Monday, June 29, 2009

An Appreciation

Posted by Jeff in appreciation, billy mays, ed mcmahon, farrah fawcett, michael jackson, obituary

Rumors and theories are flying as the general populace tries to make sense of the bizarre string of notable celebrity deaths over the past week.  They ranged the gamut from long-expected to completely surprising, from an 86-year-old in good spirits down to a pair of 50-year-olds whose health conditions could not be more different.

But Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson and Billy Mays shared this: they were all public icons, having handed their lives over to an adoring yet fickle public.  They all found their joy in entertaining.  And they all showed nothing but pure, unbridled enthusiasm, from Fawcett’s thousand-watt smile to Mays’ trademark grin and booming greeting.

My closest interaction with any of them would have been when Mays came on The Tonight Show last Tuesday to promote his (very entertaining) Discovery show Pitchmen.  He was as animated off screen as he was on, and I’ll be damned if I don’t love my new Gopher.

The world is certainly worse off for losing each of these people, and it’s given us all plenty of occasion to ponder our own mortality. But perhaps the lesson to be taken from all this is to try to live as fully and without irony as each of these people did.

• Read comments
• Post a comment