i roll away the stone and i look inside "But once rigor mortis sets in, you can convey sympathy and empathy and natter about his genius and legendary status, because now, you're safe." Absolutely well-said, Karos. Even *I* got flack from a friend one time when I suggested that maybe the guy wasn't guilty (I mean, he WAS aquitted of the charges!) but that I understood people didn't like his change of looks (pretty freaky, to say the least) and so they just simply threw "pedophile" into the basket of the freakshow they deemed him to be. So, I can certainly understand the celebrities (as a celeb, you really have to watch EVERYTHING you say -- I mean, look what happened to the Dixie Chicks!?). So, I can't fault them, but at the same time, I wonder the same thing "Yeah, where WAS everyone when he needed them?" Hollywood is extraordinarily fickle. Your daughter sounds rad. Great tribute, Karos. Beautifully written, as always. Your daughter's got some major artistic talent, there. I love that drawing. I've allowed myself to forget how much I enjoy Michael Jackson's music in light of that which he's been accused. I remember watching the documentary on the making of Thriller that aired on MTV and just being awestruck at how freaking talented he was. My worst celebrity death so far was when Lucille Ball died, followed closely by Paul Newman & Katharine Hepburn. Those three were so important to me, but Lucy was my heroine. karos: weblog - photos - videos - audio - pulse - profile - subscribe!
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Original: 6/26/2009 9:34 AM
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This is a scan of a drawing I put on here a couple of years ago. My daughter's rendition of Jack Skellington as Michael Jackson.
I'd like to talk about something today: courage and cowardice.
The news of MJ's death set this household reeling yesterday. How unexpected really, but deep in the back of my mind I think I always knew he'd meet some tragically sad end. As some have said, who would have thought of him as a 90-year-old anyway? He was always so fragile and childlike as an adult. He seemed so much more solid and healthy as a child, though we all know about what stresses and rigours his child's mind had to contend with, and I do believe that altered him in adulthood in ways most people can't truly understand. Self-preservation, for him, manifested in some very weird ways. Changing his face, building and living in a fantasy world, an inability (or refusal) to understand social mores to the extent that you click in to what is appropriate and what isn't as far as sharing the contents of your mind. Even if he never did the things he was accused of doing, to not realize how much risk you are putting yourself at by allowing certain situations to perpetuate under your roof showed a distinct lack of, well, the Getting of Reality. Was living this way courageous or cowardly? I'd say a little of both.
What struck me last night in watching the onslaught of coverage while I sat amidst ground zero in my house, pricing items for tomorrow's yard sale, was how many celebrities waxed loquacious about Michael Jackson. About his talent, his persona, his gifts, his sweetness and generosity. Where the hell were they when he was on trial? Now it is safe to voice support and admiration, because he's dead, yo. Celebrity self-preservation dictates you don't say anything about a peer up on charges of kiddy diddling because of what it could do to your own reputation and career. But once rigor mortis sets in, you can convey sympathy and empathy and natter about his genius and legendary status, because now, you're safe. It's the same with the general public. Throngs gathering en masse around the country at various touchstone places to mourn. Where were they when it was uncool to like MJ? Uncool to say so? Death undoes the stigma.
This is one of the reasons that I think my daughter is courageous.
When most kids her age were into everybody from Hilary Duff to Linkin Park, she veered voraciously into the world of popping, locking, moonwalking and crotch grabbing. Her adoration of Michael Jackson was anachronistic. It came about after a barn dance at camp the summer she was 13 (she is not yet 15 now). The campers and counselors did the Thriller dance together and it so captured her imagination and fired her excitement that when she got home from camp, she delved into YouTube for the real music video. The rest is history.
It went from viewing all the videos to viewing all the interviews done with him, from Bashir to Sawyer. It was downloading songs from iTunes and purchasing CDs. It was sock dancing on the kitchen floor and bugging us to join in with her dance parties. It was poking through musty piles at used record shops for music and VHS video tapes of his videos and performances. It was begging me for a fedora like the one he wore in Smooth Criminal. It was me finding a black one, and her wearing it to school for more than a month straight. It was writing fan fiction in MJ fan forums; fanciful stories with Michael as the head of a pack of wolves, and her building a loyal readership. It was inserting him into her art.
