The Day Kirsty MacColl Died

Just looked at my phone and realized it's Dec. 18 and remembered it was 10 years ago today that singer/songwriter Kirsty MacColl -- one of my all-time favorite artists -- was killed in a tragic jet ski accident (turned international coverup) in Cozumel, Mexico, while on holiday with her two sons and her partner, musician James Knight. This is a dark day in my memory. For me, this was "my" John Lennon -- a moment when a pop culture hero of mine died unexpectedly -- and unlike Dec. 8, 1980, I can remember exactly where I was when I got the news. I had taken the day off from work to do some Christmas shopping and was home logging on to my AOL account (needed those M4M chatrooms!) when I saw the shocking headline in the news. It was a horrible and extremely isolating feeling because I knew no one I was friends with would even know who she was, much less understand how I felt. I'll never forget how happy I was, though, when I quickly realized there were message boards filled with thousands of people feeling exactly like I did, posting heartfelt messages, sharing their thoughts about what Kirsty had meant to them and trying to make sense of the tragedy before us. It was about an hour later that Joe Sigona -- a friend of a friend who shared a similar interest in new wave music -- reached out and called me. I'll forever appreciate that call -- he was equally crushed and it was even better having a live person on the other end of the phone -- and will always be haunted knowing that just five years later I would be calling Joe with the news that our mutual friend, Larry, had died in a similar freak situation on vacation to Europe.

So here we are a decade later and, as predicted, Kirsty's music lives on -- especially at Christmas time when her classic song with the Pogues, "Fairytale of New York," is played nonstop around the world. We miss you, Kirsty. But you'll forever star in my fairtyale of New York. ...