It's also been a month since I left Florida, and I haven't turned on my laptop in all that time. There are nearly two dozen updates downloading and installing right now so I may be interrupted by a reboot as well.
I don't normally comment on celebrity goings-on in this blog, but this week has been somewhat spectacular in that regard. Ed McMahon died at the beginning of the week, and yesterday the world lost both Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. I had been meaning to relate a short anecdote concerning Mr McMahon, and now it seems fitting to write about all three.
Ed McMahon
Several years ago, when I was the sole I.T. guy for our offices in San Bernardino county, I accompanied our county manager on a few trips to the satellite offices so he could give his annual 'state-of-the-company' address. One day we drove up to Big Bear, and, after giving the speech to the three or four employees in that office, my boss decided we should get lunch before heading back down the hill. We stopped at a nice place right there on the main drag through the city. I can't remember the name of the place, but it's an independent restaurant and there are antlered candelabras inside. (When I stayed in the cabin for a week several years back, I ate in this same restaurant a few times as it was close by.) During lunch, with no preamble, my boss said, "Isn't that Ed McMahon?" And indeed it was. He was eating lunch there just like the rest of us joes.
That's my Ed McMahon anecdote. Not much, I know. I spent many years watching Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show, but I never developed an appreciation for Ed. People say he was the best in the business at that job. I can't really comment one way or the other. I much preferred Jeffrey Tambor's McMahon-inspired character on The Larry Sanders Show. McMahon's death, however, does seem to spell the end of an earlier generation of TV. There are many stars still living from those days, but this death closes the book on the Carson era.
Farrah Fawcett
It may come as a surprise to many to know that I was a fan of Farrah Fawcett. When Charlie's Angels debuted on TV, I was there. I stayed there week after week too until I went off to college. The funny thing is, Farrah was not my favorite angel. Kate Jackson was my favorite angel— a fact which I'd probably be reluctant to tell her if I ever ran into her. But, I liked Farrah enough to get that tee shirt. Yes, you know which tee shirt I mean. Mine was red.
What really sealed the deal for me with Farrah, though, was the fact that she was in one of my all-time favorite movies: Logan's Run. She played Holly, the assistant at the New You shop. After the sandmen busted in and destroyed the shop, killing the doctor in the process, it was also Holly who cleared Logan of any wrong-doing when he was captured by the other escapees. All in all, Farrah was only on-screen for a few minutes in the movie, but it was enough for me to get her poster from the movie and pin it to my wall for a few years afterwards.
Truthfully, I never gave Farrah much credit. I know she spent the rest of her life fighting the 'dumb blond' image, and I'll admit there was a long time I freely associated her with that category. I have since realized that she was more. I wish that she had been able to go back to movies and/or TV and show us who she really was. Of all the deaths this week, hers is the one that I feel the most.
Michael Jackson
I don't know what to say about Michael Jackson's death. My first thought on hearing of it was that he was faking his death in order to escape the mess of his life. That seems unlikely now. I was a reluctant fan of his first few albums. That is, I hated the cult of personality surrounding him, but there was undeniable joy in his music. Many of those early songs I still enjoy today. It seems that the real Michael Jackson probably died a long time ago, however, and was replaced by the travesty of the last ten years. Like most of the world, I suppose, I wish he had been able to redeem himself.
Well, it turns out I was indeed interrupted while writing this post. In fact, I only got a sentence into the Ed McMahon anecdote when the guy showed up at Starbucks. As I write this now, it is the following day, and I am at home. The kid was nice, and he must have driven like the devil to get there as fast as he did. He paged me shortly before 11 AM to say he was leaving Pacific Palisades. I took off immediately, and made it to Starbucks about 11:20 AM. He arrived about 15 minutes later. We talked about World of Warcraft and Blizzard for an hour or so before he took off again.
See you again soon!
"The human consciousness is really homogeneous. There is no complete forgetting, even in death."— D. H. Lawrence
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