The Death of MJ Mach II

I suppose i should say a few things about the passing of Michael Jackson. After all, this is a music blog and Jackson is, with no possible argument, one of the biggest names and personalities to ever exist in the realm of pop music. When i heard the news, my reaction was something along the lines of "hm." I'm sorry if i'm the asshole here but, seriously, should any of us care?

Now when i say "us," i mean the general public; the people who never shook his gloved hand, those of us that loved Thriller when we were kids and bought a used copy on cd as adults and only pull it out when we're having a party or cleaning the house. I in no way discount the effect this has on those who knew and loved him. He had three small children and despite what we and the media think of him, to them, he was Daddy. He was a father, a brother, an uncle, a son and a friend. For those who were part of his life, and his theirs, i feel a great and sincere sympathy. But this blog post isn't about them. The story on the nightly news isn't about them. The commemerative special that aired on CBS last night with about 2 hours worth of production time isn't about them. It's about us...and, as always, selling toothpaste.

I will also make an exception for those out there who are still hardcore fans. I don't mean fans of Thriller, i mean "oh-my-god-michael-made-an-appearance-in-some-country-i-never-heard-of" fans. There are still those who think he makes the world go 'round, despite how crazy we all think they are. I have to reveal a secret. I have a crush on a 13 year old girl. There's this girl that comes into my work that, from the first time i saw her, i just thought was the coolest. She wears this hat that's not cool by any other 13 year old's measure and her greatest joy seems to be shopping for music. She even looks through the records! (Perhaps i should clarify "crush." As creepy as i am, i'm not creepy like that. I think of it more as if i was her age, i'd think she was awesome. Or in my newish role as a father, i see it as i hope my kid's that cool when she grows up but her current love for lip gloss gives me doubt.) However, my crush faded drastically when i discovered the reason for the hat. She wears it because it looks like the one Michael Jackson wore. She also wears big pins and carries a keychain, vintage 1983, of MJ. And the first place she goes when she comes into the store is the J section of the CD's to see if there's anything she doesn't already have. I guess i know why she looks through the records too. All of the sudden the "cool" girl just sort of became "weird." She is obviously one of Michael Jackson's many number 1 fans and as weird as that may seem to me, i know that girl cried when she heard about his death. She's going to be sad for the next week or so. Her world just changed and i'm sorry it did.

Now back to the rest of us. I know we love our celebrities. I know we all love to mourn their loss and talk about how the world will never be the same but sometimes that's just not true. Michael Jackson hasn't had any impact on our lives for almost 20 years. His last hit that anyone remembers was "Black or White", with yet another groundbreaking video in which he hung out with McCauley Culkin on some brownstone steps, smashed up a car and touched his junk, and an unknown Trya Banks morphed from a fat asian guy to a pale-skinned red head. That's how long ago that was, Tyra Banks was an extra in a music video. Michael Jackson would be dead two years later.

Whether true or not, we all know the accusations of child molestation and generally odd and inappopriate behavior around minors. We all witnessed his physical transformation from a wide-nosed black kid to a bleached-out alien of sorts. We all saw the erratic behavior of befriending a chimp, wearing surgical masks and showing up in court in his pajamas. And we all made our judgements and those with a public voice in television and print summed it up in the name "Wacko Jacko." He became an easy target for late night tv hosts and water cooler comedians. Most of you reading this have probably passed along an off-color (pun-intended) joke at his expense (my personal favorite, Q: What did the adoption agency say to Michael Jackson? A: No).

I'm sure there are psychoanalysts that have been through this already but i think the "wacko" part has its roots in some pretty obvious places. Michael had a natural talent that could not be ignored as a child. His father rather notoriously pushed his children farther than they wanted to go at the time. Since Michael was the cash cow of the group, i'm sure he got pushed the hardest. He showed some of his erratic behavior even as a child, like refusing an interview unless 2-year-old Janet could be there by his side like a security blanket. The man never had a childhood. When that's your reality along with unlimited time and money resources, it's not surprising that you might try to recapture that lost time of your life. Who wouldn't want a theme park in their back yard? So in my no way expert opinion, that's what he did. He surrounded himself with children. He had sleepovers. He did what kids do. Now we all know that this isn't "proper" behavior because we live in a grounded 9 to 5 world. However, if we didn't have to follow the rules, we would probably throw them aside and create our own fantasy-reality and someone would probably think your fantasy was crazy too. For my two cents, i think there's a perfectly good chance he never did any wrong to the children he invited over. They probably just ate ice cream and stayed up all night telling ghost stories. In the purest form of the word, i think he was innocent.

Now let's address this "King of Pop" nonsense. While in the 1980's, i would say Jackson was the undisptued "King," this moniker did not come around until 1991, when he was about to have his, unknowingly, last hurrah with the album Dangerous. But the biggest problem with this title is that he gave it to himself. It doesn't count if you make it up. I've been trying to get people to call me "Dude Cougar" for a year now but nobody does. Nicknames and titles are supposed to be given, not self-made. I have to give him credit though, it stuck. The name is an obvious nod/comparison to Elvis Presley, "The King of Rock 'n' Roll," a title bestowed on him not by himself. Other, than the fact that Jackson was awkwardly married to the King's daughter for a short time, i really only see one other connection between the two. They both had huge careers to the point that they became the iconic face of popular music at the time, then spent their last years tarnishing the legend they had created. After the news that Jackson had been rushed to the hospital, i heard someone comment that "if he dies, it's going to be like when Elvis died." When i heard this, i immediately thought of a Dan Bern song called "Too Late to Die Young"

"The day that Elvis died was like a mercy killing

America breathed a sigh of relief

We knew all about the drugs and the Vegas shows

And there wasn't much of anything that looked like grief

And I guess he should’ve done like James Dean did

'Stead of putting on weight and sinking down, down, down"

Just like Elvis, there were two Michael Jacksons. There was the sweet-faced pre-teen with the unreal voice who grew into the "King of Pop" and there was "Wacko Jacko." We had already mourned the loss of Michael Jackson. We've been in mourning for 17 years now. Today, if you choose, you have the opportunity to mourn the loss of the other Michael Jackson but his passing does not effect you or me and it certainly doesn't have an effect on the music world.

So today i don't mourn the loss of a celebrity but i am deeply thankful that a God-given talent like this one was allowed to shine while it did.