Yesterday evening my TV set was commandeered by talking heads deifying Michael Jackson. How recently were these same talking heads and experts speculating that he was a serial child molester facing jail time?
I remember the adorable child star on the Ed Sullivan show. I was always saddened by the changing images of what he became, and what he did to himself, – even as I sometimes hummed to his music. I mostly never could understand the words anymore than I could the man. I wondered if he was gay, – or if his controlling father – Joe Jackson had maybe had his child star castrated like a Vatican choir boy. What else could explain the grown Jackson’s failure to look like a grown man, – or his bazaar self-destructive behavior?
So a musical genius has suddenly departed, leaving behind hundreds of lawsuits to collect pieces of his trappings, – and his unpaid debts. We watched a financial empire squandered on childlike fancy and an overly extravagant lifestyle. There will be rumors and conspiracy theories for a hundred years, just as there are surrounding the lives and deaths of JFK and Elvis. Only lawyers will profit, buzzards at the carcass.
In so many ways Michael Jackson’s life reminds me of Barack Obama. Adorable and beguiling to many at first, – ruthlessly exploited by behind-the-scenes manipulators and used by others for personal gain. Raised to super-star God-like status in the media, large parts of his life a carefully guarded secret, – then slowly destroyed by a combination of drugs, depravity, depression; then abandoned or turned upon by his handlers and the media. And all around him smoking ruins of “Neverland”, a bankrupt empire, and abandoned children.
What the Gods would destroy, they shall first elevate. Humans do it too.
/s/ Iron Mike
Old Soldier, – Still Good for Parts!