Spacesally: Jackson is being called "the greatest entertainer of all time". There's the key -- called. That doesn't mean there's any merit to the statement. And the only reason he's being "called" that is because of dupes like you who idol worship at the feet of celebrities. Why don't you save your adulation for teachers, police officer, firefighters, health care professionals, and social workers? You know -- people who leave the world a better place than what they found it. Otherwise your protestations of idol worship will start falling on deaf ears!
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One of the most heartbreaking parts in Lorna's chapter is her recollection of her own efforts, as a young girl, to keep her mother from overdosing: "It was my responsibility as a kid to regulate her pills. I remember sitting in hotel rooms, opening capsules, emptying out the drugs, and filling the capsules with sugar. I was taught to never, ever call an ambulance no matter what happened. I was to call my father or someone else—NEVER an ambulance because it would get into the press."
Therein lies the biggest danger of a life lived in so much brightness, with so many eyes watching—the fragility of a human being gets overlooked, even disregarded. Artists—true artists who arrive on this earth bearing gifts that make the rest of us stand in awe—often don't have tough skins and well-honed survival skills. They don't have the stamina of warriors, they have the souls of poets. And that makes them easy prey.
There will always be doctors ready to write prescriptions for stars whose unearthly talent has placed them in a category all their own. There will always be managers, agents, investors who care more about the image than the human being. And when all the elements come together in a perfect storm of greed and mishandling, the rest of us will again grieve the passing of an artist whose work will endure for generations.
Hopefully, some stories will end differently because someone will intervene, speak up sooner, reach through the glare of the spotlight and rescue a person who, while born with a talent that eclipses the sun, is still flesh and blood, is still just a human being who wants to create, and trust, and live.
Davis is the author of The Lives Our Mothers Leave Us .
© 2009
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