Revelation

I just had a revelation. It's about dead people.

My first thought, upon hearing the news, is to feel sorry for Warren Zevon, Johnny Cash, John Ritter. Good people all, I'm sure, and all people whose work I really enjoyed. I don't really think they deserved what they got: listening to their lungs sloooowwwwly get eaten away, or standing by as their wife of what I think was a million years get put in the ground, or suffer a few hours of chest pains and panic, ending in darkness.

But they're not the problem here. Take a quick read of the newspaper, or watch CNN for a few minutes, and you'll likely have little problem believing that wherever they are has got to be better than here. Did you catch the 'Hurt' video? Yeah, me too.

No, the problem is the people, like us, who are left behind, laboriously slogging on, saddled with the reality that the world is just the same as it was before, but minus, for example, Buddy Hackett.

I can’t help but to think that any kids I may someday have will be a little, tiny bit worse off for not having more of, let's say, The Benny Hill Show. Or Frank Zappa songs. Jim Henson. Barry White. And what the hell, let's throw in Classie Freddy Blassie for good measure. The list goes on, and on.

I'm going to miss these people, largely for what are ultimately selfish reasons. I uncharacteristically spent fifteen bucks on The Wind, Warren Zevon's deathbed masterpiece, and I want more. I also want more Walter Payton games. A Clash reunion. I would even settle for Tommy Boy II.

There's no chance, of course, for any of those now. All evaporated, like the smell of turkey as you head to work on the Monday after Thanksgiving.

What's worse, I shudder to think who people will think of in the same light in twenty years. Frankly, the farmlands out there do not seem very fertile, if you catch my drift. Soon, maybe very soon, the majority of MTV's current audience will be mourning the passing of, let's say, Eminem. It's just not the same.

Maybe I've become old. Maybe I don't get it. Or maybe I'm just cynical enough to think that the world was better off when we were listening to the Ramones, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Waylon Jennings; watching Gregory Peck movies and Chuck Jones cartoons; growing up with Mr. Rogers. But maybe not.

Strom Thurmond, on the other hand; he's going to hell