Celebrity deaths and you

I remember feeling really sad about River Phoenix, especially because he had been such a poster child for clean living, and here it turned out he was a total junkie. This was in my late teen years, when I loved "Stand By Me" and River in particular.

 

Skip Caray caused a pause.

 

How assault would help in the grieving process, I dunno

 

Owen Hart's was pretty shocking to me. Then, reading about the flat-out stupidity of the WWF in having him try that stunt (they actually wanted him to hold a midget wrestler while descending into the ring) unbelievably pissed me off.

 

I cannot stop laughing at this.

 

If George Carlin's death didn't make me cry, I can't imagine the loss of any celebrity would do it. I don't ever remember one that made me more sad than him. I remember calling Mrs. OOP immediately when I heard. One of the very first things she and I bonded over was our love of his humor. I did little things like adding a quote of his to my sig and changing one of my fantasy baseball team names to Seven Dirty Words, but no, no tears.

 

I think you should post that last line here:

http://www.mjjcommunity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=65467

 

I think when celebrities and other folks that we don't really know die, that sadness isn't necessarily for them, but for us. These are people that in some way, informed our lives. Michael Jackson's music was a huge part of my young adulthood. Huge. I was a freshman in college when Thriller dropped and I remember having goosebumps watching him on that Motown special not long after. That was before celebrities were in our face 24/7, so it was special. So, I think some of the sadness comes because of how sharply such an occurrence brings another era of your own life into focus.
It is really hard to mourn for the creature that Jackson became, but it's not hard to feel a pang of sadness, and shed a few tears, for that time of my life that has passed and shall never come again.

 

I was in college when Derrick Thomas died. My dad starting taking me and my brother to games right when his career started. I can't say that I cried, but I was bummed.

 

My father is a distant man, and about the only thing we bonded over was Formula 1 racing. The only reason I would get out of bed at 6 a.m. on a Sunday to watch them go around the Hungaroring was because it was something we shared, but eventually I gained an appreciation for the sport and in my junior high years idolized Ayrton Senna. I remember shedding a tear the day my dad called me up in my freshman dorm room to tell me Senna had died. I'm not sure the emotion was for Ayrton, but it was there.

 

Thurman Munson's death made me cry - I was a 10-year old Yankee fan and they broke into whatever it was I was watching on Channel 5 (Fox New York) between 4 and 5 to report he had died in a plane crash.

Was too young to remember Elvis' death, John Lennon's death didn't impact me as I was at an age where I was clueless about what good music was.
As the Yankee icons died (Mantle, Rizzuto, DiMaggio) the deaths didn't hit me hard - just as a fact of life.
I was only 13 when Belushi died so I was too young to appreciate his movies fully. In more recent years the deaths of other actors/comedians I grew to love like Harvey Korman and George Carlin didn't hit me as hard because I didn't have that deep connection to them.

When Mel Brooks dies I'll probably be in a funk for a couple of days. Same with Bob Dylan.
I don't want to think about how I'll react when Springsteen dies.

 

Maybe I missed the footage on the news or I was watching the wrong newscasts. But for Michael Jackson's death, I didn't see the mass crowds of people in tears like you did with Elvis and John Lennon. There were large gatherings, but in the footage I caught there were far more people at those gatherings celebrating his music than grieving his death.