Let me just say that I am shocked by the news about the famous celebrity who recently died. The world lost an icon today. I am sad, you are sad, everyone is very sad. Sad, sad. But as sad as all of you surely are in the face of this tragic loss, please allow yourselves to take comfort in the knowledge that there is no possible way that you are sadder than I am about the recent celebrity death.
To repeat: I am the saddest of all.
This is not the first celebrity death that has profoundly affected me on a personal level. I was crushed when Art Linkletter died. Heartbroken when Etta James died. Impaled with a flaming grief-javelin when Robin Williams died. When Dennis Farina died, I writhed on the ground for months. It was awful on my joints, but not as awful as having to tell my joints that Mark Ruffalo died. Luckily, that was a hoax.
Just in case you were wondering how I might be impacted in the face of future celebrity deaths, here is a list of some other currently alive celebrities whose eventual deaths will level me with public despair because of the personal connections I have with them. Dean Stockwell and I share a birth-month. Queen Latifah is from New Jersey, like my old fake ID. I can’t recall not knowing who LeVar Burton is. Gerardo and I flew on an airplane together, possibly. You probably know him as Henry Kissinger, but he’ll always be Hank to me. I once saw Lita Ford at a car wash. She was actually working there, so it probably wasn’t her, now that I think about it. Clyde Drexler ruined my 14th birthday party. Ate the whole cake. I’ll miss him terribly. I know what a trumpet is, and so does Yo Yo Ma. I realize Yo Yo Ma plays the cello, but you’re crazy if you don’t think he also knows what a trumpet is, like me, which is why I’ll tweet about how much he meant to me for several days after he dies. Things don’t look good for George Clooney over the long term. That’s going to be a tough one for me. I lost my virginity during Buster Poindexter’s “Hot Hot Hot.” Don’t you die on me, Buster. Not now. Not so soon after Harambe.
Mark Wahlberg and I share a dentist, so I’ll be absolutely destroyed when he dies. Not a specific dentist, mind you, but like, dentists in general. Do I know that for a fact? No, I do not. I have never seen Mark Wahlberg at the dentist, but with teeth like that, it’s basically a lock that he regularly sees a dentist, and also very sad that I’ll never see those pearly whites up on the silver screen again after he dies, unless I catch Pain & Gain on Netflix or watch the “Good Vibrations” music video on YouTube or see his picture up on the wall at our shared dentist’s office.
I was very sad when I read Walden and then afterward learned that Hank David Thoreau died.
Do not even get me started on the potential death of that one guy with the beard from Color Me Badd unless you are prepared for a tidal wave of public grieving about that time I left the Time and Chance cassette at my buddy Chad’s apartment. Chad never gave it back, and now he’s dead. Dead to me, I mean, like we’re no longer speaking. Also, another reason we’re not speaking is because he’s dead.
I try not to think about how Wolf Blitzer will die, but my guess is: poisoned by his enemies. I’ll be crushed. I’ll also be very sad when Goldie Hawn, Nicholas Sparks, and Wesley Snipes die. I hope they don’t all die on the same day, because Snipes deserves his own Facebook post. Good ol’ Hank Snipes.
The bottom line is that bravely forging ahead in the wake of celebrity deaths has made me who I am: a person whose personal connections to celebrities inspire very deep and public mourning when those celebrities die and the building I am in has free Wi-Fi.
Oh god, now I can’t stop thinking about how Alfonso Ribeiro is dying a little bit every day, and it makes me so, so sad.