Oftentimes, folk will lament the current state of our media obsessed society, and will use as an example of their justified attitudes the cult of personality that arises around the recently deceased.
Princess Diana comes to mind, in terms of her being mourned, to great extents, by millions of people who "never even knew her." Other examples could include your rock and rollers: Garcia, Morrison, Joplin, Hendrix, Lennon, Holly, Elvis, Cobain, et al. For the, dare I say, hipper among us this list would include Tim Yo, D. Boon, the Exploding Hearts boys, the Ramones, Strummer, Keith Moon, Darby Crash, and many, many more. I'll stop there since I am not that hip and would have to start spell checking names and such if I go any further.
Movie stars, Presidents, Popes, and Comedians all can fall into this field as well.
When thinking today, as the cat was missing, about his curling up on my lap just last night, and how maybe, just maybe, he would never do so again, I was hit with a tremendous sadness.
And yet, this sadness was tempered by the fact that, in the end, it is just a cat: not a best friend's broken neck, nor a country ravaged by war, nor a diagnosis of an incurable disease. It reminded me then, in its relative insignificance, of how I felt a couple of months back, upon the death of Tim Russert.
I was floored by his death, as it was unexpected, and as he was by far my favorite newsman.
You would NEVER see me awake at 10am on a Sunday morning (at least not since I bartended Sunday brunches @ John Harvards [where I would always start my day with a viewing of MTP]) but you could ALWAYS find me awake at 2am on Monday morning, pulling up Meet the Press "On Demand" and enjoying it in the silence of the late evening.
Literally every Sunday, for years, I would do what I could to catch that program, and I was usually successful. In this way I am no different than many millions of other Americans who did the same, even if they did so at a reasonable hour.
But I cried like a little girl watching that funeral coverage of his, and I really have no qualms about saying so, as anyone who watched it was no doubt touched by its heart-wrenching-ness.
The lost cat/dead cultural icon parallel was more striking, presently, with the weekend deaths of Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes, who, ironically, had recently finished filming a movie together.
I like Isaac Hayes. He seems like a nice enough guy, and certainly smooth as hell in his day.
But honestly, I was never a huge fan, and his death made me feel sad-ish for him, sorta, but didn't leave a dent. As Douglas Hofstadter would say, his interiority hadn't manifested itself very strongly within my own. I just think I was too young. Also I like to try to, generally, not be sad about death. This parallels the cat sitch as well, since, in the end "he is on his own now, off on a new adventure." Still, when the world feels a loss, and specfically, when I feel a loss, a loss is felt.
But Bernie Mac. BERNIE MAC!
Bernie Mac, in a lot of ways, just represents everything that is ever good about this country, and he did so solely through that smile of his. So, so funny, almost all the time, America, and with such tenacity and sincerity. I always enjoyed his stand up, but his roles in cinema, in places like the Ocean's movies and, one of my favorites, Eddie Murphy & Martin Lawrence's Life almost seemed, to me, to reveal the "real" Bernie Mac as much as anything else he did.
His TV show was pretty hilarious as well, America
I never met Bernie Mac, obviously, and had I, it would have been an autograph sesh or a quick picture and handshake. But I, like you perhaps, knew Bernie Mac. And he was a great man to know. You can listen to a wonderful, wonderful interview by clicking HERE.
In the interview, Bernie says that it was Bill Cosby, making his mother laugh (while she was crying) that made him want to be a comedian. This is at least the second comedian I have heard say that "making my mother laugh" was the motivation for becoming a comedian. At first I thought the other was Gene Wilder, but this just didn't make sense to my brain. I now remember, quite specifically, that the other was the great and recently deceased George Carlin, who said the very same thing on the very same program, Terri Gross' Fresh Air.
That's nice, isn't it?
But I really do think that these emotions we feel for people we do not know...they are real emotions, and they are a testament to the people themselves, and the culture of connectivity that we have created and fostered. It's a good thing, yo.
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