So now the Oxy-Clean guy is dead too? How much more celebrity loss can the world stand?
I’m sure Michael Jackson made some sort of cultural contribution beyond ugly leather jackets with strange little wing-y things on them, and far too many snaps and flaps that served no purpose-but hell if I know what it was. I know that my mother went out and bought one of those stupid jackets, and not satisfied to look like an idiot alone, went out and bought me one in a blazing, bright white (just perfect for a smoker!). I believe it had a sort of rubber trim along with stiffened canvas (to keep the shoulders standing out so straight). And grommets. Someone at the Michael- Jackson- inspired- clothing factory had one hell of a time with the grommet maker.
I’ve always lacked the grasping-pop-culture gene. No, really. One of the most surreal experiences of my life was the day Elvis died. Somehow, the news managed to break while I was walking half a mile to the bakery to buy a loaf of rye bread. The bakery was attached to a Jewish delicatessen-one side was meats, the other bakery. So I get over there, grab my ticket and sit down (they had long benches by the front window) to wait my turn and only then, noticed all these middle aged housewives bawling their eyes out. I mean, from the carrying on, you’d have thought someone important had died. I walked home with my rye bread (eating the heel of the bread, with the baker’s union paper label still stuck to it-how much paper had I consumed off loaves of rye bread before leaving Chicago, I wonder?) and found my mother looking pretty much the same as I’d left her. I mentioned the scene at Kaufman’s to which she shrugged and said, "I never liked him." I gave her the rye bread and her change and went upstairs to listen to the radio tributes pouring in. I still didn’t get it. I still don’t.
When John Lennon was killed, my best friend wanted to drag me off to a vigil and I think I might have upset her by suggesting that holding a vigil for a rather public atheist was kind of stupid.
I made more enemies after Christopher Reeves died by posting something to the effect of, "Geez, it isn’t like he was Orson Welles or something."
The wall-to-wall coverage of Princess Diana’s funeral was kind of nutty as well.
But the oxy-clean dude, that’s just so wrong for him to be dead. Why does God take all the good ones so young? And why couldn’t it have been the Sham-Wow guy instead?