Celebrity deaths, nostalgia, fallacious reasoning

The old folk saying about “it happens in threes” often gets applied to celebrity deaths. Well, today it’s true. After Ed McMahon’s death earlier this week, then Farah Fawcett’s expected passing
and Michael Jackson’s surprise death is the third.

All three mean something.

First, with Farrah, I’m the right age that she was pin-up material when I was in junior high school. And “Charlie’s Angels” was definitely watchable.

And, Farrah Fawcett Majors, if you will, please. That’s who the actress on “Charlie’s Angels” was.

Yes, Lee was jealous. Perhaps that did contribute to the divorce. Perhaps he had a wandering eye, too.

But, perhaps she was already into drugs by then. Coke or speed to stay thin, then Valium or similar to get some sleep.

And, from some of her late-life TV appearances, apparently never 100 percent, long-term, successful, in kicking various drug habits.

She did show poise, dignity, and more, though, in her battle with cancer, and yes, given its ravages and the type of cancer, I can understand her wanting it to end.

Beyond that poise and dignity, perhaps she can, in her death, get more Americans to open their minds more about assisted suicide legislation.

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Michael Jackson? Thriller broke out when I was in college; that part of Jackson, before he plunged into the drained shallow end of the pool of weirdness, means nostalgia.

So, nostalgia related to Jackson is more about trying to do the moonwalk — and succeeding nicely — at college dances, and therefore, reflecting in larger part on college life at a small (less than 500 students) Christian college.

In turn, as Salon music critic Bill Wyman (NO, not THAT Bill Wyman) notes, Jackson had quite the screwed-up family life as part of being unprepared for celebrity and therefore having quite the screwed-up adulthood. Perhaps he, and Latoya, were sexually abused That said, as civil-case-settlement pedophile, his own childhood, if that is part of what happened, is neither excuse nor reason.

I know that from family history, both as an offered justification, and the fact that shit like that often ISN’T poured further downhill.

Beyond nostalgia, I look at Michael as having been “a kinder, gentler predator,” and shed not a tear for him.

I have no desire, therefore, to try Facebook’s “What Michael Jackson song are you” quiz. Or anything similar.

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So, too, does Ed. Nostalgia for the “simpler time” of America, the time of my parents more than myself.

Ed? Far more than “set-up man” for Johnny, he was a comedic star in his own right before pairing with Carson. And, Johnny knew it, too, even if he didn’t already admit it.

As part of being that set-up man, though, he bore Johnny’s jokes at and about him, including those that involved psychological displacement. (Ed was never a serious drinker, but Carson was, for many, many a year; the Budweiser jokes were example No. 1 of that displacement.)

Then, later, Ed made his own, post-Johnny second-act career, only to sadly show us at the end that being rich, famous, or both, is no guarantee against financial catastrophe.

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At the same time, per my own self and people like Bob Carroll at Skeptic’s Dictionary, the “this happens in threes” is nothing more than an illustration of the bulls-eye fallacy.