Malcolm-Jamal Warner

I was saddened yesterday by news of the death of Malcolm Jamal-Warner, the actor who played the role of Theo Huxtible in the now-forgotten comedy series "The Cosby Show." Why is it forgotten? Not because it wasn't a good show, it told a great story about a family of African Americans living in New York City growing up in an upper-class neighborhood, they were my TV family growing up: I always thought of myself as Theo, having to deal with various sisters but also the pressure of eventually becoming the man of the house. No, the Cosby Show was canceled because the gross acts of one man, the lead actor on the show, who abused his power as the star in gross ways, negating all the good work by everybody else done on the show, and now nobody will ever talk about the Cosby Show: Jeopardy won't have clues about it, it doesn't come up in any "top sitcoms in history" lists, it's like the show never happened, expunged from history. Except it will always live on as a part of me, like the first episode where Theo pierces his ear and might have an infection but doesn't want his dad to find out, like the episode Theo was given a harsh lesson by his parents about paying for rent and having to pay for everything in the real world. Another reason why I don't go in the ocean anymore at the beach (other than because I watched Jaws and who knows what's in there): people drown, like what happened to Malcolm Jamal-Warner: the official cause of death being asphyxia and drowning due to strong currents. It's always a little fuzzy with celebrities because the cause of death often gets tangled up with drugs or some sort of underlying causes (heart attacks that were drug-induced, etc, also see the weird circusmstances around the death of Gene Hackman) but this one seems to be a clear case of drowning by waves. Drowning cases in the U.S. are higher than I expect, with 4000 deaths per year, and a slight uptick recently since 2020-2022 (more people tired of being bottled indoors due to Covid and taking more risks at the beach?) The lifeguards are much more limited than at a swimming pool ( I always wondered why there are 3 lifeguards covering a small area of a swimming pool but just one lifeguard for what seems like a mile of beach), you're really on your own. I'm a pretty good swimmer from my youthful days on the swim team, but I will readily admit I would be no match for strong waves, and most people have an inflated sense of how good of a swimmer they are, which is the problem. They die because they think they can make it back; sad really. And said for Warner, who inexplicably was 54 years old (tempus fugit, aka time flies, I only remember him as the forever 13-year-old boy from the Cosby Show), which sounds old when I think about it as my 20-year-old self) but now that I'm getting older........that really doesn't sound too far away. He was still a young man! Sad. Every summer there is seemingly one headline that just comes out of nowhere to gain traction and because the trend of the summer. last year it was the Hawk-Tua Girl (who has since disappeared off the grid) and this year it's the Coldplay concert couple who were caught having an affair. Not sure if it's just because summer has slow news days, people are ready for anything to break up the monotony, the salacious headlines get more attention, or what, but it's everywhere since last Friday: people at baseball stadiums around the country are mocking the couple by hiding when they get shown on camera, doing spoofs. Here I am just wondering how it might become Jeopardy relevant and become a clue at some point (give the controversy a name! That would make it more likley to show up on Jeopardy). But then again, we're all delighting in the breakup of 2 families in the most public way possible, so there's that.