Dear Bea Arthur,

I know we had our ups and downs.  I teased you about being manly and stuff, said I had affairs with you, and generally had fun at your expense.  I even posted a naked painting of you.  I’m sure you would have laughed, or at least called your lawyer on me to scare me a little bit for some good ol’ fashioned revenge.  That would have made you even more awesome.

But we also had some great times, didn’t we?  Like that time on Golden Girls where you … ahh, you know what?  You were always great on Golden Girls.  Every single episode.  Not quite as funny as Sophie.  Or Rose.  Or Blanche.  But you were still awesome, that famous deadpan, always putting the rest of the girls down.  Okay okay, you were better than Blanche, all she ever made fun about was having greezy old man pee-pees inside her and that got a bit old.  But If you were say, 40 years younger when that show was on the air I would have had a crush on you.  Maybe not a boing-boing crush, but the sort of crush you have on a college professor or your proctologist, when they’re kinda dominating or powerful in the head compared to you and that makes them an intimidating figure.  So I guess in like a scary sort of way.  A scary nonsexual way.  Where like I probably wouldn’t be attracted to you even though you were hilarious.  Turns out I wouldn’t ever had a crush on you, I guess.  But you were frikking awesome anyways.

I can’t say I particularly tuned into anything else you did.  The wallpaper in Maude scared me.  Honest to God, all I can remember about that show were the horrible 70’s colours and it made me have to turn the channel before I could bask in your crushing, scathing, sense of humour.  I wish I could have handled it though, Bea, cause I’m sure you were fantastic.

One of the things I adored about you, Bea, was the fact that…umm, well, honestly, I don’t know anything about you.  You were out there though, and I have to say that in the era where women’s lib hadn’t quite taken hold yet – man (I would have meant ‘man’ literally yesterday, but today you’re dead and I wouldn’t dare), you had your whole own sitcom, how frikking awesome was that for women everywhere?  Let’s face it – you weren’t a screaming hot beauty like, hmm, Weezy, and Weezey didn’t have her own show.  Know why?  Because George Jefferson was way more awesome than she was so she was just a supporting actress.  Oh, and she wasn’t as funny or as awesome as you of course.   But see how you made it so that you didn’t have to be Candice Bergen hot to have your own show so long ago?  You could just be really really mean and funny.  And you did it first.

You were a leader, a pilgrim.  You made it cool for women to have senses of humour.  Seriously!  Who came before you?  Lucy?  Nah, Lucy was nothing.  A nobody.  You put deadpan on the map.  Before you, women on TV sucked.  Really.  Think about it.  Was it YOU that made women on TV awesome after that?  I don’t know.  It certainly wasn’t Gloria Steinem, she was sure funny, but not like you.  So right now I’m going to attribute all feminist humour to you because you just died. 

Anyways, know what Bea?  I’m going to miss you.  Not in the sort of way that “Hey, I wish you were around still” because I don’t have any sort of human-type emotions, but more like “That dame was frikking FUNNY!  Wish she’d have done some stand up recently to cut down George Bush cause he’s a cockhead.” 

I’m just kidding.  Are you laughing in heaven right now?   Maybe not, maybe I’ve offended you and you have that stern look on your face and you’re gonna say something to St. Peter like, “You know, of I were down there right now, I’d step on his nuts” and then spin around a bit with your arms down and out like you always did when someone pissed you off on the Golden Girls.

So, Bea, sayonara.  You brought a lot of laughs to the world.  I’ll contact your family to get your naked pictures of me back, no worries.