I hardly ever do celebrity death posts. I usually don’t know what to say and don’t see much point in noting something that everyone already knows about. But I did really want to write something when David Carradine died. I was never really a huge fan but I did like Kung Fu and, probably because of that show, he seemed to me one of those interestingly odd people. I watched the episode of Mental that he was on. Was that his last performance? I thought he was very good in that and it made me sad that we will see no more of him.

Now, late last week, we have the double blow of the losses of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. I hadn’t thought about Farah Fawcett in a long time. She was a huge star back in the 70′s and I never had a particularly strong opinion about her but I’d easily rank her far above any of today’s hot young female stars. I did like Charlies Angels. I’m sorry to say I never paid any attention to any of her more serious work. I think it’s worth noting an area in which she had a huge impact and I suppose this is actually a trivial thing but it’s big in the context of trivia. She changed women’s hair. Before Farah we wore our hair either long and smooth or short and carefully sculpted. The standard was to have not a hair out of place. Then she comes along with her big loose mane of hair standing out all over the place and everyone loved it. Hairstyles have changed since then but loose and free is still favored over the beehives and other stiff, precisely arranged hairdos. Thank goodness! Thank you Farah.

And now what to say about Michael Jackson. My Michael Jackson ceased to be many years ago. My Michael Jackson was a cute little kid – a kid my age and he could sing like nothing I’d ever heard before and when I hear those old songs I still like them. My favorites were, and still are, I’ll Be There and Ben. When he made his come-back in the 80′s I still thought he was okay. I liked a few of his songs fairly well but was not a huge fan of the new, grown-up Michael Jackson. What he became later on was just sad. Whatever issues he had I’m sorry for him as a person and when I think about that cute little kid who could really sing I wish things could have turned out differently for him. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.

UPDATE: And another one. Not someone I liked but still, this weekend is getting to be sort of creepy and I’ll be glad when it’s over.