Michael Jackson Dead at 50
Michael Jackson, one of the most talented and enigmatic performers in recent memory, has died of cardiac arrest today at the age of 50 as first reported by the tabloid TMZ.
As a young boy I was a huge fan of Michael Jackson around the time the Thriller album came out in 1984. The album and Jackson were a worldwide phenomenon.
As a six or seven year old I was a fan of his music and of course the moon walk. I used to want to know everything there was to know about Jackson. I was too young to understand much about his personal life at that age, well I guess I still don’t quite understand any better twenty five years later. I just thought he was the coolest guy ever.
I remember him going to the Grammies with Brooke Shields on his arm. I did not know much at that age, but even I knew Brooke Shields was gorgeous. I used to hear people talk about Miss America all the time and I always thought they were referring to Brooke whenever they mentioned Miss America. Of course Michael also brought Emanuel Lewis to that same award show carrying him in. It did not strike me as odd at the time as he used to be in Burger King advertisements with him.
I remember hearing taunts from my sister’s boyfriend and others. The song they would sing was I pledge allegiance to the flag, Michael Jackson is a fag. I would defend him and tell them that he was not. I didn’t really know what a fag was but I didn’t think Brooke Shields would date one.
In hindsight if Michael had been a homosexual it would have been a lot better for him then what he has since been accused of being in recent years. Well at the time it probably would have been terrible for him. There was not much mainstream sentiment for tolerance toward that sort of lifestyle. If he had been interested in adult men instead of what he allegedly preferred he may have been able to be a pioneer. Again it may have been difficult, but Elton John, although the butt of many jokes over the years, has maintained a great deal of success over the years, despite and in some cases likely because of his homosexuality. Really that is a moot point because there was never any mention of him having a relationship with an adult male of any kind.
Being someone who finds humor in just about anything all sorts of jokes spring to mind, but really his life is more tragedy than comedy. Like another childhood hero of mine, Roger Clemens, his life has taken on an increasingly bizarre tone in recent years. Considering the recent history of Michael Jackson if I had not already heard that he had died I would have thought the Dateline special about him tonight was for a completely different reason. It still does seem strange to have a Dateline special that will likely celebrate Michael Jackson. As with Clemens and other celebrities over the years I have grown accustomed to separating my feelings about him from when I was a kid with how I feel about him now. It is somewhat easier with Jackson as he does not even look like the same person.
It is a story of a man who had so much success at a young age and never managed to mature into a man comfortable with himself or the spotlight, which is surprising when you consider how comfortable he seemed in the spotlight as a kid. I used to watch old footage of him performing with the Jackson Five. He looked nothing like the man lying in the back of the ambulance today. He was young and full of life. He seemed to be on top of the world when he was on stage and he always had a big smile on his face as he performed. Somewhere along the line he lost that sense of wonder. He did not like what he saw when he looked in the mirror even though I’m sure he could have found many women, or men if that is what he was interested in, who would have found him attractive. Somehow he convinced himself that he needed to have numerous surgeries that eventually made him look like some kind of alien. He was a pale white man who did not have a nose. He had become an international laughingstock. No longer famous for his immense talents, but instead for his freakish appearance and inexplicable behavior.
It is difficult to reconcile the image I have in my mind of the young talented Jackson with the man in the back of that ambulance. Really he should have been the young man from the Thriller video flirting with a beautiful girl. I like to think that in some alternate universe Michael Jackson was that guy. Instead he warned her to go away. He sang about how Billie Jean was not his love and sadly we know there was not much likelihood that she was his love. He did not have much of a childhood or teen years, and he insisted that is why he liked hanging out with young boys. No one really believes any of that of course.
I wish the alternate universe Michael Jackson had existed. Maybe he wouldn’t have dated that beautiful girl from the Thriller video or Brooke Shields, but at least he could have been less of a disaster as an adult. I imagine that millions of other people who grew up fans of Michael Jackson are as conflicted as I am. I wish I was able to mourn the loss of a childhood hero of mine, but alas he has been gone for a long time.
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