Thing a Day, #2

So here I am at day two. The convenient part of this experiment is that I don't have to think of clever or witty titles for any of my posts. Huzzah! On a related note, in case anyone was wondering, Thing a Day refers to the Jonathan Coulton experiment, Thing a Week, where JoCo (as he is affectionately nicknamed) wrote and recorded one new song a week. A daring experiment and a pretty impressive feat, I'd say, considering that he succeeded in putting out 52 songs in 52 weeks. Some musicians are lucky to record 50 songs in their careers (4 albums) before calling it quits. I've only begun to scratch the surface, but he has a whole bunch of great songs on his website (for free!). And yes, he is a former programming monkey turned rock star. Well, maybe rock star might be a bit overstating it, but musician nonetheless, and a bit of an internet celebrity. Which, if you've never heard of him before, well... nor have I until fairly recently. Because it's the Internet. And there's always something you haven't seen or heard on the Internet.

Speaking of celebrities, it's finally the end of the month, and quite a month for celebrity losses. In the last week alone, we had four notable celebrity deaths, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson and Billy Mays. Tragic, yes, deaths happen every day, and every year the world does lose a good number of its beloved entertainers. However, I wouldn't necessarily say that there have been more celebrity deaths than normal. That is to say, celebrities needn't panic and fear for their lives. The point is, this past week may be unsettling simply for the fact that, for the most part, these deaths happened to people who were still so young. Ok, Ed McMahon's been around a while, and he's had a very full life. On the other hand, though Farrah Fawcett had done a lot early in her career, at age 62, I wouldn't call her old. In fact, she had been mounting a comeback. Her death was largely overshadowed, of course, by none other than the King himself, Michael Jackson. I'm sure we've already been inundated by news of that, so no need to go further. All I can say is, there's more to the story than any one news article has reported. Yes, there's a good chance drugs were involved. The more I read and piece together info, the more I think that yes, MJ could have had lupus, even. Especially since things like heart disease is not one single cause, but a result additive risk factors, it's likely a combination of everything. Enough said. While Michael Jackson's death was more of a shocker because of the impact he has had in the music world and because of his extremely bizarre life, Billy Mays' death was the one that came completely from left field. I'll be honest, I'm always wary of pushy people trying to sell me stuff. Particularly because of his booming TV voice, he always made me feel more antsy than at ease when he tried to sell me something, be it OxyClean, Orange Glo, or whatever home gizmo. No matter what you thought of him though, all that mattered was that he got people to try, and for that reason alone, he was a huge success. Regardless of the fact that most of the stuff he pitched were crap, few TV pitchmen make such a big name for themselves. In fact, I feel like more often than not, he sold the persona that he created rather than an actual product itself. I used to think he was just hopped up on caffeine, but after watching a few clips of Pitchmen, I'm starting to change my opinion about him.

That's all for now. More tomorrow.