Thursday, April 28, 2016

Celebrity Deaths and How They Effect Us



                                             Celebrity Deaths & How They Effect Us







Well I will confess last Friday I was at a concert and they of course started playing Purple Rain. Yes I teared up just bit.   As I sat there I thought how interesting it is people we have never met have such an ability to touch the very core of our being. Prince was there the summer of my Senior year in high school. His album Purple Rain was the soundtrack of that summer of beaches, clubs and just the beginning of the who I was becoming. Just imagine a warm August afternoon you are 18  and you are about to for the first time move away from home.  You  drive up on a big beautiful brick building built in 1928 and all the windows are open  (no air-conditioning) All you hear is Purple Rain, Let’s Go Crazy………… It is the beginning of a new life but an old friend is already there waiting on you with new friends. 

   This year we have lost many wonderful artist but it is not the first one I remember.  1977 was a very rough year also . I was 11-12 this was the year I became so aware of the fact that these people were not immortal.   One of the first that I remember was  funny enough Freddie Prince and I was 11. I watched  Chico and the Man  on Friday night along with Sanford and Son. I was completely confused how someone who seemed to have it all would end their life in such a way.  I remember sitting in Mrs. Roberts 6th grade class and looking at the clock and thinking  yesterday at this time he was alive but then 4 mins from now he will decide not to be.  

Elvis also died in 1977.   People were just in shock that day.  It was one of those moments where people remember where they were when they heard the news. My dad had just picked me up from piano class  and Bob Seger’s Night Moves was playing on the radio when they broken in with the news.  At 12 you don’t realize  42 isn’t old.  Plus you don’t realize just how big Elvis was. Imagine what it would have been like if Elvis had died when we had social media and all the other ways we communicate now. Then we just had radio and TV and Elvis was everywhere.  I mean for goodness sake the Enquirer had a casket shot. 
  
 This was the year I remember losing so many entertainer that I so enjoyed watching.   We lost Groucho Marx, Joan Crawford, Charle Chaplin,  and Zero Mostel  just to name a few. One of the ones  that really bothered me was Bing Crosby.  Why was he playing golf anyway?  Now I think he died doing what he loved.  I loved Bing Crosby. Yes I was a weird kid. When he died I felt really bad for Bob Hope because he had lost his best friend.  Then a few days later Lynyrd  Skynyrd’s plane fell from the sky. I was making a piñata for a class project watching M.A.S.H.  on tv when I was sucker punched by that bit of news.   ( In the coming days Free Bird was played nonstop on the radio)   I guess I was just at the age of really trying to understand death. I do truly remember these deaths very vividly.  


  Celebrities are special to us because of the magic they create  for us. We don’t contemplate that we all have that magic for someone.    Celebrities just have a life where they get to share their magic with so many more people. Their profession just has a bigger audience who they touch. When they die or really most anyone I think the world loses a little bit of that spark.  When Robin Williams died I woke up the next day and thought “Damn the world is just not as bright as it was yesterday”. We learn to adapt and others fill in where that spark died.  We don’t forget but we do move on.  The key is to keep your own magic going. Don’t buy into the negative things we are bombard with on a daily basis.  It is not easy but anything special never is.  We all are SPECIAL. and have our own unique MAGIC.  While we are here each and everyday we touch peoples’ lives in ways we don’t even know.  With these interactions we have such power with those we meet.  So each day go out into the world and be honest, helpful, kind, and all those things that make the world better. Spread the magic. Shine your own spark. 

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