You know, I have to do this.  You saw it coming.  I just know you did.  You can't back out now...!

It's probably the most inescapable event to happen to occur in my lifetime.  Others may claim that September 11th, 2001 is the most significant event in a generation, but I'm going to stake my claim on facetious historical premonition and proclaim the death of Michael Jackson as the most earth shattering event of the past thirty years (thirty being the operative number here, since I am a particularly selfish individual, and I must frame everything with me as the reference point - in this case, my age).  Perhaps it betrays my heartless nature, or perhaps it doesn't; I'm no objective judge of character, the very least my own.  But knowing that September 11 was the event that made warmongering okay again and an event that continues to result in the unnecessary loss of untold lives, and me still having the tenacity to proclaim the death of a single man more important the anonymous dead by media standards...there's gotta be something not right in me noggin, eh?  Or maybe this is my feeble attempt at channeling Jonathan Swift?  Aye. I've just destroyed the "gotcha moment" of my discussion, baby eating be damned.  Should I even continue? I must. I like to hear myself think.  Or at least to read my words on a screen knowing they once occupied the ephemeral place of Consciousness before being captured by digital code points and pixels for all to see and interpret of their own volition.

Since I've already tried to attach myself to genius already by mentioning Swift so early in this diatribe, I'm going to do it again.  You see, despite all his amazing talent, his far reaching effects in popular culture, his bizarre life choices - I've always felt I could identify with Michael Jackson on some level.  Like the millions upon millions of people already holding vigils and shedding tears over someone they never truly knew, I grew up as a fan of his music. 

I was a bit young for Thriller - it came out November 30, 1982, one day before my third birthday.  I do not remember that day, and I would be a fool to claim that Thriller was an important part of my life.  But according to familial sources, I was quite the fan of Billie Jean at the tender age of three.  If the song came on the radio, I would immediately light up.  A mere two years later, when the haze of memory begins, I do remember loving the song, along with Beat It.  The song that I owe a lot to ol' MJ is Thriller.  As crazy as this sounds, it was the music video for it that forged my lifelong interest in the macabre, horror films, kitschy irony, film, and even art.  I was an extremely shy child, and the first year of school I recall as traumatic; getting home to my old radio with the broken handle and tape deck that required one continuously hold the play button was literally and figuratively music to my ears.  It was a decompression method, before I even knew what that meant.

I remember recording the song off the radio.  I tried multiple times before finally giving up. I just couldn't get a version that didn't have the DJ talking over the beginning sequence, so I relented with the version with the annoying voiceover.  It wouldn't be until later that I would find out that the single version on the radio was shorter than the album version; it would be nearly ten years later that I found out Jackson himself didn't actually write the song himself (the writer would be Rod Temperton).  Of course, these are moot points, especially in light of the particular one I was trying to make.  I remember seeing a truncated version of the video on the local television station "Tulsa 23 Oklahoma's Independent" (later to become the hideous Fox news affiliate) in which on occasion they would have segments called the KOKI Music Break.  I remember the announcer putting special emphasis on the word "music" so it sounded like "muuuuuuuuusic break."  Thriller was my first music video.  As hard proof of my claim of influence, the Thriller video had zombies in it.  I grew up watching all sorts of horrific zombie flicks (last count, I've probably seen well over three hundred zombie movies; the images of flesh eating undoubtedly had their effect on my young brain).  I even had a zombie graphic novel published a couple of years ago.  (Which, fingers crossed, will soon be developed into a television mini-series!)

Of course, like many people, when Michael started becoming a parody of himself with all the radical plastic surgery followed by the child molestation charges, he lost his appeal.  It was the cool thing to hate the guy.  Besides, by that time in my life, I was a rebelling teenager, and MJ's music was too poppy and soft for me.  I had to have screaming and thundering guitars before I considered it good music.  He continued to be a media sensation, and even though I was no longer a fan of his, he was always on the periphery of my life.  I do recall actually taking time out of my schedule to watch the prime time debut of his video for Black or White.  I also recall thinking his tirade at the end of destroying the car with a crowbar was incredibly stupid.  I practically despised Michael Jackson.

That is, until he married Lisa Marie.  Although it seemed a very calculated move, the idea of the King of Pop married to the daughter of the King of Rock 'n' Roll was oddly cool to me.  I had already begun my musical obsessions, and popular musical history was a hobby of mine.  I remember thinking, and this is no fabrication or attempt to monopolize on current events, "What if he goes out like Elvis did?"  So lo and behold, all these years later, he sorta does.  Then I read Lisa Marie's blog on Myspace today.  She's perhaps the only person in history that can really understand what possibly made the guy tick.  It was this idea that made me kinda like the idea of their marriage.  And she seems to be suffering from acute regret over his death. 

I still for the life of me can't figure out why any of this matters. 

Why did I make the claim I could identify with him on some level?  It seems a rather weird thing to say.  I think it deals with his isolation and misunderstandings many people have of him.  I'm no fool, even though for some years I tried to absolutely deny it, but I have accepted the fact that nearly everyone I know thinks I'm, and this is the most common term I hear, "odd."  All the acquaintances I've known through the years have always expressed the sentiment that no one seems to be able to really get to know me and that there's some inexplicable element to me that people find strange, a good thing to some, a terrible thing to others.  As a matter of fact, I was told that I was odd today.  Case in point: I don't think there is any person that could tell you my true favorite color, my absolute favorite artist, my favorite meal, or why I like to see how many hours I can go without uttering a single word aloud.  (FYI: My record is thirty-eight hours.)  Many people have tried to get close enough to me over the years to actually know such things, but it seems in the end everyone gives up.  It's not a terribly difficult feat, at least it doesn't seem to me like it would be, but it may require a spirit of adventure.  Taking applications now...

Of course, I'm not as near as strange as Michael, at least I hope I'm not, but I could kind of relate to his sensibility of certain things, like the oddity of his music videos.  I mean, really...why did Thriller have zombies in it?  Why was Vincent Price in the song?  Because it was cool.  Why did Beat It's video have to be over an hour long and feature actual gang members dancing?  Because such excess and quirkiness, and references to West Side Story, are actually contextually important phenomena as seen from a mass media manipulation standpoint, something which MJ was adept at doing.  Why leak fabricated stories to the press that you sleep in an anti-aging chamber and that you bought the skeleton of the Elephant Man?  Because it just freaks people out.  I do things like that myself.  Okay, not to that extreme because I don't have the crazy amount of cash to throw around, but I've always imagined that if I were insanely wealthy, I'd be an eccentric millionaire, nay billionaire!  I mean, how cool would it be to actually have the Joseph Merrick's skeleton?  I've always had a keen interest in the Elephant Man ever since I saw a television movie of his story.  The actor playing the Elephant Man actually had no makeup or prosthetics, and you were supposed to imagine how deformed he was.  Of course, David Lynch's 1980 film about him also blew my mind. 

Now, I can't wait for the Michael Jackson incognito sightings and ghost visitations to begin.  Long live the King?  I end with the refrain:

I still for the life of me can't figure out why any of this matters.