The old saying is that badness comes in threes. This week, Ed McMahon, Farah Fawcett and (as I was writing the Farah Fawcett piece) The King of Pop, Michael Jackson died suddenly.
Like most people I will readily admit that I liked his music, as much of his later work was superb. The Jackson Five stuff, was formulaic pre-digested musical pudding, but later works like Thriller were new, innovative and remarkable.
It was his ‘private’ life that creeped a lot of people out. I’m not going to bother to list it, as the list is too long and much too weird to even want to write it down. Don’t worry, it will all be reprised for your guilty pleasures in a number of rapidly written tell-alls. Expect one or two in the next four weeks.
The National Enquirer and that ilk will be wall to wall for the next three weeks. With any luck we’ll have stories that Jacko was sharing his hyperbaric chamber with Farah Fawcett in her last days, or other such madness.
Which, unfortunately, detracts from his musical accomplishments, but is still part of his legacy. There is some considered opinion that Jacko could be repackaged after his death, much like Elvis.
Elvis, if you recall, died from a stroke while on the toilet, an overinflated caricature of himself, full of bad medicine. Today, the only Elvis is the lean, handsome 1968 version: The 1977 Elvis has been erased from our collective memory by Elvis Presley Enterprises Inc.
The same is starting to happen with Jacko, as the media replays the Jackson Five and Thriller videos, but it is only hours into the repackaging that will happen.
Remember Jacko, sure, but remember all of him, not just the the tiny little happy snippets.
RoadDave 