And Then There Were Three...

Michael Jackson is dead.

As I write this and throughout the afternoon, I have been hearing sounds of hovering helicopters in my area since the hospital where he was rushed to is in the general vicinity.

I left work early and while on the bus home, I saw the gathering crowd on the hospital steps, as news media vehicles surrounded the block outside.

I am very relieved to be home now typing this, but I am still hearing the hovering helicopters.

I suppose Michael's death is a sad and tragic end to a talented, tumultuous life.

He is the third reported celebrity this week who has died. The others were Farah Fawcett and Ed McMahon.

Interestingly, when a friend and I were talking about Fawcett's death earlier today, he said that "they always come in three's...". About a couple of hours later, he stopped by my office:

FRIEND: "You have your third..."
ME: (Curious but distracted) "My third what?"
FRIEND: "Michael Jackson is dead."

I turned to look at him straight in the eyes (it's hard to know if he's serious or not):

ME: (Serious) "You're not joking?"
FRIEND: (Looked at me straight back and slowly shook his head) "TMZ says he's dead. He's at the hospital here right now."
ME: (Typed www.latimes.com and saw the snippet about Michael being rushed to the hospital).
FRIEND: (After seeing on my computer screen the photo of Farah Fawcett next to the Jackson snippet) "Poor Farah. Her death is eclipsed by Michael's!"
ME: "So, what do you think of Shaq?" (On Shaq's trade from the NBA Phoenix Suns to the Cleveland Cavaliers which was reported to be a story eclipsing other NBA stories including the draft).
FRIEND: (Speechlessly indifferent, verbally stumped. He doesn't care about the NBA; he's a football guy).

At which point, our chat (and this blog) has started to digress.

But back to Michael Jackson...my way of responding to his death may be in surfing the internet for some of his songs that I have grown up listening, enjoying, even dancing to.