Celebrity deaths always come in threes. First, we had Ed McMahon, who died on the 23rd. This made some headlines, but he lived a long life. Today, Farah Fawcett died. She starred in Charlie’s Angels. I didn’t know her at all, but others did. Later in the day, of course, everyone heard about the death of Michael Jackson. Sorry, Mark Sanford, your news cycle has ended. Sleeping with an Argentinian woman seems to normal in comparison.
Why would a celebrity’s death hold my attention? Usually I wouldn’t give one a second thought. I remember listening to Michael Jackson on a tape recorder radio with one speaker. I kept hearing about Michael Jackson, then upon hearing him, I thought he sounded like a girl. I remember Weird Al’s parodies. I also remember this schoolyard chant:
I pledge allegiance to the flag
Michael Jackson is a fag
Pepsi Cola messed him up
Now he’s drinking 7-up
7-up tastes like pee
Now he’s drinking ice tea.
Some other memories surface. In college, while teaching myself Esperanto, he released his History album which had some of the language on the cover or something. Our dorky resident assistant played the album loudly. What a dork! Of course, more recently, child molestation charges came to light, something many had long suspected, as evidenced by the schoolyard rhyme I quoted from the mid eighties. Only Michael Jackson could show up in court wearing pajamas and get acquitted!
As of this writing, a late-breaking report said he collapsed after a powerful injection of Demerol. Surprise, surprise! Television specials have already begun to air. One even called itself “The Life and Death of Michael Jackson. This seemed strange, especially considering they haven’t done the autopsy yet. That will happen tomorrow, and we will probably find out the awful truth we can all feel in our gut.
I decided to turn on the television for the first time in a few months. I turned on the local ABC affiliate. Sure enough, I caught the end of a special. I instinctively felt annoyed at just catching the end, but reminded myself that we would probably hear tons about Michael Jackson over the next few weeks, in fact we will probably get sick of hearing the name, if we haven’t already. I pressed the channel-up button, and found another special. Now it started getting surreal. I hit channel-down twice, and found another.
A family lawyer acted very emotional, warning the family of Jackson’s use of prescription pain killers. He said that if this turned out true, he would speak out. During the commercial, they played an ad for the antidepressant Cymbalta. At least, I assume that it advertised an antidepressant, because it had a warning about suicidal thoughts in a small percentage of patients. This seemed rather disrespectful. Can we please not see ads for prescription medications while getting bumbled with the latest news about Michael Jackson and how he may have died from them? No taste! My finger accidentally hit one of the numbers on the remote control, and it randomly flipped to another channel. Guess what? Another special. I apprehensively turned back to the other one with the lawyer. They played the disturbing interview from Sixty Minutes and that did it, I turned the TV off, I had had my fill. Seeing him likening sleeping with children to something Jesus would have done just seemed like too much.
While I don’t wish to speak ill of the dead, I understand the range in reactions. “Burn in hell pedophile.” says the first comment on one article about his death. “No tears here over the death of a pedophile.” writes a friend of mine on Twitter. I included that ridiculous rhyme at the top for a reason. Nevertheless, I can feel the collective reeling, which I think answers my question about why this story holds my attention. 22.61% of tweets currently contain the phrase “Michael Jackson” or “MJ”. The world is changed. Life has gotten weirder. Who
knows, maybe the Illuminati faked his death to generate enough news over the next few weeks while they crash our economy, and in return Michael Jackson could live a guilt-free debt-free life. I wish I had some MJ, and I don’t mean the King of Pop!
