LOS ANGELES – Los Angeles’ gift to the world this week was: death. You’re welcome. It is said that celebrity or famous deaths come in groups of threes. This was a cruel week indeed for fans the world over. Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, and, as we were going to post, we learned that television pitchman and reality TV star Billy Mays has also left our world. He was just on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien last Tuesday, along with Anthony Sullivan. His confidence was contagious.
I didn’t know any of these people, nor did I ever meet them, but they all affected my life in different ways. The world is a much sadder place without them. I can’t say anything more or better than what’s already been written about each of them; I can offer just an anecdote or two. I first worked at NBC just after Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon left, so I never even saw either of them. I’d like to say I worked with them, but I didn’t. I did, however, work on a few Michael Jackson videos, perhaps most notably the Spike Lee-directed video of controversial song They Don’t Care About Us (I did some scene design and compositing for the prison version). In an unusual move, two different videos were produced for the same song. Both were directed by Spike and both were edited and finished at Charlex in NYC (Creative Director Alex Weil, Editors Chris Byrnes and John Zawisha, Producer Steve Chiariello, among others). One day while I was there, word spread that Michael was coming by to have a look at the progress. “He’ll be here at 7:00,” we were told. At 6:30, we learned he would not be coming. Some people (myself included) went home. MJ showed up with his entourage anyway at 7:30. That’s how it goes sometimes.
And if you’re one of my regular four or five readers, you already know about my feelings for Farrah. I wrote about Farrah’s Story last month, as part of my B.L.O.G. TV Showcase. There is some good that came from that show, at least for me personally. I noticed a familiar name on the credits, and reconnected with one of my oldest friends here in LA, Dave Klandrud (who was the lead editor on the show).
This concludes the name-dropping, Google hit-baiting portion of the program. I will return later this week with a slightly quirky look at my neighborhood. Thank you.
Credits: Ed McMahon is an NBC Photo by Joey Del Valle. I found the Farrah photo by berecruited on Photobucket. The young Michael Jackson is from bbc.co.uk. The Billy Mays picture is from the Tuesday, June 23 The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien on NBC (pictured: Billy Mays, Anthony Sullivan, Conan O’Brien; NBC Photo by Paul Drinkwater). The Michael Jackson video still is from my portfolio collection.
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When I was in junior high, I didn’t have this poster (at right), but I sat next to a guy in home room who did (it was fabulous and he wouldn’t let me forget it). This incident kick-started my hobby of scouring 
