Friday, June 26, 2009

On the demise of Michael Jackson...


So it has come to pass that at the ripe old age of 50, Michael Jackson is dead. I am as aware of anyone else, of the amount of music that this individual cranked out over the decades. But I'm here to tell you that it is not as an "entertainer", that he will be judged by the sentient members of society, nor how he will be remembered.

Michael Jackson was a train wreck as a human being. How else can you describe him? There are doubtless millions of people out there who, caught up in this orgy of celebrity worship, will tell you that what he did in his personal life did not matter, because he was such a "great artist". How detached from reality do you have to be to formulate such a hypothesis??? Hitler was a pretty fair illustrator and a Hell of an orator, but come on... That doesn't absolve him of anything. They will wail for anyone who will listen: "Michael and his music changed my life...". Surely they can't be serious? It's rather a case of them simply seeking to associate themselves with him so that they might share, however fleetingly, in his fame/notoriety.

Fortunately, I am not a person that worships celebrities, or who even considers them to be all that noteworthy. Therefore I can see beyond the hype and the bullshit. Michael Jackson was a freak and a pedophile, who used his fame and fortune (Neverland) to lure and prey on children. End of story. That is his legacy. You would be amazed at how many people are actually angered by this simple statement of fact. Perhaps because for the first time in their life, it holds up for them to see, who they have chosen as their hero. It bursts that little insular bubble that keeps them from seeing the hideous. Michael Jackson is not a human being that an educated and even remotely well-adjusted person would look to as a role model or 'hero'. In the end his looks fairly approximated what must have been going on inside him. Thanks to repeated, unnecessary and botched plastic surgery, he was resembling more and more Lon Chaney Sr. in his role as the original Phantom of the Opera. He truly was a modern-day portrait of Dorian Gray. At best, he might have approximated, however hideously, a white Diana Ross.

Oh yes, the radio stations and other media outlets will sicken us for years to come with music marathons to commemorate the date when he finally cashed out. They will continue to bore the fuck out of us with how Michael was the "King of Pop", just as they did and still persist in doing with Elvis, the so-called "King of Rock 'n Roll".

In these politically correct times, Michael Jackson's only true claim to fame was that as a black person, he managed to succeed financially (for a while anyway...) in what is still laughingly considered to be "a white man's world". The same as O.J. And just like Simpson, his final years saw him become less of a legend and more of a pariah. Both of them will forever be remembered, as those criminals who bought their way out of a just conviction. Jackson's publicist stated that he was on the verge of a comeback tour, which he had planned to begin next month. Sure there are some out there who would have attended, but on the whole, it would have been the final nail in any professional aspirations he might have had.

The only positive thing in all of this, is perhaps a ray of hope for those children, whose parents would otherwise have been all too willing to offer them up to "The King of Pop", in return for whatever monetary favours he might deign to send their way. Imagine how sick and addicted to fame you would have to be, to pimp your own children to some 'superstar'.

So yes, yet another 'king' is dead. And thank Christ for that...


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