Thursday, June 25, 2009

The King is dead. Long live the King.

Michael Jackson, The King of Pop, 1958 - 2009

"First Vincent Price and then Michael Jackson! How many MORE people involved in the Thriller video need to die before you realize it's cursed?!?"
Comment made by Debi. She's seeking professional help

Well, unless you're dead, you know both who Michael Jackson is and that he is dead. And within 5 minutes of CNN confirming the news that he was dead, Larry King had Celine Dion, Smokey Robinson and Cher lined up to talk about it LIVE. Wow, when I think of people that can and should speak to Michael's career, those are the top three on MY list...of "WTF would THEY know?" celebrities.

Michael Jackson was an integral part of the most embarrassing moment of my teenage years (ok, maybe second most, but no one knew about the first). When my sociopathic stepfather came to pick me up one day from school when I was sick, he had to drive around by the sports fields to load my bicycle into our gold Pontiac J2000 wagon. No biggie right? Except for the part where it's the middle of a class period and approximately 1/6 of the school is out on said sports fields. So? Oh, did I mention that he was playing Thriller (the song, not the album) at top volume? And singing along? So that you could have heard him from the next street? Yeah, REAL cool. I remember him wearing a polyester shirt, too, but that could just be embellishment of the story.

Mike and I were talking about it, and his comment was that he feels bad that anyone dies, but MJ's passing doesn't bother him. And I said (without thinking, per usual) that he'd already done everything except continue to embarrass the world. Perhaps unfair, but the dude's life was seriously effed up.

I doubt I'll miss him. I'm certain to be annoyed by the outpouring of grief. I do recognize him for the true and utter genius he was, but the world has been missing that part of Michael Jackson for many, many years.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Michael Jackson is an integral part of my school life too. Being totally useless at sports, I was the "creative" type at school. And so I gathered my friends to do a group dance number in the talent show. My friend at the time - let's call her L - and I fought like crazy while we watched the video, kept rewinding and pausing, and blocked out the steps. Then neither of us would give up the chance to be MJ, so we both were. Our friends were the ghouls. I particularly remember a girl who got out of a wooden box and had yogurt in her mouth which she vomited out - in florescent light. We thought we were the total shit.