The Selling Of Michael Jackson

Hey hey, it’s officially Saturday so bring on the day’s post!

In a short period of celebrity deaths, his was doubtless the biggest (I will refrain from making a Billy Mays joke here. It’s not that I’m above it, it’s that everyone else already has). And I don’t know that I have ever witnessed a more bizarre memorial period in my life…though, considering we’re talking about a man who slowly transformed himself in to a white woman, and who liked the dress up his kids in what looked like a cross between mosquito netting and a burka…perhaps that is a fitting tribute.

I really didn’t have a problem with the words of any of Michael Jackson’s fellow musicians…I agreed with most of them. Beyond that, though…WOW. First there’s his father, Joe Jackson. What in the fuck is this guy even doing INVOLVED in this? Isn’t this the guy who ran his kids’ lives so harshly that most of them pushed him away for decades while they tried to repair what he had shattered? Isn’t this the guy who apparently beat the shit out of all of them when they wouldn’t dance a little longer so good ol’ dad could buy himself another car? Yet there he was, good ol’ Pappy Gravytrain, talking about a new record label and the other 63,000 ways he’s cooked up to make money from the death of his child.

Then we get to the other kids. I noticed a distinct lack of Janet, aka ‘The other kid who ever made money’. There was good ol’ Jermaine, still locked in a desperate struggle to convince people he actually possesses some talent, though! And then came news of the family’s concept that they’ll still put on the tour Michael had planned, just with the rest of them performing instead! Yeah, I’m SURE legions of MJ fans will be THRILLED at having paid hundreds of dollars to see Tito lug a bass around onstage while LaToya exhibits her only skill, which everyone has already seen 16 times in porn rags.

We had Magic Johnson’s outright BIZARRE comment about how Michael made him the basketball player he was. Really? So…what…if Michael Jackson hadn’t pushed you to practice your shot all those years you would have probably ended up as a pump jockey down at the local Texaco? And what the fuck was Kobe Bryant even DOING there beyond reminding everyone he existed! How exactly did Michael Jackson help shape you when he last had a hit when you were 7? Or did a man living in the United Arab Emirates and wearing a SARS mask for kicks push you to excel on the court? I’m surprised this guy didn’t show up with the damn Larry O’Brien trophy held above his head just to remind everyone “I just won us a title, bitches!”

And finally, there was Reverend Al. This opportunist fuckbag took the death of someone who he claimed to respect and used it to shove his fat mug in front of the cameras he’s more addicted to than Barack Obama is (I have an idea for a future post regarding the Pres and his seeming need to appear on every camera on Earth). From his LUDICROUS statements about Michael Jackson being the first great black performer who was embraced by whites (you mean ASIDE from Chuck Berry? Aside from Little Richard…not even counting all the shit Elvis’s management outright stole from his, and ignoring that fright mask he calls a face? Aside from JAMES BROWN…also know as THE GUY WHOSE POSSE YOU WERE A PART OF FOR YEARS?) he then explained how it was purely because of Michael Jackson that America accepted Tiger Woods and Barack Obama. First off, stop manipulating facts to support your political stances. Now, start making sense. Call me crazy, but men like Martin Luther King Jr. PROBABLY have a fuck of a lot more to do with America’s acceptance of black presidents and golfers than a guy who sang and danced for a living. You know, Dr. King…a REAL leader of people who cared more about issues that getting his mug on to as many cable channels as possible so he can pretend his community gives a shit what he thinks about anything?

Michael Jackson was a great performer. He wrote some FANTASTIC songs. Am I personally a huge fan? Not so much, but that doesn’t mean I can’t acknowledge his greatness…much like I can accept the greatness of The Beatles without particularly enjoying too much of their music, either. Was his death a tragedy? I don’t know. This is a man who seemed increasingly incapable of dealing with life, of being increasingly unable to find peace for himself. Maybe his passing is a gift for HIM now that he no longer has to perform for other people when he seemed to pretty much not want to anymore. Let the man go without trying to turn him in to something bigger than he was, and without trying to all but sell of pieces of the corpse.