Two wars; ground-breaking healthcare legislation, cap & trade near to passing; new violence in Iran; a prominent governor admits to traveling to his lover in Argentina on the public's dime, the passing of Farrah Fawcett, and EVERY GODDAMN CABLE NEWS SHOW HAS BEEN PRE-EMPTED BY ENDLESS NARRATION AND NEWS COPTER VIEWS OF THE CROWD GATHERING OUTSIDE THE HOSPITAL WHERE MICHAEL JACKSON DIED!

Jackson was a pop star, btw and a peculiar has-been at that.- why must the news machine be halted?

Time again to reprint one of the few great ideas we've ever had: The Celebrity Death Channel, a modest proposal from 2005 when a pope died and ruined the teevee news for weeks.

As the Pope goes in and out of the hospital, I'm been bracing myself for the Big Inevitable. It's not that I have an emotional attachment for the Pontiff--the grieving I'll be doing will be around the media black-out and page 6 treatment news will get while we eulogize him, pontificate over his sweet old carcass, and put him in the ground, or wherever popes are put for recycling.

Real news won't be re-booted until after the world's flock of Cardinals flutter into the Vatican and go through the elongated white smoke and gilded mirrors of a Papal campaign and election.The excitement, however, will be in sostenuto, and behind closed doors. Stale wafers of information placed on the tongues of reporters by Vatican minions will have to do.  

Princess Di's doings blocked out the sun for nearly half a year.


We just went through Ronald Reagan's death, which went on for a month (two months on Fox and right-wing talk radio). After the elaborate send-off and florid beatification, observers were surprised the Gipper didn't rise back up after 3 days...

It could be like one very long late Friday afternoon--that time of the Washington week when politicians own up to embarrassing mistakes or announce dubious decisions by sneaking them into the sparsely read Saturday editions. George Bush could pull some tricks while the press are snoring at their keyboards in the Vatican pressroom and the suckers are watching the sectarian Roman spectacle. He might invade Iran, appoint Ron Silver to the Supreme Court; go on a bender or make good on his promise to put a man on Mars. No one would know for weeks, if at all.

My solution to the imminent smarm-fed bore-fest and subsequent loss of national productivity caused by these endless public memorials is for the cable companies to put up the Celebrity Death Channel.

(photo: Farrah Fawcett)

When a notable shuffles the mortal coil, here would be a 24/7 place for remembrances, caskets, biers, corteges, catafalques, riderless horses and empty boots. There'll be Lilies of the Valley and teddy bears, stirring words, and precious moments; teary eyes, eerie ties and candles lit by the 1000. You'd hear Gregorian chants,"Glory, glory Hallelujah," taps; and 'Amazing Grace' played on bagpipe, bugle, organ and fleugel or sung by overdressed children or the Norman Naberclacle Choir.

The Celebrity Death Channel could be a heartfelt place for those actually interested in mourning a public figure in the comfort of their own home with a few million close friends, and strive to attain that blessed Nirvana of our age: closure.

Posted by michael hood on February 25, 2005 at 09:04 AM in HUMOR IN A JUGULAR VEIN | Permalink