Ashes to Ashes, and sometimes to Pink

Throwing things at musicians is nothing new.

Young women famously tossed panties at Elvis, Tom Jones, the Beatles.

Which, if you think about it in a certain way - which is probably the only way to think about it - makes some sort of sense.

I couldn't find any reference to hysterical bobby-soxer Sinatra fans tossing anything at him. Those bobby soxers may have been hysterical, but the 1940's was a different time and place. If the bobby soxers weren't throwing anything at Old Blue Eyes, there was the one anti-Sinatra teenage boy who, ticked off that so many teenage girls were going gaga for Sinatra, pegged three eggs at him at a NY concert in 1944. So there's that. 

But, as it has with so many aspects of our culture, the stage-tossing ante has apparently been upped. 

Las year, someone tossed a chicken nugget at Harry Styles. He's also been hit in the eye with Skittles. Ava Max was slapped by a fan during an LA show. (Bet her stage security has upped its game.) Kelsea Ballerini was hit in the eye by a bracelet. Bebe Rexha ended up in the hospital when she was a hit by a phone someone threw her way. 

And in what is perhaps the nuttiest thing that's been hurled at a performer, a fan in London sent a bag at Pink that held his mother's ashes. 

Fortunately, the ashes were bagged not urned, because even a small urn containing just a smidge of ashes could do some damage. (A bit of my husband's ashes are in a little Connemara marble urn on my mantel. If someone with a good arm fired it on stage and hit its target that would hurt. Please note that I have a couple of concerts coming up: Noah Kahan and Bruce Springsteen, and I won't be throwing Jim in anyone's faces. Nor will I come armed with chicken nuggets, Skittles, a bracelet, or a phone. Nor will I be attempting to jump on stage to slap the Boss, Little Steven, Nils Lofgren or anyone else in the E-Street Band.)

Anyway, Pink handled to ash toss with considerable aplomb.

"This is your mom?" Pink can be heard asking in a video as she picked up the bag. "I don't know how I feel about this."

The 43-year-old walked with the bag to the front of the stage and set it down before continuing singing "Just Like a Pill." (Source: USA Today)

Maybe the ashes to ashes mom was a big Pink fan, but what in god's name did the person throwing them to or at her think she was supposed to do with them. I mean you can eat a chicken nugget or a skittle. You can wear a bracelet. You can at least make an emergency call with someone's phone. (I'm assuming this was a mobile, and not an old Bakelite rotary dial. Now getting hit with that would hurt.) But there's not much you can do with ashes except scatter them, or bury them, or put them in a Connemara marble urneen and leave it on your mantel.

My mother wasn't cremated. She was buried next to my father, which is definitely where she wanted to be. But if she'd been cremated, and wanted her ashes thrown to a performer, that performer would have been Nelson Eddy. 

As a teenager, my mother had a major crush on Nelson Eddy. She had a Nelson Eddy album, when albums were, in fact, albums: cardboard books containing sheaths that held 78 records. We had a record player that could play 78s, and my mother liked to spin her Nelson's every once in a while. 

As kids, we rather favored "Shortnin' Bread" and "Boots." And I could do a credible imitation - at least to my own ear - of Mr. Eddy baritoning either of those tunes.

Of course, we found Nelson Eddy completely unattractive: prissy, wooden, and effete. And we couldn't believe that my mother had ever had a crush on the likes of him - the antithesis of my father.

Among my mother's possessions was a scrap book devoted to Nelson Eddy. Unfortunately, we destroyed it trying to find if there was the picture of anyone interesting on the reverse side of the pics of Nelson Eddy she'd so carefully glued in. We did find a picture of Shirley Temple behind one of them.

Anyway, I can't imagine that, even if I had my mother's ashes to toss, and even if Nelson Eddy were still alive and warbling ("When I'm Calling You..."), I would ever have thrown her ashes at him.

But the world is a changed place. 

People want attention. They want notoriety. They want content for Insta and TikTok. They want to be acknowledged by celebrities, even for an apparently weird and/or hostile and/or worshipful act of assault with a flying object. 

So that's where we're at. 

It used to be ashes to ashes. Now, I guess, it's ashes to Pink.