If this is still anything close to the pop culture blog that I originally envisioned (and, let it be said, it's probably not) then I believe I am obligated to comment on the death of Michael Jackson. Here are some things I've reflected upon:
- He was arguably the most famous person alive for a goodly chunk of my life
- He was a profoundly odd person
- He might well still have been wildly famous even without being profoundly odd -- but those two facets seem very much wound up in one another.
It's one thing to say, well, sure, Michael Jackson was a weirdo -- or a creep -- or worse (and worse was definitely alleged). Those associations were always pretty automatic whenever I'd see some new footage of his sculpted, increasingly noseless face. It's a whole different feeling to watch the little 2-minute career-summation obit roll on NBC Nightly News last night.
What you already know to be a strange life goes just all-out incomprehensibly strange when you see it condensed like this. And as I've watched a bunch of his music videos today -- in throwback style, even
MTV has been showing music videos!! -- I realize the degree to which his dancing, and his lyrics (when he penned them), and his outfits were also profoundly odd. This was never the same thing as Gene Simmons painting his face and putting on a good show for the kids. If Michael Jackson's motives and demons were mysterious to us, I cannot imagine how much more mysterious they probably were to him.
I think The Onion did a pretty good job of summing this one up (as they usually do)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theonion.com/content/news/king_of_pop_dead_at_12