I did not know Whitney Houston. I did not know Michael Jackson. Nor Clarence Clemons or Michael Been or Warren Zevon. John Lennon was dead before I started high school and I never got to meet George Harrison either.
I never bought a Whitney Houston album (or CD or even an iTunes download). I liked her pop songs, the ones that received airplay, but I wasn’t interested enough to delve deeper into the Whitney catalog. I did buy a Michael Jackson song or two, though never an album. I love Clarence for his contributions to The E Street Band and other artists. Been was leader of an ‘80s new wave band known as The Call. I bought their music more recently. And I have nearly all of Zevon’s albums and those of The Beatles as well.
I’m guessing you’ve bought your share of pop records, whether Whitney’s or Michael’s or The Beatles’ or somebody else’s. Somebody else who, like Whitney and Michael and Zevon and the two Beatles no longer on this earth, undoubtedly makes headlines for his or her music or movies and maybe for his or her battles with personal demons from booze to pills to perversions unnamed in family publications. And who, like all those aforementioned celebrities, will make headlines when they die. They’ll stay in the news for days, weeks, maybe months or years, depending on the circumstances. They may grow into legend like Morrison and Hendrix and Joplin.
Well, if you have bought those pop records or gone to their movies or rented the DVDs, you’ve contributed to their celebrity status and helped to fuel the interest that places them in the news when they die inauspiciously in a drug-induced stupor-turned-drowning.
We don’t know these celebrities. We haven’t met or likely even exchanged emails or Christmas cards. Yet we feel we know them. Their art has touched our lives. Maybe we just like a song or two. Or maybe Michael’s dance moves inspired you to pursue dance as an expression of who you are. Or Whitney’s voice so pierced your soul when she hit those amazing notes and then held them for what seemed an eternity that you knew you had to sing, too, even if only in the high school choir. Maybe that was the outlet you needed to crawl out of your shell and socialize, make friends.
In that way, artists, too, have ensured our freedom. They didn’t fight for it with a gun or a plane. They didn’t die because of another’s actions, heroically defending democracy and freedom halfway around the world. Whether their death was the result of drug addiction or cancer, technically both are illnesses. We don’t want to have sympathy for some rich celebrity who turned to the dark side and gave up greatness for a “good time.” Maybe it wasn’t even a good time. It might have been a place to hide from the unknown rigors of life in the limelight.
Whatever the case may be, they touched our lives and so we remember them, even when we rarely pay tribute to those who died in ways we view as heroic. But then, war dead will have their remembrances. There will be monuments are markers. But what is a slab of stone inscribed with names of the dead? And who cares if Whitney is the focus of the 24/7 news cycle for a couple weeks? If we really cared about the disparity, we’d find a way to pay our military personnel and, hell, our teachers among others, the kind of money entertainers and athletes command.
But really it isn’t about fame and fortune. At least it shouldn’t be.
Today's Stats
Temp: 36 degrees F
Distance: 3.5 miles
Weekly Total: 6.5 miles
Treasure: 2 gloves (1 grey Isotoner, women’s; 1 black magic glove); 5 cans.
iPod Playlist (All Whitney Houston, just for you)
I have everyone of those songs on my ipod. Well before she died. Love them all!
ReplyDeleteWell said Rob! Well said!!!!