Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, Billy Mays: Counting the Stars and Numbering the Days

Last week’s news was dominated by the deaths of three celebrities: Ed McMahon, who entered our homes as Johnny Carson’s sidekick, and later – we wished – as the man bearing the big check from Publisher’s Clearinghouse. Farrah Fawcett, whose pin-up poster sold 12 million copies and appeared in the dorm rooms of a generation, and whose hairstyle literally sent millions of American women to stylists asking to “look like Farrah.” And Michael Jackson, who was performing as a gifted song-and-dance talent from as early as age five. By the time he would emerge from among his family as the preeminent Jackson entertainer, his albums would sell 750 million copies. Days later, we learned that 50-year-old Billy Mays had just died of a heart attack. Billy was the “As Seen on TV” pitch man who sold us products while operators were standing by: OxiClean, Orange Glo, Mighty Putty, a health insurance plan, ESPN 360.

Michael Jackson’s death set off a veritable panic. It took one of my family members, who works near UCLA, three extra hours to get home because the crowds outside UCLA Medical Center, where Jackson died, were so massive. On the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame, throngs placed wreaths and wept at Michael Jackson’s star on the cement – not realizing that they were mourning at the star of the wrong Michael Jackson, a radio talk show host.

The death of Michael Jackson the Moonwalker eclipsed Ms. Fawcett’s death earlier that morning. When she had died, the TV networks began preparing to preempt their regular programming for the night, for their respective documentaries remembering her life: the hairdo, the poster, the marriage to the Six Million Dollar Man, the divorce, the surprising reminder that she had acted only one year on “Charlie’s Angel’s” before moving to made-for-TV films. Ryan O’Neal, her long-time companion, told an interviewer that, while there are many “celebrities,” Ms. Fawcett genuinely was a “star.” And yet her star was eclipsed the day of her death; media focus of remembrance rapidly shifted mid-day to Jackson

And so, as each element of our media-driven society – the cable news and celebrity-gossip programs in particular – endeavor to keep the stories running, it is worthwhile pausing to ask whether there is anything for us to learn from it all.

There is.

Life is short. So terribly short. “The days of our lives are seventy years and, [if blessed with extra] strength, eighty years . . . so much of it hard work and emptiness cut off suddenly and we fly away. . . . So teach us [O G-d] to count our days.” (Tehillim 90:10,12 ) We know we will not live forever, but how we do let the days go by! And why not? For “tomorrow is another day.” And then, suddenly, the little boy for whom we bought his first ice cream cone at his first state fair, and the little girl we pushed on a swing, each has a packed suitcase at the front door, bidding us good-bye as each leaves the nest, closing a chapter in our biographies. And soon our parents’ friends – people with whom we grew up – are dying. And then parents.

Tomorrow is not another day. Tomorrow is a noun that means that today is lost forever. Yesterday, too. There is no tomorrow for even the greatest of celebrities whose time comes. Nor is there a today for those of us who would consume it watching and reading all about them. Our moments to realize our own dreams and hopes are today.

Synagogues are filled with congregants who congregate to reach the spiritual, the Divine. The rabbi or shul president announces after services that Torah classes will be meeting during the week. A chesed committee will be doing acts of kindness on Tuesday. A scholar is visiting and will speak next week. Do we take advantage of every moment, every opportunity that comes our way to grow Jewishly? Do we passionately seize the day’s opportunity to grow closer to G-d, acting as if there is no tomorrow and as if today is too precious to waste?

The real stars are not on the screen but in the firmaments, and they are counted only by G-d. “He counts the number of the stars, and He calls each one by its name.” (Tehillim 147:4) But we do have the chance – at least a bit – to number our days. We need only contemplate how quickly our heroes and our legends pass. How quickly their laughter fades, their smiles fade, their hair, their booming voices, their dancing. There is so little time. And every precious moment is witnessed by the stars above and G-d above them.

Michael Jackson, Neverland, and a Parent's Duty

Never in Neverland: The Michael Jackson arrest has some greater lessons.
From National Review Online (Nov. 24, 2003)

Unexpectedly, I found myself traveling on the freeways most of last Wednesday, when the Michael Jackson story erupted into a media feeding frenzy. No matter the talk station, the conversation was salacious, incendiary, and vicious.

