Too Soon

At some point, there seems to have been a strange rule of life that has settled over most of us regarding the life and death of a freak show. 

If I understand the whole dynamic, it's perfectly acceptable to make fun of someone when they're alive, then it becomes a mortal sin for approximately six weeks after their death, before once again becoming acceptable and even...expected? “Too soon” has become a definable expression to every one of us. On some level we should all be appalled by that.

When Michael Jackson died, it was suddenly mortifying to suggest he was a child molester, but slowly the stigma lifted.

When Francesco Schettino wrecked a ship, murdered a few passengers, and “tripped into a life boat”, the jokes were 'too soon' for only a couple of days.

When Ted Kennedy met his end, bringing up his drunken cover-ups and general piggery was too soon because he perished before realizing his dream of national health care.

Now we are saying goodbye to Whitney Houston, who hasn't been relevant to anyone outside of her rehab people, suppliers, family, and comedians for, what? Two decades?

Did she have talent? Mercy, yes!

Was she a laughing stock? Absolutely!

Was anyone horrified by the jokes while she was alive? Nope.

BUT, now it's too soon. Too Soon. I'm not suggesting jokes should be made. A life was lost. It could be argued that this particular life has been lost for years, nevertheless, a life was lost and it's nothing to joke about. But joke people will. What I am suggesting is that people drop the shocked offense and recognize their own hypocrisy because cracking a joke is truly no less distasteful because your idea of 'too soon' is a few minutes, days, or weeks sooner than someone else's.

Recently, someone posted a joke about Whitney on facebook. As terrible as anyone thinks it makes me, I thought it was funny, but I didn't add anything to it. But the attacks the person took for it were absolutely appalling. People jumped to defend her as if this person had attacked their mothers. I posted a question asking simply if these people would defend a crackhead found dead in a dark alley in the bad part of town as strongly as they defended the crackhead with the pretty voice. I didn't add to the joke, or pick anyone out in particular, I just posed a question. Some people agreed with me, others attacked me, but one guy specifically is the reason I wrote this post. His level of assholeism was just funny. He actually took the time to email me...we've never met, spoken, or had any type of exchange prior to this. I'm just going to let his email and my response speak for themselves.

Nen Kelson

• Hey there bonehead...no ,"Defending the crackhead with teh pretty voice) (that statement alone shows how fucking stupid you actually are) rather saying that anyone that thought the remark about Whitney's passing was actually in any way ,"Funny" is essentially a tasteless, thoughtlessness bubblehead...I'm guessing your a Republican too? lmao

(Names have been changed to protect the identity of the stupid. HAHA)

My response to him:

Michele Robinson

• I think I'm supposed to be insulted, but I'm assuming you suffer a mental deficiency because nothing about what you said makes any sense. Please don't reproduce.

That was it. I thought, given the gibberish that was his email, that it was a fair response.

Dumb-dumb though, he blocked me from being able to see him, which was fine by me, then took it one step further and reported me to the social networking police. They were nice enough to send me a message telling me I was a bad girl and shouldn't talk to strangers and blah, blah, blah.

Really?