Random Thoughts on Michael Jackson
By kyle | June 30, 2009
1. Unsurprising but what a waste of talent. The force of him onstage.
2. What talent? His singing was undistinguished, the same falsetto every time. The songs were great, but they were Quincy Jones’s productions. Jackson was just the personality plugged into them. The face. Like in a perfume ad. His lyrics were of no interest except those that were designed to play off his public image in a shallow way — “it don’t matter if you’re black or white” and the one about the DA who pursued him. Really, he was just a dancer.
3. This completes some sort of long-awaited trilogy-Diana, JFK Jr, MJ–all of them grew up before our eyes. Two of them famous before they hit puberty. All of them died, or so it seems, because they were famous. (JFK Jr. took up flying because he disliked seeing his private arguments with his wife on airplanes written down and sent to the newspapers.) All of them royalty in the sense that their families made them.
4. He wouldn’t have wanted to live long enough to pull gray hairs.
5. He was number one on the Celebrities Most Likely to Die Prematurely List for so many years. Now it’s Britney Spears.
6. Always thought it would be suicide.
7. Gays in the generation after him aren’t ashamed to be gay. This is much to the good. In five years magazines won’t bother devoting cover stories to this. It’ll be like being lefthanded — so what?
8. Are we all guilty? Did we drive him over the edge with our jokes, our National Enquirer peeping?
9. I doubt it. He played up bizarre for all it was worth. The National Enquirer editor swore that the story about him sleeping in an oxygen tent (I think it was) was required by Jackson’s camp to be splashed up with the word “bizarre.”
10. I haven’t read any of the news coverage. I suspect all of these thoughts have been tossed around all week. But I do hope no one is dragging an Obama comparison into this.
11. Still and all, I miss the guy. His death saddens me.
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