Certainly the allegations, if proven, are horrific. But the news frenzy is also a byproduct of our media. Live radio and 24-hour television demands that airtime be constantly filled, and a succinct account doesn't fill three hours of a talk host's program. And "good radio" is measured by the number of listeners riveted; Arbitron and Nielsen polls dictate the approach. The more salacious, the better.

I don't know if Michael Jackson is guilty as charged. From his interviews, I do know that he has an eccentric understanding of the way grown men and other people's children are supposed to interact. But that does not in itself convict him of child molestation. I know that he apparently paid someone $20 million ten years ago, in order to silence a child-molestation accusation, but that does not prove much to me. I have been a civil litigator for ten years, and I know that all-too-many baseless allegations settle for reasons unrelated to the veracity of charges. But, then again, sometimes they settle for the right reasons.

So I do not know whether Michael Jackson dunnit. And, on a much deeper level, I do not care. I do not associate with Michael Jackson; odds are I will never meet him. The chances that he would invite my pre-adolescent son to spend a night at his ranch are less-than-nil. And — most important here — the chances that, if invited, my son actually would spend a night at Neverland were, are, and always will be, never.

And that's the discussion the media should be having about the Michael Jackson issue. What parents would allow their child, in the aftermath of prior scandalous allegations and a mega-million-dollar out-of-court settlement, to spend private time with Michael Jackson?

And what kind of parents are the rest of us? We do not know Michael Jackson, and no one of his milieu invites our children to spend the night — but ABC television does, and so does NBC, and CBS, and Fox, and the myriad cable and satellite stations. Do we know what our children are watching on television, as strangers enter our homes each night through the tube, babysitting them and spending the night with them? So many of us do not.

Earlier in my parenting years, as my daughters were growing up, I knew that I did not want them watching Beverly Hills 90210 or anything of that genre. By contrast, Cosby was wholesome. But what about the shows in between? The Simpsons seemed cartoonish and therefore fine — until we started noticing that the story lines too often carried troubling messages. Roseanne seemed funny and family oriented, but we soon determined that her boorishness did not belong in our home. Friends seemed like a bunch of nice kids who were, well, friends. But then we saw that they were also trying to get into each other's intimate apparel.
We became censors. As Jerry Springer and Geraldo were added to the daytime schedule, along with reruns of Married with Children and so much of the network sitcom trash, that time slot also became dangerous. So we monitored. That is how we reared our children — censoring television. Even Nickelodeon, which began as a television safe haven a decade ago, soon moved into "Nick at Night." Now, Roseanne is there — and our son is not.

In 1993, after law school, we drove from California to Kentucky, where I served a year's clerkship for an appeals-court judge. En route, we listened to the car radio and, for the first time, I heard the pop music to which my children were subjected. I was shocked — absolutely shocked. So we moved the family to country music. Yes, country music includes lyrics about bars and drinking. But they also speak about mama and family — even about God. I would rather that my pre-adolescent children sing Garth Brooks's "Unanswered Prayers" than Britney Spears's latest panting and moaning.

If TV and music censorship became part of parenting when my daughters were in grade school, I now also censor videogames for my growing son. I had no idea that the evil and trash elsewhere in our culture had permeated the joystick sanctuary. But it has. Virtually every interesting game that is not sports-based glorifies anti-social behavior: racing away from the police and shooting and murdering people. Clerks at the stores have told me that some games even depict rape. Well, not in the Gamecube at Chez Fischer, they don't.

Reasonable minds may differ on parental censorship. Not every parent would make my choices; that's fine. But if L'Affaire Jackson teaches us anything constructive — if we are to draw anything from the story beyond the gossip — every parent must begin by asking "How could the plaintiff's parents ever have allowed their son to spend private time alone with Jackson?" And, then — after smiling smugly at how much better our parenting skills are — we all must ask: "And what are we doing to ensure that other societal pollutants don't poison our children's precious minds and innocent souls?" That's where our parenting test really lies.