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Michael Jackson R.I.P.
Over the last ten, maybe fifteen years, it was always quite the fashion to make
a Michael Jackson joke - as the easy target always is...
Probably the saddest thing about Michael’s shock passing on Thursday night was the fact that there will be so many untold
truths. Never has a man, certainly in my lifetime, been so “well-documented” inaccurately. When the whole world stopped in shock when they heard the news,
no-one really actually knew an awful lot about the legend that had just been
lost. And now Jackson, though he never felt the need to in life, has no
opportunity to confirm or deny the bizarre stories.
As many a forthcoming ‘Michael Jackson - the life of...’ documentary will tell you, his PR machine put out many of the wacky rumours.
Many will point to the fact that those very venom-riddled and sarcasm-dripping
inches of column space were indeed the very fuel that kept the Michael Jackson
machine running. Jackson of course, probably didn’t help himself in that respect, but it’s fair to say the man had created his own untouchable iconic musical status,
long before the rumour mills started turning.
It’s a sad and common trait, almost an essential tool of the human makeup, that we
as a race, can’t quite believe that anything presented so perfect on the outside, is as
gleaming on the inside. We know that perfection is impossible, so we try to
expose the not-quite-so perfect parts, to make ourselves feel better. The
simple fact is we don’t and won’t ever know for sure (save some genuine explicit and as yet unseen video tapes)
whether Jackson liked kids, slept in an oxygen chamber or of course had the
bones of the Elephant Man buried in Neverland. But of course the imperfection
accusations will be subtlely reminded to us by the fickle media, at every
opportunity.
There is of course the paranoid school of thought (which usually arises around
the time of an iconic death) that Jackson has somewhat “done a Darwin” (no, the canoe man) and is sipping margheritas in some paradise island. Except,
with a man as private (and loaded) as Jackson, we don’t actually know for sure that was even him that was bundled into that Los
Angeles ambulance. The sub-plot of the ‘un-doable’ marathon of 50 shows in our very own corporate pig sty (that’s the O2) further supports such conspirers. Wherever he is, I know this, that
for the first time in his 44 years after fame, most people don’t know where he’s gone and never will - that must be a very peaceful place for him.
CM
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