R.I.P.

We're on number 5. They say deaths come in threes. I've never really understood this because, well, deaths come in the hundreds of thousands every day. I guess they mean they come in associated groups, and now we're in a cycle of dying famous people. You can't swing a dead celebrity without hitting a famous person who's going to die, it seems.

And, since it seems like the popular thing to do--and I'm always one to try doing something popular, though I usually only put a half-assed effort into it, which invariably makes the whole thing blow up in my face--I'm going to weigh in on the first five of what will inevitably be a six person death toll (and then I'll tell you who the sixth one is going to be).

The problem is that the media makes ALL of these deaths seem very important, so it's difficult to know exactly how you should feel about it, so I'll tell you how you should feel about it based on how I feel about it. And I'll even give you a handy 1 to 5 rating scale (with 1 being "who cares" and 5 being " the world is going to end") so that you can easily share with your friends just how much or how little you are affected. You're welcome. (Note, I consider everyone who isn't famous and isn't being covered ad nauseum by the media as having a 3.5/5 rating for the importance of their death. So, I guess that gives everyone a benchmark for figuring out how much regard I hold for the notion of celebrity)

David Carradine



I felt a little saddened when I heard Carradine had died. I generally liked the things that he did--but never enough to say that I actively sought out his movies or TV shows to watch. If he was in something that I was watching already, I didn't change the channel as soon as I saw him (as I do with Ben Affleck, John Travolta, Mel Gibson, and Nick Cage), so I guess that's something. His death, however, is about as awesome a way to go as possible: auto-erotic asphyxiation in a Bangkok hotel. Come on, you couldn't PLAN a cooler way to die (except, obviously, you could plan at least this cool of a way to die). Unless your obituary reads, "Killed while defending a crossing guard and seventeen first graders from street racing ninjas with flame throwers on the hoods of their cars," you just couldn't ask for a better way to be remembered.

For being David Carradine, I give him 2/5, for the way he died, I give him another 1.5/5 for a grand total of 3.5/5.

Ed McMahon


Ed was a bit of a legend, really. Of all the passings this week, I think his is the one that I'll feel the most. No, wait, that isn't exactly right. I won't feel it, because it's not like I knew him or we were family or something, but, of all the famous people who've died, Ed was the one that I spent the most time seeing on TV. So, in that respect, I guess I knew him better than any of the other famous deceased and, thus, will regret the void that is being left. I LOVED "Bloopers and Practical Jokes" when I was a wee little laddy. And who didn't enjoy impersonating his "Here's Johnny!" every once in awhile?

However, the sad truth is that I will remember him most for his schilling. He had his sweepstakes gig that he'd kept up for years--that was to be expected. But the image that will be forever etched into my brain is of him hocking a solid gold toilet on a cash4gold commercial (from last year's Super Bowl, no?). Not a very good last image to leave with people. Humbling, sure, but also incredibly humiliating.

For being Ed McMahon, I give him 2.5/5, for allowing his once illustrious (well, shiny, anyway) image to be forever marred by the cash4gold blight, he gets -.5 for a total of 2/5.

Farrah Fawcet



I am mostly indifferent about Farrah's death. She was just slightly before my time. I DO remember her nipples from her famous poster, but that's about it. I only watched MAYBE a half dozen episodes of "Charlie's Angels," and I certainly wasn't a "Burning Bed" fan, so I really didn't have any feelings for her passing--beyond just the sympathy I have for anyone who dies "before their time" (everyone's ideal time, of course, being somewhere around 90, after that, you don't really deserve sympathy anymore).

For being Farrah Fawcet (and for letting me see her poky nipples in her poster) she gets a 2.5/5. For making the fight for her life public, thus raising awareness slightly, I'll give her another 1/5 for a total of 3.5/5.

Billy Mays



Whatever your feelings about how annoying (almost to the point of being douchey sometimes) Billy Mays was a very effective advertiser. The first time I saw one of his ads, he was hocking Oxyclean. I immediately found his abrasive approach displeasing, but you know what? I went out and bought some Oxyclean to try and pick up some stains that were on the carpet in our living room before we moved into our house. It didn't work on the old stains, but the Oxyclean DID remove red wine puke that ended up on our carpet (and on some of the wall, and our hardwood floor in another room, and in the mesh of our screen door, and all over our porch) towards the end of one of our wine parties. So, not only did he convince me to go out and buy something that I normally wouldn't have (albeit the smallest container available), it was also a pretty good product. I still buy Oxyclean (though I rarely remember we have it and just end up throwing stuff with stains on it in the wash and hoping for the best).

