I feel like I should have something to say about the death of Michael Jackson; I do write about pop culture stuff, and this was, after all, the King of Pop.
I was never a fan. I won a copy of Off The Wall at a youth center bingo game when I was a kid; the only album in my rotation back then was the Star Wars soundtrack. I liked "Beat It", but only because of Eddie Van Halen - I was wearing bandanas and parachute pants in those days, and Michael Jackson wasn't my trip, dude. It didn't matter; he sold millions of albums anyway.
Lots of things didn't matter, when it came to Michael Jackson. He was "eccentric", "troubled", "childlike", "a Peter Pan figure". These are the words that people told themselves when the stories began to emerge; it didn't matter, the accusations, the payoffs. A father who treated his own children like animate dolls, to be dressed up and paraded around and dangled from balconies. A grown man who enjoyed sleeping with young boys. I wonder if there was ever a point when the kid that carried the Jackson 5 realized that whatever humanity he once had was slowly starting to slip away. These things didn't matter; he sold millions of albums. He was the King of Pop.
