Nobody Can Predict Death, Part II

Nobody’s Opinion; Okay--- I got the musicians passing away last year out of my system, but today after listening to about 2 weeks worth of Gerald Ford’s resurrection as the one of the best Presidents to ever walk the earth, I was on overload. All those speeches--all that pomp and circumstance, made me realize I needed to digest some of it.

There is only so many times one person can hear the President’s official song announcing that a President is coming, or passing, or whatever, without wishing that he would just say..."Okay, enough. I'm here."

So, I looked over all the rest of the group.

And it became crystal clear that everyone on the list that died last year, no matter what they did, was in some way or another, an entertainer. After all, if there is ONE product that we do better than any other nation it’s entertain. Athletes, actors, musicians, politicians, they all sell themselves, and in doing so, they take up much of our time just watching them.

Saddam even entertained us in death, when a cell-phone picture was shopped all over the internet today. He could have used a little makeup.

Saddam and Ford were the biggest deaths in the news in 2006…but, before I get to them, let’s take a quick check at the others.

Shelly Winters; The first picture that pops into most people’s mind is Shelly Winters swimming under water like a beluga whale, and then dying in the Poseidon Adventure, bringing hope to overweight people everywhere.

She was a roommate of Marilyn Monroe in Hollywood…not many people knew that. Whenever I look at women’s shoes with an ankle strap, I think of Marilyn Monroe and how she would put on her “%&#* me” shoes to get a job. That was a bit of important information that Shelly revealed in one of her famous “tell everyone about how wild she was in Hollywood” books. Between the two of them, there was not a man in Hollywood that did not succumb to the shoes. Anyway, she did win an Oscar for swimming underwater, and not bothering with whether she had decent shoes on.

The fact that she didn’t float to the top has always fascinated me.

Yes, Shelly entertained us for years. Even swimming underwater.

Coretta Scott King; One thing you can say about this woman, is that she knew how to take a legend and make a muti-national and very HUGE money generating company out of her husband’s death. (I’m sure she had plenty of help from Jesse Jackson) The fact that she was going all over the world campaigning for gay rights, leaves her in her later years as trying to be a lame copy of her late husband. But for entertainment value, you could not beat her funeral, which provided the nation with a front row seat to witness the most vicious verbal attacks ever on a sitting Presidents (George Bush) by two X-Presidents (Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton) that have ever been recorded on tape.

Watching the President sitting there on stage, as each nasty word came out of their mouths, was like witnessing a colossal volcano about to erupt. His face was red. Laura’s face was red. They were gripping their chairs.

All of us nobody’s were going, “Punch him George! Get up! Leave! Spit on them!”
But no, he just sat there.

Nevertheless, Michael Jackson still got up and said “I love you All” oblivious to anything that was going. I’m expecting Michael to turn up at Aretha’s funeral…and say. “I love you all”

They should book him for President Carter’s funeral in advance.

Yes, a great moment in political entertainment history.

Betty Friedan; Probably the woman most responsible for the feminist movement, no-fault divorce, dirty houses, and really messed up kids…although do NOT mention this to Gloria Steinham or Germaine Greer who fought her like the vicious bitches they are for the position of “Most Powerful Feminists Leader of the World.”

Betty was a better writer than Gloria (anyone who ever read a copy of MS would swear she was related to Alan Greenspan) I must admit, when I read her book, she pretended she was a poor woman who worked her poor fingers to the bone, with no credit. She got up early to write her novel that changed the world “The Feminine Mystique” What passion!

Years later I found out she was a Marxist journalist, who actually had a nanny taking care of her kids. She was very well off.

The fact that she did not come out against Clinton and Monica makes her a big fraud.

Betty Freidan is proof that the woman’s movement was part of the communism being introduced to eventually go from socialism to communism. That was the plan. And it seems to have worked in many places, sadly, it’s true.

Still, for many women who had no idea that they could actually be something besides their mother’s clones, she did a good thing. But the damage she did WAY outdoes any good. Betty Freidan considered herself to be an entertainer every time she appeared on Televion. In fact, the left has made her an icon.

And I hate to say it, but she’s one of the reasons I stayed a drummer, and did not become a Brittany Spears, which many producers guys (some famous) wanted me to be.

The results are…I remained a nobody. If I had become a front singer, I might not be writing this so it all works out in the end.

Peter Benchley; I haven’t forgiven this man either. If he had not written the book “Jaws,” thereby leaving Spielberg the excellent material to scare the whole world senseless of even walking in up over their angles into any ocean, the world would have lost all those TV reruns on labor day.

When I was a kid, I was in the ocean every day. After I saw the movie…well, let’s just say I haven’t gotten in the ocean since. Not to mention, sharks were probably killed in more numbers after the movie, than any other creature in the sea. Why didn’t Al Gore come out against this guy?

Unfortunately, Steve Irwin was still a kid when the movie came out, or he might have been wrestling sharks.

Nevertheless, “Jaws” is shown at least 50 times a year, and will continue to be shown to our great grandchildren until there are no more sharks left in the ocean. That’s entertainment supreme.

Slobodan Milosevic; One day, out of the clear blue sky, President Clinton announced there was a very evil man…who must be killed at the criminal court. But they had to catch him first.
So Clinton tried to hit him by dropping huge bombs over Kosovo, but darn it, the guy kept moving around. Unfortuanly he was hitting everybody else, and so the whole country and everybody in it had to leave… because, darn it, that guy just kept moving around.

(Later he would say the same thing about bin Laden)

And for quite a while, we Americans had the entertaining front row seats of watching thousands of well dressed people (I couldn’t figure out how so many poor people could be so clean and so well dressed) leave their homes and go into the camera, where Dustin Hoffman had popcorn and a movie called “Wag the Dog” To entertain them.

