HOMELY PLANET

I really was never a really big fan. Never owned an album.  More of a rock and roller, to tell the truth.  BUT, his influence, both on music and pop culture can't be denied.

He was never "dead to me since..." This is the third time I've gotten this quote today.   "Michael Jackson has been dead to me since...."   What is this? The fucking Godfather?  While I appreciate the cynicism, Michael Jackson was always VERY ALIVE to me.

He was alive to me during the 70's, when Jackson 5 records played on my parents hi-fi stereo are some of my first memories as a human being.  Everytime I here "Baby Take Me Back," I'm transported to my house in Nisqually Valley, circa 1976.

He was alive to me in the early 80's.  I remember listening to songs from "Off the Wall" during my summer's doing childrens' theatre.  These tunes were part of the soundtrack to my pre-adolescence.

He was alive to me in middle school:  I remember when "Thriller" came out, how I was a rocker and had to pretend to hate it so much. And I did, publicly, though I secretly liked a lot of the songs.  What  I did hate was how POPULAR it was, how it was some sort of "normal person" litmus test that you liked the thing. It was like railing against The Beatles after they appeared on "Sullivan." I may have been righteous in my cause, but it was a losing battle.  Not liking "Thriller" in the day made me feel like a freak, like an iconoclast, and I still carry that real feeling of oppositional pride with me today,.

He was alive to me fourteen years ago.  I remember in the mid '90's when "History" came out. I remember the uber-pretentious superhero/Stalinesque mural that adorned the wall of - what was it - Penny Lane in Lower Queen Anne? It was then that I knew it was over, that he had crossed the line from silly to sick.

He was alive to me ten years ago (or so), when he went on trial for abusing those kids.  And though we all know he was guilty  (and he was, he fucking did it, ALL), he got off.  Was it just wealth?  Or was it the fact that we all knew that he'd already paid for his crimes, that his existence was now pathetic and miserable, that prison time would just be redudant?  One glance at those SAD SAD photos of his surgery travesties told a thousand stories of abject self-loathing.  He was already a casualty of himself. 

People have abused me for mourning MJ's death. I've gotten my share of mocking laughs and ironic shrugs. Fair enough. He was a child molester. This is plenty to damn him anywhere. He was a freak. His plasic surgery catastrophes could elicit nothing but pity from anyone who was unfortunate enough to witness the photos.

You can condemn him on these terms alone.

But he was one of the purest pop geniuses to come around in a century. Lennon? McCartney? Wilson? He was their EQUAL. But, he was an absulote contradiction. He was brilliant and eternally flawed, so fucked up that many of us wished him this death some ten years ago. He lived and died by this wicked sword, but, like it or hate it, his impact on pop culture is more than indelible. As I said before, it's Elvisian. Both were tsunamis of effect. Both were massive in their day. Both were tragic. You can roll your eyes and sigh and tell me, "I told you so," but it doesn't make Michael Jackson unimportant. As fucked up as he was, he was a FORCE.

There are VERY FEW artists you can say that about.

Think about it