In Memorandum: Very Special "Jacko On His Backo" Edition

What, did someone die?

Guess I would be remiss if I didn't put down at least a couple of words marking the passing of the King of Weird. (No truth to the rumors that since he was 90% plastic, he'd be melted down and turned into Lego blocks so little kids could play with *him* for once.)

Full disclosure: When I was 10, I had Thriller on cassette. I also had a sparkly glove (a gray glove covered in glitter). These things rendered me a fag among my schoolmates, so they were boxed up or trashed, never to be seen again.

Truthfully, his expected/unexpected* passing elicited little more than a shrug from these quarters, equal parts apathy and more apathy.

(* - unexpected because while I think we all figured he wasn't going to live to see 80, I think we also had money on 50 being the "under"; expected because we didn't think he was strong enough to bear the stresses he endured, both self-inflicted and otherwise)

I have said it here before, and I will say it again: if a person is a piece of shit during his lifetime - and let's be frank: there is just too much evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, to suggest he was anything but - it's INCREDIBLY disingenuous to mark the person's passing with showers of kind words praising him and expressing how much he'll be missed. Especially if you were part of the chorus of "yeah, the guy is a piece of shit" when he was still alive.

Not to defend him in the least, because even a hint of child molestation allegations forever tarnishes (or, in my view, destroys) whatever "legacy" he has as an entertainer (and leads me to my "piece of shit" assessment), but it doesn't help that the things he did - alleged skin bleaching! 500 plastic surgeries! dangling children off balconies! - were just batshit crazy. Maybe these things were "normal" in whatever universe he inhabited after Thriller - I reckon that if your every move were under the 50,000X power microscope that Michael Jackson's was, we'd all think you were weird, too.

And, really, I reckon that was Michael Jackson's biggest venial sin. Intentional or unintentional, his rise coincided with the transition from "entertainment news as 60 seconds on your local news broadcast's showbiz beat" to "entertainment news as hard news." Many pop culture names who came since him, from Paris Hilton to Jon and Kate to any number of reality stars (i.e., people who offer nothing of substance and are only "famous for being famous") owe him a great debt for indirectly helping to perpetuate their 15 minutes, and we as a society are all lesser for it. There was a day when the fact that North Korea is threatening to vaporize us would have led the nightly news, but we've gotten bored with hard news, and news organizations recognize this.

Anyway, yes, he is dead, and please get him off my TV now.