What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life?
Matthew 16:26
Catholic Ping
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Posted on 06/30/2009 5:36:49 AM PDT by Kaslin
"How fevered is the man who cannot look Upon his mortal days with temperate blood, Who vexes all the leaves of his life's book, And robs his fair name of its maidenhood..."; So wrote English poet John Keats in "On Fame."
It's worth re-reading as we overindulge in the recent deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett. Ed McMahon's death the same week received somewhat less coverage because he was neither beautiful, nor weird, though he qualified as a celebrity. At least McMahon served in two wars as a Marine, which was a real accomplishment.
What is it about celebrity that so fascinates us? And it is celebrity, not fame. As the now defunct New Times magazine editorialized 30 years ago, "There are almost no famous people anymore; only celebrities." That's because, the editorial writer said, fame is too suggestive of steady achievement. Almost anyone can be a celebrity.
Listening to the Michael Jackson tributes would make one think he had created something of lasting value. Some said his music will "live forever." No it won't. No one today hums Stephen Foster songs or ditties from World War I, or the Great Depression, which were better songs and understandable. Can anyone quote the lyrics from Gus Kahn's greatest hits? Somehow "Butterflies all flutter up and kiss each little buttercup at dawnin'") doesn't seem to have the ring it had in 1922.
Tony Bennett is a singer. His songs have a better chance of longevity than Jackson's because they are about love and relationships, which are common to every generation. Bennett and his contemporaries, including Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme and Ella Fitzgerald, are in a league far above the "pop" culture headed at one time by Jackson, whose biggest hit "Thriller" came before the younger generation was born.
Our culture celebrates and promotes beauty, which fades. Farrah Fawcett attempted to remind people she was still around after her initial splash in the '70s by having plastic surgery, among other things, and appearing nude in Playboy. Michael Jackson, who had numerous plastic surgeries and other "treatments" to his skin and body, was rehearsing for a "comeback" when he died of an apparent prescription drug overdose. Jackson, the self-proclaimed "king of pop," got more coverage in newspapers and on the networks, especially cable TV, than Elvis Presley, the "king of rock and roll," received when he died of a drug overdose in 1977.
Diana, Princess of Wales trumped Mother Teresa in TV coverage of their deaths, but who made the greater contribution?
A culture that fixates on the likes of the Osbournes, and those dreadful reality TV celebrities Kate and Jon, is a culture that is cannibalizing itself. Embracing the base while rejecting the noble will produce more of one and less of the other.
"Why then should man, teasing the world for grace,
Spoil his salvation for a fierce miscreed?"
Keats asked a good question. So did the writers Jule Styne, Betty Comden and Adolph Green when they wrote "Make Someone Happy" (reprised by the late Jimmy Durante in the film "Sleepless in Seattle"): "Fame, if you win it, comes and goes in a minute. Where's the real stuff in life to cling to?"
The list of celebrities whose lives turned into a train wreck is long and lengthening. Why would so many want to follow these people and their broken and lousy relationships, drug use, and plastic surgeries, especially when we see where it leads for so many of them?
Last Thursday night, more people watched a Farrah Fawcett special on ABC than a Michael Jackson special on CBS, suggesting that beauty beats weirdness. Far fewer watched ABC's health care special with President Obama. By almost anyone's standards, health care is far more important than dead celebrities. That ratings disparity is a commentary on our shallowness and the refusal of so many to cling to the "real stuff" in life.
What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life?
Matthew 16:26
Catholic Ping
Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
The California State Military Museum
Edward Peter Leo McMahon, Jr. was born in Detroit Michigan in 1923. McMahon led a somewhat unhappy and nomadic childhood. His father traveled all over the country pursuing various financial ventures including carnival jobs and bingo games. Nevertheless, McMahon had a good lineage. His great-great-great-grandfather, the Duke of Magenta, was a marshal and president of France. The Duke's favorite sauce, named Macmahonaise in his honor, was later shortened to mayonnaise. McMahon's grandmother was the cousin of Rose Fitzgerald, mother of John F. Kennedy. Many of McMahon's summers were spent at his grandparent's in Lowell Massachusetts. McMahon's ambition was to be a radio announcer and had his first announcing job at the age of 15.He had me up until the part where he said that this was a bad thing.
"Living with Michael Jackson" [MJ on sleeping with children: It's very charming. It's very sweet]
MJHouse.com ^
Transcript of Bashir interview. Video of it also.
Excerpt:
Jackson: "When you say bed, you're thinking sexual, they make that sexual, it's not sexual." "We're going to sleep, I tuck them in and I put a little like, er, music on and when it's story time I read a book." "We go to sleep with the fireplace on. I give them hot milk, you know, we have cookies, it's very charming, it's very sweet, it's what the whole world should do."
Posted on Friday, June 26, 2009 10:03:14 AM ET by ETL:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2279938/posts
I didn’t watch any of them, including the Obama infomercial.
No thanks.
Michael Jackson became the Zombie, in real life, that you see in Thriller. He was the living dead. And that ghoulish existence is glamorized in such trends as Goth, though that term wouldn't describe Jackson's music. People are attracted to the dark side (despite skin bleaching) and there is little you can do about it. Romantics veer towards Hollywood and death, where all three feed off each other in some bizarre symbiotic relationship. Life imitates art...
We have seen that Death comes in threes, elderly, sickness, unexpected.
Since I didn't watch Osama/Obama/Hussein OR either of the two other programs, and since I don't have cable...I must have been watching some nature thing on local PBS.
I don't want to be another one of those “turn off and tune out “ sheeple, but it's really getting tough to watch or listen...even to Beck , Rush, or Hannity, but thank the Lord we still have them and I do listen to them every day , tho it scares the heck out of me some days and makes me mad enough at our gov. ....I could take to the streets...
Is that for real? Unbelievable, but that shows you the mindset of these people
Am I the only one who doesn't know what the hell this means?
Keats is not as impenetrable as, say, Gerard Manley Hopkins, but he's pretty dense.
Although if you want to have some fun with Keats's poetry, read this short story by Kipling: Wireless.
I DO like Kipling. Very much.
Keats was saying that an overwrought person cannot look or behave with moderation, that he ruins his life constantly with intemperate and ill-advised behavior, and loses his innocence in all things.
(My mother was an English lit teacher.)
No one today hums Stephen Foster songs or ditties from World War I, or the Great Depression, which were better songs and understandable.
I do, but then I’m a living historian and these songs have a special place in my life. I will often find myself humming/singing Foster songs as I do things, even things unrelated to living history presentations.
NI meant to add that I also like Jearts and find agreement with this article overall. I did not watch Obama’s infomercial for healthcare, but neither have I watched the special on Fawcett or any of the Jackson coverage.
Steven Foster wrote our State Song.. I hear it frequently .
But that being said..he is right.
No one? Even little Cally Thomas in elementary school? Sounds like way too high a standard for lasting fame.
If you sang "Old Folks at Home" in school or "Oh Susanna" at home or heard "Tipperary" or "Over There" or "Brother Have You Got a Dime" in films, they live on through your memory, even if you don't go around singing them.
Will that be true for Michael Jackson's songs? Maybe not. But the videos exist and people will be able see them for a very long time. If they want to.
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