Le roi est mort...

[oloriel]

I never cared much about Michael Jackson.

That is, of course I liked a few of his songs, and listened to them and sang (along to) them, in my youth. And of course like everybody else I made jokes about him, and understood the jokes others made. And of course I read about his scandals and breakdowns with a certain mild bemusement. And when, at last year’s RingStars show, Voldemort was styled as some kind of Michael Jackson caricature, I certainly laughed my share.

But I was never a fan and never a hater, never bought a tape or CD (though I copied a few songs from friends’ mixtapes as we did in those days), never went to a concert or watched one on TV, and never bashed those who were fans, either.

Still, somehow he was a constant in the cultural background of my lifetime. I had nothing to do with him, he had nothing to do with my life, but somewhere on the planet he existed, and as everybody knew about him, it seemed that he kind of belonged there. Like the pope, or the Chancellor (when I was younger, I thought it was natural that Helmut Kohl should be chancellor; for the first 15 years of my life, “Chancellor” and “Kohl” were inseperable terms. Just like it felt somehow weird when John Paul II died - I'm not even Catholic, but there'd always been John Paul II somewhere in the cultural set-up of the world!). Or maybe a “real” king, for those living (or roleplaying) in monarchies: It’s an almost abstract figure, it has nothing to do with oneself, but it exists, and is somehow taken for granted. Doesn’t matter whether one likes or hates them, doesn’t matter whether one doesn’t hear about them for years: They’re there, and if they weren’t, there’d be some kind of pope-shaped hole in the world that had to be filled (and fast) before there was chaos. They don’t even have to do anything, as long as everybody knows they’re there somewhere.

And thus, because now suddenly there’s a Michael Jackson-shaped hole in the universe and I doubt it’s the kind of job that gets handed on to some other poor creature (habemus regem musicae popularis?), you see me writing about Michael Jackson. Which is rather ironic, because these my three LJ entries (as the Hebrew saying goes) on Michael Jackson - the first, the only and the last – were triggered by, of all things, the end of his life. I never thought about Michael Jackson so much before! (But then you rarely think about money either unless you've got none...)

I expect in a few years’ time he’ll have been placed away among the aliens, where the King of Rock’n’Roll and the King of Pop will lead an epic musical battle in a far-off galaxy. Or something.

Rest in Peace.
…
‘nuff weirdness. Back to work.

Comments

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with this and my own feelings are much the same - he was such a staple of daily life: milk in the fridge, a tin of beans in the cupboard, and Michael Jackson in the media. It's almost disorienting to know he won't be there any more. That's going to be one very big hole he leaves, I think.

[yoodi.livejournal.com]

I agree with you and Oloriel. It's like.... some sort of constant is gone.
What will all the people make jokes about, for example?

*scratchhead*

On the other hand, I am wondering when the first shouts of "he lives!" will come up.