A Tough Week to be Famous

It's hard to believe that just this week we have lost three icons from my childhood.*

On Tuesday, Ed McMahon passed away. Admittedly, his death was not a complete shock. He was 86 years old and not in fantastic health. He had a myriad of financial issues that couldn't have made his life easy. Nevertheless, we lost a great sidekick and a heck of a funny guy. In my opinion Star Search wasn't one of his better moments, but ya know what? We all make mistakes.

Yesterday we were dealt a double blow with the loss of both Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. While we all knew Farrah was really sick and in a lot of pain, it's still shocking to lose an icon. I'm the wrong sex and a little young to have been influenced by that famous poster, but I clearly recall lots and lots of girls/women with that famous haircut. Hell, some still have it today. I don't think they got the memo that the '70s had ended. She was attractive with the brightest smile I'd ever seen and I used to do the Charlie's Angels poses with my friends on the playground.

The death of Michael Jackson is a whole other deal. While he wasn't exactly the picture of physical or emotional health he was really pretty young. I know that 50 year olds die all of the time, but I always thought of him as basically being my age. That's not really true, but I certainly feel like we grew up together. Everyone talks about the Thriller album, which was very cool, but I played my "Off the Wall" album until is was nearly unplayable. There was a little confusion when my sister and I had an argument about "riding the boogie" and how that was not nearly as disgusting as I thought it was, but I digress. Give me a break, I was 8.

All three of these people will be remembered for their contributions (some more so for their scandals). Rest in peace.

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* I'm not going to count David Carradine because he died last week and I wasn't one of the kids with the Kung Fu lunchbox.