It’s been quite the couple of weeks for pop culture icons I’ve loved-or at least admired-in the past. Here’s a look at three of the most egregious newsmakers for whom I once had real affection.

Darius Rucker – Once upon a time, for about three days in the summer of 1995, everyone and their mother-literally-loved Hootie and the Blowfish. Those genial dudes who sang “Hold My Hand” were a bit too wholesome to grab the hem of cool, but their hits were so damn catchy that you just had to crank down the car window and cry about the Dolphins.

Personally, I dug Hootie hardcore, and stand rigid behind their second album (“Fairweather Johnson”), a Southern pop gem Michael Stipe should envy. But the backlash came, the sales crashed to Earth (or someplace below) and-in early 2005-lead singer Darius Rucker strapped on a sequined cowboy suit and a shiny hat to croon an ode to Burger King’s Bacon Cheddar Ranch burger.

I mean … my God. I LOVED Hootie. I’m not ashamed. They put on a great show! Even now! They’re like a great bar band done good! But … Burger King? I suppose I can take solace that B.B. King’s already been there, but then again the master of Blues didn’t deck himself out in the Village People’s backup pajamas. Darius … why you punish me?

Mark McGwire – Anybody who didn’t think Big Mac was on steroids is probably still pulling for O.J. to find the real killer. Nevertheless, you could scarcely find a soul in August of ’98 that wasn’t dead-on enthralled by the slugger’s quest for 61. People who didn’t know a bunt from base words for the female anatomy were suddenly throwing out pitching matchups and home-field possibilities. My own love of baseball, whittled to a splinter after the ’94 strike, reblossomed along with everyone else’s. It really was a magical chase.

Ah, but what. Now, with our pastime’s dirty laundry blowing out of every closet that couldn’t get a major-league contract, St. Louis’ adopted national hero looks less like a home run king than a gummy, intolerant geriatric, snapping press releases towards the latest accusation and buttoning his lip against any further explanation. The dude’s bitching about a subpoena from Congress, for Christ’s sake-as if an afternoon on Capitol Hill might drop a kink into his packed schedule shilling for Hardee’s. Really, the only thing McGwire has going for him now is the jackass who broke his record, a particular outfielder who-what with his arrogance and what-the-f*** references to ’70s television-makes the new Big Mac look like Billy Graham. And that’s saying something.

Michael Jackson – One of my loud family’s favorite yarns to spin about toddler-age Tyler is my seizure of a dance floor in an Ontario resort home in order to bust some languid Michael Jackson dance moves. “Oh,” my mom/dad/sister will swoon, “Remember that time Ty danced around the floor at Cleveland’s House? Oh, that was so cute!”

And so on. Basically, I was a big time dork for the King of Pop, getting scolded for throwing my ballcap “Smooth Criminal”-style at school, asking my aunt why the singer on her Jackson 5 tape was black. What now? I’ll avoid the easy jokes and just say our boy MJ looks to be jailbound for a very, very long time. None of us can argue with it (have you seen those jokers outside the courthouse with their “I SUPPORT MICHAEL” signs? It’s like speeding past a Perot sticker on the highway), but damn, people are taking such joy in this lurid judicial downfall. Um, what are we rooting for here, exactly? Even if the dude’s guilty, it just means some helpless kids got fiddled with. We’ll never really be able to enjoy “Billie Jean” again, at least not without feeling halfway gross on the floor. Whither the old Michael, whither “I Want You Back” and “Thriller?”

Ah, well. I guess I’ll just put on my Hootie albums instead.

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