Why?!! Why must the little things die?

Dammit! I hate it when people I respect kick the bucket and I don't find out about it for weeks.

I just found out singer Laura Branigan died back in late August. And once again, I had to learn of the death from reading about it at The Lipstick Librarian's blog--the same blog where I first saw Rick James died. What kind of news junkie am I, anyway? A shitty one, evidently.

Oh, I could tell you who's just been cast in the Dukes of Hazzard movie, or what high-pitched singing cartoon rodent trio are next up to get the live action treatment, Garfield style, but when it comes to scanning the obits I'm not hitting the mark.

This actually is nothing new for me. For seven years straight, from mid-highschool through college, I used to attend a three week summer camp where we were so busy and had so little access to media that we were practically in a news blackout. (Sounds like a cult, I know, but I assure you we were just really busy writing and producing a three act musical comedy. Also, if you have a camp full of forty-plus hormone-raged teenagers and don't keep them as busy as possible at all times, their minds start to wander to things you don't want them doing.) Invariably, some huge celebrity would die or something big would happen in the world during those three weeks and none of us would know about it until December when we'd see it in Year in Review retrospectives.

Of course, I also labored under the mistaken belief that Howard Cossell had died a couple years before he actually did due to my college yearbook having listed him among the deceased for that year. At the time, I assumed he must have died during camp, as I'd not heard of it before. Then, when the man actually died, a full two years later, it came as a shock yet again. (I think that yearbook staff is now working for CBS news.)

As to Laura Branigan, I have a fondness for her and her music that runs pretty deep. Her song Self Control came out around the same time I really started to become aware of popular music and how lyrics actually meant something. Not that I understood what hers meant entirely, but there was something about her living among the creatures of the night and not being able to control herself as a result that I knew was probably not something that I should like, but somehow did. (Once again, you gotta keep kids busy or their minds start to wander.) There was just something about that song that pressed dark little buttons inside me. I probably only saw the video once or twice, but I was definitely a fan of hers from then on.

I have now gone and put on my cassette copy of the Self Control album in honor of the late Ms. Branigan.