On Michael Jackson

I first heard Michael Jackson's music when I was 5 or 6, from my mom's cassette tapes in the car on the way to school.  I was born in 1986, so I don't really remember a time when he wasn't at least a little bit off--hell, it wasn't until I was older that I realized he once had dark skin.  But even at that young age, you recognized that there was something special about those songs--"Thriller" and "Billie Jean" and "Beat It" (which was my favorite for a long time) and all the old Jackson 5 songs.  It didn't sound like everything else on the radio, it was in a class of its own.

His was a distinctly American tragedy, at once a brilliant artist and a tortured soul, using his millions to try and buy back the childhood he was denied.  Loved by millions yet mutilating himself in an attempt to destroy that painful past.  Adored yet utterly alone.

And that's not to gloss over what he (allegedly but more likely than not) did.  No amount of artistry or suffering from his earlier life can excuse that or make it go away.  Even more than O.J., he showed that with the right amount of money and resources you can, in fact, buy your way out of legal trouble.

It just all adds to the tragedy.  Even if he's not too sympathetic as a person, we've lost an artist of unsurpassed quality.  It's ironic that it took the death of the person who made music videos into an art form to get MTV to start playing some damn videos again!

Reports are coming out now that in his will, he gave his share of the Lennon-McCartney catalogue back to Paul McCartney.  So if that's true, then at least in his precarious mental state, he still recognized that as the right thing to do.

Let's remember the good times, shall we?

And of course, was there really anyone else who was so beloved worldwide, even by prisoners in the Philippines?