brothers. Michael Jackson, who roared into our 20-something lives with "Thriller" - an album that changed everything about pop music, and made modern pop culture what it has become, set a standard for sheer innovation and excitement that every "So You Think You Can Dance" hopeful, every "American Idol" aspirant, every performer on the stage of popular culture only dreams about meeting.



Michael Jackson - the admirer and confidante of Elizabeth Taylor, the increasingly weird, shape-shifting hob-goblin in his oxygen chamber, a real-life Peter Pan surrounded and consumed by ghosts and demons, always trying to fly, sometimes succeeding - that guy. He died.



I didn't think that it would matter. At least, not to me. Why should it? His music was great when it was good, but it was never more than a diversion for me. I didn't watch him on television unless he happened to be on. I didn't intentionally follow his press - although at times it was hard not to. At most I occasionally shook my head in response to some news article, some photo of the King of Pop looking more like the Invisible Man in his surgical mask and fedora, or, mostly, I looked on in wonder as the star-maker machinery dissected the man before our eyes, as the smug entertainment media hypocrites who really run all things mainstream decided that Jackson was now a road-side attraction to be treated as such.



It was the newspaper covers that got to me.



Michael Jackson - 1958-2009.

Michael Jackson was a month younger than me.


Thanks for doing something with you life, Mr. Jackson. It was by turns weird and wonderful, disgraceful and uplifting, bewildering and enlightening - but at least it was something.