June 2009 could go down in history as the month that bitch-slapped Hollywood. David Carradine, the long-haired martial arts aficionado died in a hotel room in Asia. The lion-maned Angel, Farah Fawcett died after a long struggle with anal cancer. Ed McMahon, once the booming voice who announced Johnny Carson's late show, also passed into the afterlife. It must be mentioned that north of the border, Romeo LeBlanc, Canada’s first Atlantic Governor-General died on June 24.
RIP Michael Jackson
As the entire world knows, Michael Jackson brought down the house and trumped all the other celebrities when he died on June 25 after an alleged overdose of a powerful hospital-grade anesthetic. (Millions Googled Propofol/Diprivan after that tidbit of information hit the news.) Suite101 misses you Michael. We really do.
Salute at Staples Center
At the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles a memorial for Jackson is scheduled for Tuesday. Some 17,500 tickets are available for free online (staplescenter.com) but authorities estimate some 700,000 mourners (who never actually met the King of Pop) might try to make their way to the arena. So much passion despite the fact that no details of the memorial have been announced.
City councilors are urging Los Angelenos to stay home to watch the memorial on the TV.
So many starry chips fell in fact that it seemed both believers and atheist must be doing some serious soul searching.
You Got to Believe…to Win
So when the Telegraph of London reported this week that a Turkish TV channel is launching a contest named Repentant it seemed to Suite101 at least, like divine intervention.
Ten Atheists Versus a Rabbi, Iman, Priest & Monk
Apparently 10 atheists compete as a Buddhist Monk, a Muslim Imam, a Rabbi, and Christian Priest try to convince them of the beauties of religion.
There’s no million-dollar-prize a la Survivor but the Telegraph reports that the reformed atheist wins “pilgrimage, depending on the [adopted] faith of the new believer.”
The show’s confusing slogan is, “We are refuting the prophecies of all Oracles including Nostradamus. They said there will be a war of religions, we say everyone will believe.”
The Telegraph also reports that Sisi, Turkey’s most famous transvestite, is producing the show.
If nothing else the cluster of Hollywood deaths and the emergence of the Turkish believer show could coax people into examing the meaning of life, how they wish to measure the quality of their lives and relationships. And remember that everything can disappear in less than a second.
