MICHAEL & FARRAH

Two iconic white ladies died today.

Okay, all terrible jokes aside, did you ever imagine that Michael Jackson, for years the "King of Pop", and Farrah Fawcett, the most notable sex symbol of the 70's, would die on the same day?

Farrah Fawcett's struggles with cancer are well-known and have been painstakingly and publicly documented over recent years. She died today at the age of 62 from complications related to anal cancer which she originally contracted in 2006. Her struggle to fight the disease and her commitment to educating women about early cancer screening and regular physicals was courageous and had become well-known. Fawcett was hardly a saint of course and her "issues" with prescription medication and other treatments over the years had generated negative publicity and ridicule (most notably on the David Letterman program in the early 2000s), but while Farrah still seemed young, in spite of it all her death was not a surprise. This last bout of cancer had invaded the liver and unfortunately her days were numbered.

Personally, while I was tired of the relentless publicity about Farrah's cancer in her final days, spearheaded by her creepy close friends Ryan O'Neal and Alana Stewart, I feel no personal connection to her story or career--just a sense that an American icon has passed and an era may have ended.

Michael Jackson is different (ha ha, Understatement of the Year alert!) He may not have had as profound an influence on my musical tastes and appreciation as artists like Stevie Wonder, Prince, Miles Davis and Marvin Gaye, but when I think about growing up in the 1970s and 80s, Jackson's music, style and videos form a big part of the soundtrack of my life. Let others ruminate on whether or not Jackson was a child molester (my gut feeling is that he was probably guilty of something), let the media pundits pick apart the ups and downs of Michael's career and his personal finances, but what will resonate for me always is the one-two punch of "Off the Wall", "Thriller" and "Bad" the greatest consecutive troika of hit pop albums in music history. His accomplishments as a showman, a pop tunesmith and a musical icon will almost certainly never again be duplicated. I wish people would let Michael Jackson, gone too soon of a heart attack at age 50, rest in peace and celebrate his legacy. Of course, this can never happen in this day and age and that is tragedy in and of itself.

Peace...