A Tough Week

It must now be the fate of people my age to start witnessing the loss of so many icons from our past. I was stunned to learn yesterday that both Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson had died. Jackson's death was particularly shocking because he was still young (only about five years older than I am) and had not been ill like Fawcett had been. His death was completely out of the blue; I was listening to the radio on my way to get dinner last night and couldn't figure out why the station was playing so many Michael Jackson songs in a row. Earlier in the week, we also lost Ed McMahon, and I was struck again by how much I missed the old Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and him.

What I always liked about Ed was how willing he was to play along with whatever Carson was doing. A particular favorite of mine was watching the two of them interact when Carson was doing his Carnac shtick, especially when Ed would laugh right along with the insults he received. And how can you top Carnac asking for "complete silence" and Ed responding, "That's what you have received many times." The slow burn Carson would do after that remark was priceless. As Carson said on the final show they did, the two of them were friends and you can't fake that. For all of those years that they were on, I felt like they were my friends too. I never warmed to Jay Leno as host. My mother did, but I never quite got over the loss of Carson and McMahon.


When Charlie's Angels debuted, everyone in my school watched. We would talk about the previous night's show on the bus ride and then all day between classes. People quickly picked favorites among the three actresses. Most, of course, were Farrah fans. I was more of a Kate Jackson person myself--you know, she was supposed to be the "smart one," code for not as pretty as the other two, complete nonsense by the way. It was later, actually, that I became a fan of Farrah's work, especially her dramatic work in Murder in Texas and The Burning Bed and Extremities. I remember feeling so grown up watching The Burning Bed, in particular, because it was about adult subject matter (spousal abuse) and I was finally old enough to be able to watch without having someone question whether it was appropriate for me (VERY different from when I had wanted to watch Elizabeth Montgomery in A Case of Rape). Farrah was so good in those movies. I never owned the famous swimsuit poster, but many guys in my school did, so I was quite familiar with it. My stepbrother, as I recall, owned the t-shirt with the famous photo of Farrah on it. She was such a beautiful young woman then, so full of life and energy, and that smile certainly made you like her instantly.


Before all of the craziness and the accusations and odd marriages and all, there was the music. I grew up listening to the Jackson 5, and I was one of the first people to own a copy of Off the Wall, Michael's solo album that came before the monster Thriller. I loved "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" and played it over and over and over again. I must have driven my grandmother crazy. I can also recall the day that the video for the song "Thriller" debuted. I was living in a dorm at the time, and everyone in the building was in the television room. No one was playing pool or foosball. (And no one was going to class, either.) For the fifteen minutes that it took for the video to play on MTV, no one spoke. Sure, we had a few laughs when he said, "I'm not like other guys," but otherwise, we were too entranced to talk. Don't lie. You know you've watched the video and tried to do that "dance of the undead" yourself. Everyone did. It was THE style of dance everyone wanted to emulate, but no one could really do it justice. Michael was one of a kind.


I have among my possessions a trophy that I won at an all-night skating rink party in 1984. It's for third place in a Michael Jackson dance-alike contest. (No, you can't see it.) I used to be able to do a pretty mean moonwalk before my center of gravity shifted. I never owned a zipper jacket (despite what Missy Elliot might say), and I never wore the one sequined glove, but I certainly had friends who did. Everyone I knew owned Thriller, and we knew all of the words to every song on it. (Personal favorite: "P.Y.T." Runner-Up: "Human Nature.")

I have written before on this blog about famous people who have passed away. I don't know if I'm truly a very late member of the Baby Boomer generation or an early member of Generation X or something in between. I just know that I am having a tough time reconciling all of this loss of icons from my childhood and young adulthood. There have been and will be many tributes to these three, but what I'm offering here is not really a tribute. It's just a simple recognition of the role they played in my formative years, the influence they had in making me who I am today. That will have to be what sustains me now that they are all gone.