RIP, Dick and Mike
Our icons are dropping like flies. One minute I'm watching the world's oldest teenager recover from a stroke and then I turn around and he's died. Laughing about "the most feared words in the English language" in a totally different context last week and all of a sudden Mike Wallace is no longer here to see me. I, who usually will eschew televised celebrity obituaries, found myself fascinated by the coverage of these deaths. I sat, enraptured, as Brian Williams and 30 Rock took me back in time to American Bandstand and my parents' Magnavox console tv. I was back there on the carpet in front of the set, in full lotus (I thought that was "real Indian style"), wishing that I lived in Philadelphia so that I could dance on the show, too. I didn't realize that Dick Clark was a gazillionaire. I never paid much attention to how he spent his time between New Year's Eve and $25,000 Pyramid. Did you know that he hosted shows on all three maj...