.
the only interesting reaction i've heard to michael jackson's death is the first one--when a secretary burst into into the break room yesterday with the news that he'd been rushed to the hospital in terminal cardiac arrest, the co-worker i was talking to said, "gee, i hope it's not a children's hospital."
it's been downhill from there.
for the past two days, i've heard all sorts of dumbass shit on the subject, the pinnacle of which was something a radio talk show host on kfi said today--something to the effect that "he was nothing more than a rich, talented pedophile; i'd gladly give a thousand michael jacksons for every american hero who's died in iraq or afghanistan."
really, mr. talk show host? tell me, who do you think's more important in the overall scheme of things--the genius who dreamed up the great pyramid, or any one of the thousands of anonymous guys who died building it?
another way of asking the question: can we really compare queen bees to worker bees, much less hold 'em to the same standards of behavior?
from the beginning of time, we humans have made gods of our best and brightest--and then, more often than not, watched all that collective adoration transform them into monsters--monsters who require a steady diet of human sacrifices in order to supply us with a steady stream of their magic.
so, was all the sheer, gorgeous talent the world managed to wring outta michael jackson before he flamed out worth the sacrifice of tossing him a boy every once in awhile?
i dunno--you tell me.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
I really liked young Michael in the days when the joy of performing was obvious and the desperate struggle to remain on top, to trump all the other pop stars all the time hadn't yet begun to turn him into a man who didn't know himself so completely that he bleached his beautiful skin to find some kind of identity.
And was Papa Jackson in reality another manifestation of Mama Rose?--a parent so crazed for stardom, even vicariously, that beating the boy until he got the routines perfect was worth the emotionally crippled adult addict?
Pop isn't particularly my music but there was something so shining and real about young Michael that I loved watching his performances; he's the one I regret and regret deeply. I'm not so sure that Michael died just the other day--I think large parts of him died along the way.
Michael's preference for the company of boys was weird - but I take him at his word that nothing happened. Is it possible that it's WE who think this is impossible, not Michael?
will: you always put the best possible face on any given set of facts--i sorta admire you for that.
jeaux: if i told you that your unmarried 50-year old neighbor--you know, the one who's not famous--had spent the last 30 years taking a steady stream of prepubescent boys into his bed for sleepovers, what would you think?
Thanks, Mike, but I sometimes worry that I've given a wrong impression somehow. You once commented that I might be a bit too innocent for your blog. I'm not really a goody two shoes; I have my own demons: emotional (from bring raised by an abusive father and a terminally alcoholic mother), and sexual, which I propitiate in a variety of ways. I survived my childhood and began rebuilding myself from the ground up in college and for two decades thereafter.
It's true that the man who emerged is a "glass half full" person. Accepting that I was gay saved me, with the enormous support of the daughters I adopted who didn't care with whom I slept as long as there was some happiness in my life, as there came to be.
As to my comments on Michael Jackson, I perhaps expressed myself unclearly, but I wonder if my belief that he died as a healthy person years ago due to a variety of pressures, addictions, and mental problems can be considered putting the best face on it.
This is NOT an angry retort, but intended to be an honest one, honesty being the quality of your own writing that I most admired since first finding guttermorality.
will: as i recall it, i once suggested you might be too healthy for this blog--a big difference, because you're far too seasoned and experienced in ways most of us childless gays couldn't even begin to understand for someone as savvy as me to ever brand you as innocent or naive.
the thing i tend to admire about you is that, unlike michael jackson (and, for that matter, myself), you didn't use the bad breaks of your childhood to excuse sub-par behavior as an adult; instead, you made a conscious choice (and did the hard work) to create a worthwhile, productive life for yourself in spite of your past.
if there's a flaw in your glass-half-full attitude, i would suggest that it lies in your charitable tendency to relax standards for others that you wouldn't for yourself--in this case, giving michael jackson a semi-pass because, due to his harsh childhood, parts of him "died along the way".
the hard truth is, michael jackson displayed a pattern throughout his life of fucking over people--breaking contracts, screwing employees outta wages, letting his zoo animals starve when he tired of them, diddling god only knows how many little boys--all for the sake of his own self-gratification.
you wanna minimize that because he got fucked over as a kid, go right ahead.
me? i'm a glass-half-empty guy, will--i'm gonna hold that narcissistic, self-indulgent bastard to no less than the same unwaveringly harsh standard to which i hold myself.
Post a Comment