When it rains it pours.
And when someone dies, they become an automatic superstar, even when it’s uncalled for.
Chris Henry, wide receiver for the Bengals, and what some would call a troubled person, died yesterday morning after an incident where he jumped onto a pick up truck that he eventually fell off of. His fiancée and him were having an argument, and according to some reports,he threatened to kill himself during the altercation.
As many people mourned the death of the 26 year old football player, radio hosts Terry Boers and Dan Bernstein were talking about how they couldn’t understand why people felt sorry for this guy. Now, I posted my condolences on an SBN site called Cincy Jungle and said how I thought Chris Henry was trying to the right things, which he may have been doing. Yet, who in their right mind jumps on a truck? It’s being reported as a domestic incident. What if Henry broke into the truck and hurt his fiancé? What happens then?
Anyway, the Bengals will most likely have a ceremony honoring him before the game this Sunday, and we will all hear great things about him. No problem with that.
However, why when anyone dies, meaning sports figure, movie star, pioneer of the Ho Ho movement, does media make the person seem like they’re bigger than they are?
Examples…
• Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain found dead with a shotgun wound in his head. Cobain spent his life for the most part doing heroin, and creating simplistic songs. Cobain is credited by many sources as the father of grunge or some bull crap like that. Let’s be real here. Grunge came out of Seattle, a depressing city where it rains all the time. The majority of songs in the grunge era were simplistic, Cobain made catchy songs, but he ain’t a originator. He just happened to get noticed, like Pearl Jam did.
• Anna Nicole Smith spent most of her life just annoying the shit out of everyone. From the marriage to an 89 year old billionaire to broadcasting her life on E, and of course all those annoying Trimspa commercials. When the news broke that she died due to an overdose in Florida, all of a sudden, Smith became an iconic figure that everyone loved. Really? Not to mention the custody case of her daughter went on for weeks and turned the Fox News Channel into the Anna Nicole Channel.
• Many will flame me for this, but I still figure Notorious B.I.G. became more popular on a mainstream level when he died, rather than alive. The man was murdered, but I don’t believe he did anything special to earn his status as one of best MC’s of all time. He earned that when he died. Before that, in my opinion, there wasn’t anything special about him. Kind of generic east coast rapper. Perhaps my bias shows here, I dunno.
Do we place more importance on people when they die? Do they become more iconic and can we say that’s justified? You life’s legacy should be predicated on what you did while you spent time here on Earth? I look at Chris Henry and see someone trying to turn the corner, but caught up in his own personal hell.
Maybe it’s not the right time to have this conversation, but I feel its food for thought.
In any event, I do feel for the family, the friends of MR. Henry, the Cincinnati Bengals and their fans.
M
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