Yesterday Kept Getting Sadder

Sky Saxon
via last.fm

When I wrote my post about Farrah Fawcett's passing yesterday, I had no idea what was yet to come.

I had determined this time around I wasn't going to trot out the old line about celebrity deaths happening in threes. We lost Ed McMahon on Tuesday, and now Farrah, but I would resist the urge to say it. And then I turned on the TV.

Understand that I have never been a fan of Michael Jackson's music or antics. Not my thing at all. Back in high school, during the height of Thriller's popularity and at the height of my Punk Rock snarkiness, I wrote the lyrics for a song called "Michael Jackson, You Suck." Couldn't stand him.

But I sure didn't expect that he would be number three.

I also didn't expect the media circus surrounding his demise. I understand that, despite my dislike for him, millions adored Michael Jackson, or at least his music. I get that he is considered a pop icon. But hour after hour of coverage during which basically nothing of substance was reported? Constant video of...nothing really? He passed, and that is sad, but come on! I almost expected to see Chevy Chase show up to say, "Our top story tonight: Michael Jackson is still dead!"

Most of all, however, I did not expect there would be a number four.

Less well-known to the mainstream, but an important musical figure nonetheless, Sky Saxon also passed away yesterday. Saxon formed The Seeds in 1965 with Daryl Hooper, Jan Savage, Jeremy Levine and Rick Andridge. They had a minor regional hit with their first single, "Can't Seem to Make You Mine," but achieved national notoriety with 1966's "Pushin' Too Hard," which reached #36 on the US charts and has since been covered by roughly a gazillion other bands.

The Seeds were the ultimate '60s garage band; listen to their records today and you can spot every sonic stereotype of that era and style. That's because these were the guys who practically drew up the blueprints for that sound. The band continued through some minor shuffling of the lineup and a slight name change to Sky Saxon & the Seeds before calling it quits in the early '70s.

When that signature sound came back into vogue in the '80s through bands like The Chesterfield Kings, The Fuzztones and The Cynics, Sky Saxon was back on the radar screen. After some solo stuff and collaborations with other bands, Saxon formed a new version of The Seeds and had been performing and recording intermittently ever since.

So, sadly, it turns out that these things don't always happen in threes. This week, it was four, with three in one day. May all four rest in peace.

Listen to The Seeds:

On the Passing of My First Celebrity Crush

Like many other males of my generation, I had The Poster. That's all you had to call it, too: The Poster. The one where she's wearing the red bathing suit - an iconic '70s image if ever there was one. Among my circle of friends at age 10 in 1977, all of us getting ready to become teenagers, none of us fully understanding what was about to happen with our hormones despite those woefully worn movies our teachers showed us in school about "becoming a man," the measure of whether or not you were leaving behind childish things and preparing to enter manhood was whether or not you had The Poster. 

She really was stunningly beautiful; a "California" (by way of Corpus Christi, Texas) blonde with sparkling eyes, a gleaming smile, an athletic body and the hairstyle that would come to bear her name. (In fact, at the height of her popularity, she sold her own line of shampoo!) 

She was the personification of what, at the time, was referred to as "jiggle TV," even though she only starred in only one TV show for only one season. She struggled to be recognized as an actress rather than a sex symbol; her jaw-droppingly intense turns as a battered wife and as a would-be rape victim who victimizes her attacker earned her critical acclaim and awards, but still when people spoke of her, it all went back to jiggle-TV and The Poster. 

Her refusal to accept that typecasting saw her tackle many difficult roles in film and on stage, but she virtually disappeared from TV for many years; when she came back, it was in a rambling, semi-coherent appearance on "Late Night with David Letterman" that left many scratching their heads. Her life took her full-circle back to TV at the end, having recently shared the details of her battles with cancer in a documentary special on NBC. 

Farrah Fawcett lost that two-year battle with cancer today. She was 62.