If you’re not fortunate enough to leave the Earth way too soon—as I said, Billy Joel’s famous song isn’t totally wrong—you’re probably going to be around awhile. Besides your family, friends, and helping anyone else who needs help along the way, there will be some times of boredom, or slowness, or something. We watch sports, and TV shows and plays, etc. because as the comedian Tom Papa noted about marriage and its lulls and frustrations, “You’re here because you think, ‘Let’s have someone else talk for an hour.’”
Celebrities of all kinds, if you think about it, are people that are uniquely gifted in one or a few things, in such a way that a bunch of people want to experience them do the thing they are good at, and are willing to pay for it. I hereby redact any forthcoming rant about the fundamental disorder of modern market economics. In any case, I promise not to canonize every celebrity who dies, if you can just let people enjoy things, and let any good words about people, provided they are true, just be what they are. It’s not like there will be injustice at the particular judgment, or the final judgment, for that’s impossible.
Maybe we love celebrities because we’re wasting time and missing the point, but nobody would dare tell a dying person or a kid in the same situation that they shouldn’t get to meet someone who helped them. I have seen enough videos of the sick and disabled meeting heroes that I get it now: They show us that we don’t wonder enough, we’re not amazed enough, we aren’t thankful enough.
When I was 15 years old, I was in summer school. Believe it or not, I struggled in school. How much was my fault, I can’t say. So I’m re-taking Algebra at a different high school, and I meet this dude Marvin Blake. I still think Marvin is one of the coolest, funniest dudes ever, but at the time, we were just goofing off and teasing our teacher when we should have been paying attention in class. And Marvin got to hear all about how I loved the vocal group, Boyz II Men. I still love Boyz II Men. Are you kidding?
So I think Marvin probably contacted the Black radio station in town, Magic 108. KMJM. If you know, I ain’t gotta tell you. And he told them the story. And some weekend, next thing I know, I’m at a local university, meeting at the time 3/4 of Boyz II Men. (Michael McCary, also no longer a member of the group, has an issue that prevents strenuous physical activity. In this case, a charity basketball game.) I forgot about my sensory issues with loud noises like substitution buzzers, and I was really upset. But I met the guys at the half in a weight room. It was amazing. I talked mostly with Shawn Stockman, but Nathan and Wanya Morris were also great. Their concert at a local amphitheater was amazing later that night. It was also at that charity event where I first heard “Lift Every Voice,” AKA, the Black National Anthem. Was I thrown off? Sure. But I ain’t mad. That’s a freedom song, fool! Just like the first one.
I have to say that we are a bit racist and ableist as a whole, because as fun as I can be with nearly anyone, I don’t know if two teenage boys who like Boyz II Men in 1995 should be a news story. But it was. And my life is not even tangentially heroic. I will say, whoever said, “Don’t meet your heroes” just probably needs to choose better heroes.
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