Kidding, of course, I’m not THAT out of touch – you’re out of touch, I’m out of time, but I’m out of my head when you’re not around – but I do find it very difficult to relate to people I saw interviewed on the anniversary of his death, whenever that was. I saw tearful people confessing that they had a hard time accepting it, that they had to move on but sometimes it’s just hard to get out of bed, and I thought, really? I just cannot relate to that at all. I mean, perhaps if someone very close to me had died, but Michael Jackson? I mean, I like to car dance to Billie Jean as much as the next person, but I cannot really say that celebrity deaths affect me in a particularly emotional way. Or any way, really. Usually, when I hear a celebrity died I either immediately assume it’s due to a drug overdose, or I am confused because I thought that person already passed away (i.e., my thoughts on Dennis Hopper’s death).

However, MJ’s death (can I call him MJ? I’m not even really a fan) did mean that there is one less celebrity alive who I actually recognize. I was at the hair salon today, getting my inch of grey roots covered (“The hair is actually white, not grey” my stylist informed me) and of course I read that hair salon staple, People magazine. I would guess that at least ninety percent of the people in People are, at best, vaguely recognized by me. The other ten percent comprise people I recognize, but somewhat wish I didn’t, i.e. Mel Gibson. How’s THAT for a nutjob? I heard the transcript from one of his infamous phone calls on the news and I could barely understand it, so bleeped out was the conversation. It was like watching an episode of Hell’s Kitchen, the bleeps so numerous I actually was not able to get the gist of the conversation, such as it was, except that it rated pretty high in the crazy and angry category.

Speaking of celebrities: apparently there’s a baseball player named Corey Hart? When I saw that, at first I was confused: are people listening to Corey Hart again? Perhaps I should look out my Boy in the Box record. Ah, but it’s someone else. Not the Corey Hart whose glossy face lined my rosebud papered bedroom in the eighties. Canadian girls who were teenagers in the eighties: I just heard that Corey Hart married Mitsou! Remember her? I thought he was supposed to marry me. Along with Corey, I also had well-within-wedlock fantasies about Tom Hooper from the Grapes of Wrath and, just to round out the musical Canadiana, Jim Cuddy!

Alert! Gratuitous photo of me and Jim Cuddy, twenty years after crush was first established.