The Death of Michael Jackson is strange, as his life was strange; and sad, as his life was sad.
I'm bothered by his death I suspect partially because it was unexpected - I like order in things and hate it when people re-order my day or my week. With his death Michael Jackson abruptly ended a large part of my youth that I was hanging on to I think.
We all thought him more than passing strange. I can't count how many times I've joked that only in America could a little Black Boy from Gary Indiana become and eccentric old White woman in one lifetime. Michael Jackson's death on Thursday re-order my thinking about my own youth. We were contemporaries. I'm 47 and he was 50 so in a since we grew up together. Which is one reason we all sort of understood his strangeness. Our lifetime has been one of tremendous change and adjustments. Michael didn't make all the adjustments.
His was a life perpetually in search of his lost childhood - the one we all had watching him - in fact I think he had more than most because his ability to spend and travel and play far exceed all the folks I know. Then he quickly shifted to parenthood.
Lots of us never understood the screaming crowds of foreigners who bought all those damn tickets to concerts in Europe or who fainted in the stadiums. Strange how a stoic group of people became so excited by Michael Jackson. But we knew ALL the songs. We knew all his phases and we weren't in line with his choices but we expected him to live a life like we all did. Like Jermaine did, like Tito did, Like Randy did. You can blame his father for lots of things but dragging his family out of a empty steel town aint' one of them.
Now we have our Elvis moment. I remember the weekend Elvis died and all the outpouring. In the days before the internet we relied on the radio for up to the minute news and the fact that he died in the toilet struck me as fitting but it didn't change my day or my weekend. I didn't realize he was only 47 he just seemed old so I thought "why all the fuss over a washed up singer?" In the same way that my teenager thinks all the Michael Jackson coverage is overdone. In fact it was my teenager who told me, by the way, TMZ is reporting Michael Jackson died while we were on the way to lacrosse practice in the same tone he used to ask if I was waiting for him or not. Strange how nonchalantly he was able to end my youth this rainy summer.
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