There Goes Another One

So many celebrities have passed on this past two weeks, I'm beginning to feel like an obituarist on Black Tuesday at the beginning of the Great Depression: trying to write about the people jumping out of buildings whilst looking up to make sure none of them fall on me.

I'm not really sure that's a good analogy. I expect that the only people getting a little relief from all of this news is Jon and Kate Goslein, as the paparazzi will have cleared out of their neighborhood by now and are headed to Los Angeles for Michael Jackson's funeral and the accompanying three-ring circus.*

So, let's sum up the carnage so far:

• Ed McMahon
• Farrah Fawcett
• Michael Jackson
• Gale Storm (of My Little Margie fame)
• Billy Mays
• Fred Travelena
• Harve Presnell (various films and television programmes)
• Mollie Sugden (of Are You Being Served? fame)
• Karl Malden

Now, with the possible exception of Karl Malden, once you get to Michael Jackson on that list all the "entertainment writers**" heads will be spinning so fast that they'll never even see the rest.***

Still, it's quite amazing to see so many famous people pass on in such a short time. Already, the people who do the Academy Awards "In Memorium" film have over half the production finished.

This was going to be a much longer piece. However, there's not enough space to cover each one of these individually (I wrote the piece on Ed before the Grim Reaper floodgates opened) so we'll just leave it at "God rest your souls." Besides, however odd and peculiar (and in Michael's case just plain gross) some of the alleged details of people's lives are, at the end, they're still just people. They have people who love them and are mourning for them, so there's no point in belabouring their anxiety and pain with a few cheap jokes at their loved one's expense.

Those we'll save for the maniacs who show up at the various memorial services.

R.I.P.

* With your choice of Al Sharpton or Joe Jackson as ringmaster.
** Or as we like to affectionately call them: "sleazy, hypocritical, parasitic gossip-mongers"
*** They only heard Billy.