And of course, she endured all kinds of flak from friends and family who would shake and poke at the foundations of her love for him. Who were openly disdainful of him, not giving a hoot how this felt to a young girl. I even experienced a similar thing myself. I found her fascination fascinating and unique and got a kick out of the fact that she could be so different from her peers in so many respects. Yet if I shared this quirk of hers with friends or family, I, too, often received this backlash of ridicule and contempt. Of course, I knew why. Still, I wished people would embrace the cool aspect to it. It was a weird, but brave, kind of thing, I thought. Weird and brave are qualities I can get onside of.
Certainly I saw that she had drunk the Kool-Aid when she began to spout lines she must have heard from other fans and read online. About lies and news being made up and him being framed and evidence being faked and all that. Since I am a journalist, I had to carefully explain to her what could and couldn't be printed, and what evidence there had been, in an attempt to let her know that as much as many fans wished there not to be any controversy, there was. His acquittal was, to her, proof of his innocence. And that very well may be. Perhaps time will tell.
Anyway, I think it is courageous to march to your own drummer despite what everybody else is doing. Jackson did that. My daughter does that. As a kid, I did that, too, and I secretly relished my own oddities, which included for varying periods of time, carrying a large purple muppet-like puppet named Levon around; wearing a straw cowboy hat to and from school for the entire Grade 8 year; donning a green satin clown suit with black polka dots and red yarn pompoms down the front and wearing it to class in high school on random days, acting like it was entirely unremarkable; and becoming anachronistically obsessed with musicians and actors, like The Band and Jimmy Stewart. I did these things for reasons I probably could not have explained to you at the time. Looking back, it's perhaps in small part because I didn't want to be like everybody else, but just as much that I merely let myself blow where the winds of my mind wanted to take me. Explored those impulses rather than quash them. As an adult, I lost that willingness to adventure somewhere along the way. I am in the process of re-learning it. And my kids are good role models for me in this respect. Come to think of it, so is my own "Michael Jackson" -- Rick Springfield (I'll spare you the details as to why I believe this). And of course, so was Michael Jackson. Exploring his impulses โ sometimes, of course, to his downfall and detriment.
The news of his death yesterday was one of those head-snapping double-take moments. Whaaaaaat? In an instant, I knew I had to break it to my daughter, who was upstairs drawing in her room. I called her down and told her. This blank mask took over her face. She was nonplussed. She went up to her room, called her best friend, and then settled in up there, avoiding all the rambling TV coverage after she came down to catch the official news on NBC. She doesn't like to cry, that one. She was rattled and teary, and then went back up to her hovel. I think she's between shock and denial right now. She doesn't want to talk about it. For her, it's not the same as it is for a lot of people. It's deeper.
I remember hearing when Elvis Presley died. I was 10 years old and pulling my red wagon loaded with books to the local library. People were telling strangers on the street as the news leaped from open car windows through the radio. I remember being deeply (yet deliciously) shocked. My parents had his records. I thought he was cool. But when you've really embraced that person as a fan โ it's devastating. I remember the morning my dad walked into my room in his underwear and undershirt, hair mussed and sleep-crinkled, his voice choked up as he told me John Lennon had been shot and killed. He was utterly distraught and in need of comfort, reaching out for it in me โ and I was 13 years old and in the midst of my latest anachronistic fetish: the Beatles. The news resounded in our household for days. And that is what I am expecting around here, with my kid. It is no way to start summer vacation. Even if you are courageous. Posted 6/26/2009 9:34 AM - 37 Views - 16 eProps - 8 comments
8 Comments 
I've always loved the Michael Jackson of my youth -- the totally talented and awe-inspiring one. I used to think he was a total HOTTIE before he started messin' with his looks. My brother and I were talking about how when we saw the "Beat it" video for the first time--we'd never seen a bigger, cooler, more incredible BADASS than that! (And it's funny, because he was kind of a skinny, effeminate feller... but he exuded "badness", man.)
Marriage is love.
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