There are those rare moments that, in one fell swoop, remind us all of the ephemerality and fragility of life and, generally speaking, those moments come after a loss. We have all just experienced one of those moments - only this time it dragged on for days. In the span of one week, we lost Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson and Billy Mays. All of them American icons and, now, all of them gone.
McMahon was 86 years old, and so his departure didn't come as a shock. Fawcett had long been battling cancer. These deaths, while saddening, were accepted largely with equanimity. But on the same day that Fawcett departed, so too did the 'King of Pop,' Jackson, at the age of 50.
In my depression, I wondered sardonically, "Who's next?"
The answer came quickly enough. Mays, the colorful and exuberant TV salesman of OxiClean, was unexpectedly found dead in his bed a mere three days later.
It is official, what we experienced was an apocalypse of the gods.
McMahon had brought laughter to audiences for decades, both intentionally as Johnny Carson's second-banana and unintentionally while toting his oversized Publisher's Clearing House checks. Fawcett had thrilled men and earned the anger of women during her time on "Charlie's Angels" and with her famous pin-up photos. Jackson is such a legend that hardly a word need be written - whatever legal troubles and eccentricities he may have had, the man was the single most successful entertainer of all time and the inventor of the moonwalk (could you have done that?). Finally, Mays, though probably the least known of the group, was no less the icon, undoubtedly one of the most successful salesman ever. He elevated the sales pitch to an art form. These people were, each in their own way, American heroes.
For that very reason, this is not a time for sadness. The lives these people lived were filled with successes and failures, triumphs and defeats, acclaims and criticisms. But they were, each of them, larger than life. Right now, somewhere in this great country, there is an old-timer impersonating McMahon's famous "hi-oh!"; a young girl twirling her blond locks like Fawcett; a salesman attempting to mimic the thunderous shouts Mays and - this I guarantee you - a young man grabbing his crotch and attempting to moonwalk. It will be a long time before any of these icons are forgotten. That's just the way it is in America: the gods may leave us, but the shrines remain.
I am inclined to believe that, if we should feel pity for anyone, it should be for ourselves and not these luminaries who have left us. They enriched our lives at every turn and were not afraid to live their own in front of cameras. It takes a special kind of person to be a true celebrity. And I don't mean in the cheap, Paris Hilton sense of the word, but rather in the sense that brings with it grandeur and class and a spark of unique personality. I call that trait charm, and each of them had it.
And, also, can someone with the funds available please put a security detail around Jack Nicholson? I won't let him be next.
Eric Chianese is an English senior. His column appears weekly.
