Sad Ending to a Bizarre Life

I can't help but feel sad about Michael Jackson. I guess I'm still in shock over the news of his death. It's just so unexpected, and then again, his life story was so extraordinary it seems predictable that he would meet an unexpected end.

Whether he died accidentally, intentionally, or simply from natural causes, one can't help but mourn his loss, at least for those poor children who have lost their daddy. Their fucked-up young lives just got even worse.

Love him, hate him, or indifferent, we can't deny his phenomenal talent and charisma. Just watch those old tapes of little Michael leading the Jackson Five with his commanding voice and dancing. He could really rock! And Off The Wall contains a couple of my all-time favorite radio hits. Thriller shook the world, even though I got sick of seeing the video on MTV every half hour for months.

I admit growing weary of him by the time Bad came along; my tastes had changed. Plus, his increasingly odd lifestyle became ludicrous and distasteful. His physical transformation confused me because I couldn't understand why someone so beautiful would want to change himself so drastically. He became another Howard Hughes: reclusive, paranoid, and filthy rich.

Now, almost 30 years later, Thriller is still the number one album of all time. I actually downloaded it from iTunes just a couple months ago! His children might appreciate the donation, but they will probably never see it, nor the proceeds from the planned comeback performances. Apparently Michael was spending credit instead of money, and when the bills came due, he just couldn't pay.

A psychologist said that when we feel sad about someone else or cry at a movie, it's actually ourselves for whom we cry. Subconsciously we are relating the emotion felt on screen to some event in our own lives, or to our own mortality.

Michael's death compares to that of Elvis Presley, John Lennon, or Rudolph Valentino. It feels to me like a milestone, the passing of an era. Michael Jackson was a symbol of my youth and now he has mysteriously passed away at age 50.

So, I give myself ten more years to grow up!!