And the Grim Reaper laughs heartily...

In modern day entertainment and pop culture the character of the Grim Reaper has been pretty humanized. In the Neil Gaiman graphic novella, "The Sandman" Death was a cute Goth chick that would appear right after one's spirit would leave their body. She would then usher you into the afterlife, but not follow you there. After all she had more work to do here on earth.

On the TV show Dead Like Me, Reapers are deceased people who still walk the earth in different bodies and are given names on post-its as to who they need to "visit". They also usher the recently deceased into the next life.

But, I've always preferred the old tried and true blade carrying, skull headed, hood wearin' mo fo. He's the one full of menace and downright nastiness. And recently this S-O-B has a hearty appetite for big name celebs of the 70's and 80's.

The first to go under the scythe was Kung Fu star David Carradine a few weeks back. Apparently,the Grim Reaper has a pretty sick and twisted sense of humor.

Second, he narrowed in on Ed McMahon earlier this week, giving Ed the old "complications to many different health problems" routine. I grew up watching Ed on the Tonight Show and was slightly bummed out at the news.

Then Reaps took a few days off, got caught up on some things, perhaps took in a movie or just hung out and relaxed before his really friggin' big day.

The 26th of June started like any other work day for us all. I wonder how it started for the Grim Reaper. Was he all excited rubbing his boney hands together and licking his chops in anticipation? Or was he completely stressed out at the prospect of the grand double whammy stunt he was going to pull off that day?

In any case, yesterday ended in an incredibly surreal way for most of us. As for me, I was sitting at a local Irish pub enjoying a pint with other patrons. Up on the HD widescreen was some sports channel going through big stories of the day both related and not related to sports. At the time the sound was off and I looked up to see that poster, THAT poster, of Farrah Fawcett. Underneath it were the dates 1947-2009. We all knew that Farrah was very sick. She boldly and bravely showed us her sickness in a two hour documentary that was televised earlier this year. But, even though it was no surprise that she had passed, it still took a bit of the wind out of me. After all, Charlie's Angels hit the TV when I was going through puberty. I will not go into extreme details of a young boy being introduced to the detective talents of one Jill Monroe or that poster, THAT poster. Suffice it to say, she made an impact.

But the Reaper was far from done. Very far indeed. He still had his magnum opus to perform. Farrah was only the opening act. The headliner had yet to take the stage. I sat at the bar talking to the bartendress about how much of a bummer it was that Farrah was gone when someone at the other end of the bar said, "Turn on CNN!" The bartendress took the remote and pointed it at one of the screens. The big headline across the screen read: MICHAEL JACKSON IN CARDIAC ARREST.

At first I though, "What kind of wacked out publicity stunt is he up to this time?" Not being a big MJ fan, I could of cared less. Though, the pop culture lover inside of me wanted to see what was going to happen next. I really thought that this was going to be another hair-on-fire incident where in the end he'd be in the hospital for a while then get out and go on being Michael Jackson. Then the headline changed.... MICHAEL JACKSON IN COMA.

Things went downhill from there as not 20 minutes later the headline confirmed, MICHAEL JACKSON PRONOUNCED DEAD! The sound came on and they were referring to him in the past tense.

As I said, I'm pretty unaffected by Michael Jackson. At first no one in the bar really noticed how the headline changed. The bartendress passed by me and I pointed it out to her asking, "Are they for real?" I think there may have been a , "oh my god" out of her mouth, but I was too stunned to remember. I wasn't stunned in the way of "Oh dear lord, a god has left us!" as I will be when Connery or Harrison Ford or Ozzy Osbourne kick the bucket. But, when a massive pop culture icon/character buys the farm unexpectedly, you can't help but be a little gob-smacked.

The bartendress went over to the computer that controls the TVs and audio system, booted up i-Tunes and clicked on a Michael Jackson mix. The people in the bar were starting to catch on to the big story. My friend Spanky, who always calls me when a big celeb has died rung up my cell phone within minutes of the announcement. I'm sure he made some sort of pedophilia joke, but I can't recall it at this time.

Though I'm no MJ fan, i did feel that it was a pretty surreal event. And for the rest of the day I was in a state of, not shock, but a weird feeling that it wasn't real. I wasn't depressed or saddened by the event. It was just weird to no longer have the wild and crazy world of Michael jackson to hear about anymore.

That night, the Grim Reaper went to bed tired and beat down. It had been a full couple of weeks with a boatload of special projects that had to be dealt with. He cracked open a six pack of Blatz that he picked up at the Pump-And-Go and ended up on the couch in front of his TV which had Seacrest on expounding all his MJ knowledge to the world.

Then GR would pass out in front of the tube after a ballz-out busy day.

Speaking of passing out, I myself have to get up early to work tomorrow morning. Much like the Grim Reaper, there's always some work to do.

Zangz.

UPDATE: Since this was posted, two more celebs have bowed before the reaper. TV Pitchman, Billy Mays and veteran actor Karl Malden have passed. A note to any celebrity reading this: HIDE. The Reaper is on a celeb hackin' rampage!