So much so, I’m resorting to alliteration to title this. Sure, why not?
It was odd enough to get a call from Woody when he knew I was working, but then to have him ask, “Have you heard who died?” was definitely off.
“Yeah, Farrah Fawcett. I heard hours ago. Not exactly unexpected.”
“No, man — Michael Jackson is dead…”
Thus the passing of the hottest blonde of my adolescence was utterly eclipsed. Happens, I suppose. As for which affects me most, well — I cut my teeth on Jackson 5 albums, loved them, owned every one before I owned a Beatles album and my taste in music began to mature. But I certainly never gazed reverently at my bedroom wall’s poster of him and his pokies, I can tell you that!
Another major loss: the world’s best sidekick ever, Ed McMahon. How many of us forgot he was a Marine fighter pilot in WWII? For shame. My very funny friend Lairbo, whose website The Antfarmer’s Almanac has had a link over there on the right for years now, wrote a haiku I love in his honor:
Ed slides down the couch
Next guest is the Grim Reaper?
You are correct, sir!
(That haiku, along with many others from Lairbo and his contributors, can be enjoyed at his other website, Celebrity Death Haiku.)
Enough with the weird. The wonderful part of the week has been reconnecting with many of my old Santa Barbara crew on Facebook, folks I lost touch with most of a quarter-century ago. And then seeing them reconnect with each other. Too damn cool!
I could write more on that subject, but I must now earn my title as “One of Only Five People in All of Colorado Who Knows the USA Has Just Kicked Off Against Brazil in the Confederations Cup Final” by actually watching the match. You know, that sport the rest of the world calls “football”.
But let’s not skip the inauspiciously weird beginning to this week: RIP to North America’s Premier Amazingly Loud Pitchman, Billy Mays. I’ll work on his haiku after the match. For a proper tribute, I should probably type it all in caps.
