Kennedy.
On the heels of Cronkite.
And Michael Jackson. And no, there’s no irony or sarcasm there.
In the space of…what, 60 days?…we’ve said goodbye to three historic personalities worthy of multi-network broadcast retrospectives and memorial and funeral services. Because each of them had sunk a deep and abiding footprint into the mother culture. Politics, media/journalism, music/performance art, whatever pond they frolicked in, it became different for their involvement in it.
Proof of the pudding, I submit, is having one’s own epitaph established years before one actually expires and has need of it. “The King of Pop.” “The most trusted man in America.” “The Lion of the Senate.”
(It is all I can do to refrain from interjecting some tasteless reference to, say, Dick Cheney and the phrase “The Scum of the Earth.” Well, you see there, it was too enticing after all.)
So I got to thinking that as we all know, these events — cover story deaths – happen in threes, and we’ve seemingly bagged our limit for the moment, but still, the question just won’t be denied: how many living individuals are there of the stature of these three who might similarly be expected to depart the coil in the foreseeable future?
Of course, Jacko, at age 51, certainly wasn’t considered a candidate for the dirtbed any time soon, so I may be phrasing the question too narrowly. But whatever your age demographics, I can think of only a handful of living people who’ve made a mark comparable to the Late Three.
Billy Graham. Goes without saying. Listened to the intimate, soulful outpourings of every president since Truman. Brought more people to God than Moses. This is assuming, of course, that he’s still alive. I could look it up, but I’m pretty sure he’s still awaiting the sound of his master’s voice, calling him home for dinner.
Jack LaLanne. I’m probably being too charitable as to his cultural impact. How influential could he be, given a society two-thirds of whose inhabitants are actually unhealthily overweight and sedentary? But you have to love him for good intentions and “so there” longevity.
Hugh Hefner. He brought the skeleton that reigns in midAmerica’s closets out into the klieg lights, is largely responsible for the degree to which we’ve come to accept our sexuality, and, as Lenny Bruce noted, “he made it so you couldn’t be a bigot and also drive a Porsche.” Those were the days.
Bob Dylan. Towering talent. Even if he actually stole everything he was ever accused of lifting, he was the one who made it iconographic, and he tinkered endlessly with his own standards just to freshen the air, and he wrote more cultural anthems than Souza.
Muhammed Ali. The first truly and literally world champion. The first global athletic hero, and certainly the first to embrace Islam. Abandoned greatness and vast fortune on principle and in opposition to war. The entire planet’s first choice to light the flame at any Olympic Games, any time, anywhere.
Others? Feel free to submit your nominees, but I think that beyond this short list, we’re lowering the bar well below the Immortal height. Then again, maybe you could actually make a case for Andy Rooney.