So, for being Billy Mays, an overly-aggressive, abrasive salesman, he gets a 1/5. For being so good at his job that he talked me into buying something despite my instant dislike of his personality and character, he gets another 1.5/5 for a total of 2.5/5.

Michael Jackson



Ah, the best for last.

Let me be straight here, I don't have much good to say about Michael Jackson. So, if you are one of his adoring fans, one of the people who is willing to forgive all of his transgressions over the last few decades just because he brought you some pleasure in the form of Moonwalking or white gloving or Thrilling, then you might want to visit one of the multitude of media and fan pages that seem all too ready to apologetically address the issues of his life and death and declare his death a major loss to the world. If you, like many, choose to dismiss all of his possibly heinous acts as "his personal demons," then you might want to move right along. I'm all for giving people credit for their personal demons (see the Carradine death critique above, for example), up to the point where they start affecting people other than them. Then I have zero tolerance. Famous people should not be exempt from the laws of decency just because they have more stress than normal people or higher expectations than normal people or whatever excuses people might want to throw out there.

Now, I know, his child abuse stuff was ALLEGED, but, come on, you can't tell me there weren't a whole HOST of things wrong with that guy. How could he NOT be a child molester? He had such a tenuous grasp on reality, how could he possibly differentiate between right and wrong? If something felt like a good idea, I'd bet my house that he just KNEW that it WAS a good idea and there was nothing wrong with it. The kind of ego and narcissism that created a person like that wouldn't stop him just short of doing something "bad."

How about this, if Mike had been convicted of child abuse, what would the difference be in how we're approaching his death? That one simple conviction would have changed EVERYTHING. He wouldn't be the hero of the 80s, the bringer of beauty, the misunderstood artist that everyone is celebrating now, he would be another dead child molester, and who would care?

Perhaps I am just a little extra bitter because I never cared for Michael Jackson. Even during his hey-day (I was just discovering music in 1983 and 1984, so I got the full force of MJ), I just didn't give much of a crap about him. I thought the Thriller video was novel, but I didn't really like the song much. Actually, I can't really think back on any song of his that I liked more than a little. In fact, MOST of the time, if I hear something of his on the radio, I'll change the channel.

I know, heresy.

Bottom line, though, I don't have a few years' worth of fond memories from my childhood to fall back on in my opinion forming of MJs death. I can't say, "Well, he did have some problems, but MAN I loved him growing up, so I'll just remember the good times instead."

Thus, for being Michael Jackson, a VERY notable person--someone almost everyone in the world could identify--and a giver of art that MANY people appreciated (even if I wasn't one of them), I give MJ a 4/5. However, for being a goddamn FREAK for the last 20 years of his life--and not the interesting kind of freak either--and for the damage that I'm relatively certain he did to many people, even if he never touched a single person in an inappropriate way, I give him a -4.5/5, leaving MJ with a -.5/5 rating, which means that his death is actually less important than nothing.

Who Dies Next?

Good question. Originally, I thought I'd predict Abe Vigoda, because he seems like a pretty safe bet. But I changed my mind. For one, I like Abe Vigoda, so I don't want to accidentally wish death on him or somehow curse him by bringing his name back into the full view of Death (because, let's be fair, he HAS to be hiding somewhere Death can't find him because there's probably no other real reason that he's not dead). And for two, with the exception of Ed McMahon, all of the people who have died were rather unexpectedly young (well, Carradine wasn't a spring chicken, but he SEEMED younger than he was), so I think the next person will be another "shocker" death.

Thus, I predict that Amy Winehouse is going to suffer "cardiac arrest" sometime in the next week.
Still not really going out on any limb with this prediction. She couldn't possibly make it into her 40s at the rate she's going.

In Baby Related News

Since there is little more to report than bowel activities when discussing babies, I'm going to report some bowel activities.

Little Button has begun to move away from her "curds and whey, heavy on the whey" phase of poop and into the "cottage cheese mixed into pumpkin bread batter" phase of poop. This is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, she has been pooping just once a day instead of nearly every hour like she was when we first got her. On the other hand, it looks like COTTAGE CHEESE MIXED INTO PUMPKIN BREAD BATTER and smells like fermented death. And she is producing entire diaper fulls of the stuff, almost to the point where it is spilling out the TOPs of her diaper. And god how it sticks, to everything. Quite terrible, really, but one more necessary step towards solid food and poop that wipes with fewer than six wet wipes.