Let us think about why I am not particularly sad about Michael Jackson's death, beyond a vague, oh isn't that a shame feeling that has not impacted significantly on my mood at all.
Well, firstly, I tend not to get that upset about celebrities' deaths anyway. Farrah Fawcett I barely care about...but then, we knew she was going for ages. Although news of her last days was very poignant. Steve Irwin I was shocked by, but not very upset about. But then I never liked Steve Irwin and loathed watching him on TV - given that I am a great fan of Jackson's music, one might have expected me to be more cut-up, as I WAS about Heath Ledger's death - that one got to me.
But then the fact that Ledger was my age, and Australian, someone I knew about "before he was famous", made it a little closer to home. Also, there was no doubt that he seemed to have great things ahead of him, a lot of unfulfilled potential.
Let's be honest, Michael Jackson was probably tapped out. We may have had great hopes for his comeback tour, but he said that would be the end of it, and I don't think anyone was expecting any more classic albums. Or any albums at all really. So there's no great artistic mourning here.
Also, unlike some other artists whose work I like, I feel no particular connection to him as a person. He was always too alien to relate to.
Finally, what DID make me sad, for years, was what happened to him. He seemed to have such an unhappy life, and to warp himself so in apparently desperate attempts to be happy, that his life seemed to me to be the real tragedy.
And I suppose ultimately, his life made me a lot sadder than his death could have.
4 comments:
A serious post about Michael Jackson? WHO ARE YOU AND WHERE IS THE REAL BEN POBJIE?!
At last, something that has nothing whatever to do with Michael Jackson, except to use him as a springboard for more immediate and pressing issues, not to mention live.
When, Ben, you say "one night only, Blue Velvet Bar" and such (in one of the side blocks of your blog, which night is the only night that you are referring to?
I know, I do those things too sometimes.
And while I'm here faffing on might I say that yours is the first political commentary that has made me truly laugh out loud since the Chaser at their best, and I work for a politician. I know.
Thanks for the risible reality break.
Thank you, Anonymous, both for the compliments and the heads-up for my oversight on the sidebar. I will amend that forthwith - it's July 23, btw.
If you ever want to leak confidential information to me, my email is mrbehemoth@hotmail. Nude photos of politicians are especially appreciated.
Hear, hear. Funny how even now he is dead & gone all people talk about is how much HIS music meant to THEM. I could never think about Michael Jackson in the now. Everytime I saw or heard of him in the last twenty years all I could picture was a little twelve year old brown boy with a big afro & what everybody did to him for just that one more song.
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