Two Icons in One Day

This morning it was reported that 70's "it" girl Farrah Fawcett died of cancer. I was sad, as I used to watch Charlie's Angels (though not that often as we only had on tv and Dad usually was the one who had control of it) and I had all four of the Charlie's Angels dolls and their hideout treehouse home. I collected photos of the Angels and made a small scrapbook. Like most young people, I wanted her trademark lion's mane hairdo and, at one point, had a haircut with her trademark "flip." She was beautiful (though for my part, I always felt that Jaclyn Smith was the prettiest of the three). I was sad, but this wasn't unexpected. She had been battling cancer for a long time and it was obvious that she wouldn't last too long. She battled her disease with dignity and courage, and 62 years is far too young to die.

Then, sometime around 3:00 pm, I clicked on msnbc.com and saw that Michael Jackson had a heart attack and had been rushed to hospital. Minutes later, tmz.com was reporting he was dead. About half an hour later, the major media confirmed that it. I'm in shock, and it's affecting me far more than I ever thought it would. I wouldn't consider myself a fan, really. I've never owned one of his albums. I was a teenager when he was at the top of his game. I saw some of the videos, but I am fairly confident in saying that I don't think I saw the *whole* Thriller video until a few years ago.

He was only 50. Yes, he had his oddities, but I remember a time before all that: a time when he was normal looking and was at the top of the world. He was a remarkable entertainer, a trailblazer. The videos from the Thriller album were brilliant ("Billy Jean", "Beat It" and "Thriller") they are classics. What an amazing lithe dancer's body he had. What a talent.

Then things started to go downhill. Now, I'm not going to talk too much about that, except to say this: if the best the LAPD could do to prosecute him for child molestation was to put a woman on the stand that had been accused of fraud, it sounds to me like there wasn't any substance to it. Secondly, if the parents of the first child that accused him were happy to settle out of court for money instead of pursuing criminal charges, I think it speaks volumes about their priorities. One would think that they would want to see Jackson behind bars so that he couldn't harm other kids. Instead they settled for cash. Due to his eccentric behaviour, he was an easy target for such allegations. I'll leave it at that. I'm keeping an open mind.

It's a tragedy of a life cut short, and probably someone that was very lonely - and obviously troubled.

What a bizarre news day.