A Week in Review

Hello All! What a strange week. We lost three cultural icons, and while none of this is going to change my life at all, I still feel a need to comment on it. Let’s do that with A Week in Review.

Jon and Kate plus Eight minus Jon and Kate
Before getting to all of the death and dying I want to say one thing – I could not possibly care less about Jon and Kate. Honestly. I do care, though, about the world we live in, and the fact that these D-list reality show celebrities shot to the headlines of every major news organization because of an alleged affair and a divorce is a sad, sad commentary on our society. I get most of my news online, and ABC, MSNBC, CNN have all had them in their top line up ever since Jon was spotted with that girl. Lame. Really lame.

Death
Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and now Michael Jackson. I think my brother Shane said it best – “it’s started”. His wife asked him what he meant, and he said that our era is dying. Isn’t that strange? I remember my mom going through it when all of her favorites from the 50s and 60s passed away. Now it’s our turn. We grew up with these people. Who hasn’t dreamt of Ed McMahon showing up on their doorstep with one of those giant checks? Heck, I still do. He could come back from heaven and give me money. And Farrah’s pinup poster/t-shirt, I have a clear image in my mind of being a little girl walking into K-Mart with my mom, and seeing a man wearing that t-shirt. I liked to flip through the poster displays, and hers was always there.

And Michael Jackson, his death has blown my mind. What a shock. The truth is I’ve been sad about Michael for a long time now. I was never a big Jackson fan. I think I’ve come to appreciate his talent more in recent years when I’ve seen clips of his days with the Jackson 5 – he was 10, 11 years old and amazing on stage. But as a teenager I was more into Def Leppard than pop. That’s right – Def Leppard. Still, no one who was alive in the 80s could live without knowing how huge he was. I was 13 when Thriller came out, and Michael was everywhere. His fame was too big for words, and for good reason. The man was a music and performance genius.

But it’s sad that his weird antics over the last decade have smeared his image, and people’s memories of how good he was – what a waste. The criminal trials didn’t help, either. I don’t know why he got so weird, or if he was guilty of all of those allegations, but I do think that no one could grow up with that kind of fame and not be messed up by it (I have the same theory about Britney Spears). It’s interesting though, the news I’ve seen since yesterday afternoon has talked more about his Thriller days, and his talent and influence on pop culture, than about all the bad stuff. I suppose that’s normal when a person dies, but it’s nice to know that the good stuff isn’t forgotten. He really was good.

Chuck Norris
Today I took the best facebook quiz ever – how long would you live in a fight with Chuck Norris? The questions asked me to pick a weapon, a means of attack, what I would wear, and a super power. I went with a light saber. It seems to me that a person could just wildly swing a light saber in any direction without knowing what she’s doing and still fight off an opponent. They burn right through flesh. My means of attack was to jump out “screaming like an angry koala”. It’s the element of surprise. I’d also be wearing a Barney costume and have lasers coming out of my eyes. What the crazy?! And I would live for .02 seconds. Here’s what the synopsis said, “God heard that you were supposed to fight Chuck Norris and so He sent the angel of death to kill you before hand, because HE is so merciful. It was better to die by the hand of God than by the foot of Chuck Norris. AMEN!” Yeah, that is better.

I also got to pick what to put on my tombstone, “There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Chuck Norris lives in Oklahoma”.

I think that’s it for now. Thanks, as always, for sharing the blogging world with me.
You are loved.