He finally died in jail. Some say they just killed him, because he was no longer needed on the nightly news casts.

Milton Freidman; This Nobel Prize winning economist advocated an unfettered free market. Mr. Freidman, all the people who have lost their jobs to foreigners are having a drink right now in honor of your death--- try not to take it personal.

And being as there is a big free market in marijuana and porn, Milton Freidman is responsible for at least half of the American entertainment.

Our rulers LOVE free trade. Gives them entertainment they can’t get anywhere else on earth.

Robert Altman; A man who made millions of woman get a Farah Faucet haircut, even though we couldn’t afford her teeth. (I was one of them.) Robert, by creating “Charlie’s Angels” started that whole art of bringing in the fantasy that a woman can beat up men, and in every frame. I just saw a movie the other night where one woman beat up thousands of men…all by herself. No kidding. It was a trip.

She did it all with a perfect navel showing, and her hair changing colors in mid-kick…add a tight black leather suit, and you’ve got entertainment!

My husband says it was the worst movie he’d ever seen, but he lied.

He was also the producer of MASH, the longest running TV program in the history of television. A whole generation of baby boomers grew to love Hawkeye. This was a sitcom about intelligent doctors who did their job, but hated war.

Later we learned that Hawkeye was talented, intelligent, but a not very educated liberal. He actually played Hawkeye for so long, he thought he was the guy in real life.

Robert Altman also said he would move to France if Bush was elected, but of course, like most liberals, he lied.

Still, MASH was a great show, and most would agree…great entertainment.

Alexander Litvenenko; an Ex-Russian spy, who told the world he was poisoned by Putin, because he told the world that it was Putin that was sponsoring all the terrorists, but in the last minutes of his life, he became a Muslim.

He was the Andy Warhol, fifteen minutes of fame by dying a slow death, very entertaining news story of 2006.

Patsy Ramsey: If you asked anyone who watched this whole drama, almost EVERYONE, except the experts, said…Patsy did it. We thought that she “accidentally” killed her own child…because well, she was such a wacko.

The husband had great police connections and is probably visiting Kenneth Lay every time he goes to Switzerland.

And just when we forgot about it all, suddenly some guy came out of the dens of the brothels of Thailand, and confesses to the crime, RIGHT at the time Israel was losing the war in Lebanon. He was very angry that he did not get a better meal on the plane. He was released on good behavior and probably had a decent dinner at the White House before he went to Switzerland to visit with Ken Lay.

This guy was GREAT entertainment, even if he was a pervert.

Mike Douglas; Mr. Entertainment himself. He was so rich from making up game shows; he probably would have taken over Dubai if Za Za Gabor would have gone with him.

He is the real reason we now have reality TV, and video games. People just got so sick of game shows; we were looking for something else. Besides, just how many times can you hear “AND BEHING CURTAIN NUMER ONE” and watch some smuck win the motorcycle you always wanted and could never in a million years afford.

It was too depressing. Entertaining, but depressing.

Don Knotts; This guy was a jewel. He played the bumbling idiot so well that he worked for his whole life. If not for Don Knotts, I doubt that Opey would now be a famous producer.

Don Knotts always gave us hope, because even if we were not the best specimen on the block, we were never as bad as Don Knotts.

A great entertainer. And a great soul.

Maureen Stapleton; Archie Bunker’s beloved mate, Edith Bunker. I especially loved one of her last performances where she played a lady who took care of “Michael” the archangel, played by John Travolta.

I refuse to say anything else but good things about her…one fabulous talent, and one of America’s best actresses.

James A. Van Allen: a guy who discovered the radiation belts surrounding the Earth, which gave a whole generation of suspicious and inquiring minds say… “We couldn’t have gone to the moon due to the van Allen belts melting the transistor radio!”

The conspiracy theories coming out of this fact entertain us all to this day.

Ed Bradley; Okay, we liked him, he was good. But they acted liked the Pope died.

Kenneth Lay; If you must have a heart attack before being sent to prison, might as well have one in the elite halls of Snowmass.

Ken Lay, even though he couldn’t remember anything about stocks, sure did remember every politician who was his friend. Snowmass is a very well kept secret of the rich and powerful.

Despite the misery he caused for all that were hurt by him, he was great fodder for the news for a good six months of ratings.

Ann Richards; Good god, who made this woman? She was like an old hooker looking for another job.

Joe Barbera, a giant of creativity, a cartoon artist which entertained millions with his art. For a while, the whole nation was going around saying. “What’s new with you, Boo-Boo.”

. And last but not least, the biggest loss of this bunch to many of us nobodies:

Steve Irwin---Who was just about the most passionate person about animals that ever walked the earth. Who would have believed that one day, out of Australia, would come this overwhelming personality that everyone in the world just simply fell in love with.

Steve was the ultimate entertainer, and helped animals all over the planet by just being himself.

God, who else could go up to a 20-foot gator and say “Oh...isn’t she a buet!

At first we though he was NUTS…but then we all looked for him everywhere.

Steve had what Al Gore lacks, love. For the world and all the creatures in it.

He was above us all. There will never be another like him. Billy Joel was right. Only the good die young. I think I will miss him the most of all.

Nobody’s Perfect; Okay, I left some out. Peter Boyle, Jeanne J. Kirkpatrick, Pinochet, Maynard Ferguson, and all the losers on American idol.

But, I’m stopping, because every entertainer knows not to overdue it.

Nobody’s Knows; Will we see another Presidential funeral before 2008? Will Michael Jackson show up at Carter’s funeral and say “I love you All?” Will Kissinger live to be 200 years old?

How can I keep going on and on…? Nobody Knows, least of all, me.

Nobody Cares; Tomorrow; Part three…Ford and Saddam.