I suppose every other blogger in the world is writing something about Michael Jackson right now, and why should I be any different. But I'd like to think that I'm taking a somewhat different approach. Rather than focusing on blah blah blah no matter what you thought he was an influential icon blah blah blah, I'd like to share some thoughts about what kind of impact that his death (note I didn't say "tragic" or "early" or "unexpected", as I suspect these all may be disproven in weeks to come) will have on our popular culture from this point forward.
Not that I'm an expert on popular culture. But in this case, I happen to have written a novel (okay, technically two, but in my mind and heart it will always be one) about celebrity and popular culture, and even though nobody read it, I still feel obligated to expound here. So bear with me. Or go top your coffee off, because this should be over quickly.
The Coffee Shop Observation. If you want to know what's going on in America, where opinion's at, what the
populi is
voxing, go into a coffee shop or doughnut shop early in the morning and listen to the bunches of older folks gathered around a table commenting on the previous night's news. I'd have given up doughnuts long ago had I not discovered that there's a lively crowd at the mom and pop chain that I stop at once every week or two.
However, this morning there was a crowd of populi at a Starbucks that I rarely go to - but my wife was driving this morning and goes her own way, as the song says, so that's where I went for this morning's Frappuccino. It surprised me to see a bunch of boomers in there conversing, but there they were, and as the conversation about Shaq coming to Cleveland petered out, someone said, "How about Michael Jackson?"
Someone else said. "Yeah. All that money sure didn't help him, huh?"
Then they started in on a more interesting and long-lived subject: Farrah Fawcett.
Mood in America: Outside of Newscasters with ratings to earn and that ever-shrinking base of fans who believed that MJ was pure as the driven snow, MJ interest is tepid at best. "What? He died? He was young, wasn't he? Hmmm. Now what did the Cavs give up to get Shaq?"
1. The Joke Question. I don't know about other countries and their cultures, but part of the way Americans deal with tragedy is to laugh at it.
It's true. I was in a blue collar job earning college money on the day Elvis died, and I remember when I head the news. It was the end of the day and I was sitting with rest of The Crew, as we were called, doing our traditional thing of spending the last 15 minutes of the day eating sunflower seeds and drinking Coke. The announcer on the local radio station came on and breathlessly annonced that the King of Rock and Roll had died. And most of the guys in the crew broke out laughing.
That was an odd, surreal moment. And it was my first close-up look at that cultural phenomenon. There's something about the American psyche that requires humor to heal ("What kind of wood doesn't float? Natalie Wood!" "What does NASA stand for? Need Another Seven Astronauts!").
So my question is, when the jokes begin, will they be a rehash of the ones that surfaced when Jackson was in the middle of the child molestation imbroglio, or will they mine cruel new territory? Part of me doesn't want to know the answer. Another part of me can't wait to find out.
And there's another part of the question: had Jackson not died, would we be getting Farrah jokes? And were she still around, would there have been Ed McMahon jokes? Or weren't they high profile enough to earn that?
12. The Elvis Question. Speaking of The King, I'm wondering how much of the remains of Jackson's fan base will go into hardcore denial once the smoke has been cleared and the remains have been disposed of. Will we start hearing rumors that Michael wanted to get away from it all and start life anew somewhere else? Hey, we know he was no stranger to facial plastic surgery...
Will there be Michael Jackson sightings? Will there be rumors of a surprise comeback in, oh let's say 2012 because that would give him two-and-a-half to recover, and according to the Mayan calendar the world is supposed to end then anyway
2 - it would be an appropriate sign of the apocalypse
3.
Note to the Jackson Family: If you know what's good for you, don't cremate. Make sure there is something left over for a future DNA test. And whatever you do, make sure that the name of the deceased is spelled correctly on the tombstone.
While I'm on the subject of Elvis. You know how it seems that Presley has put out more stuff dead than he did while he was alive? Look for that to happen with Michael Jackson. The reason is directly related to the next question...
3. The Survivors Question. My final question - or is it actually a third observation - deals with interesting times ahead (in the Chinese sense) for the Jackson family. And no, I'm not talking about the three children Michael leaves behind - although part of me says that, at this particular juncture, they may actually be the three luckiest children on the planet.
I'm talking about Michael's sibs - LaToyah, Jermain, Marlon, Nip, Bink, Tuck, Hoover, and Frito - whatever their names were. All of them except perhaps Janet. What will happen to them in the wake of Michael's death?
See, even though he was technically broke, people kept putting money into Michael's coffers, largely because of his potential income - which was mostly an unrealized income given Michael's latter-day record of putting together money-making projects and then busting out of them (his London comeback shows were shaping up to be that way big time - apparently MJ had attended only two of the 45 rehearsals that were held up to yesterday). This in mind, it's sad to note that of all of Jackson's "potential income", the most lucrative thing in his possession is probably his ownership of the catalog of Beatles songs.
Anyway, Michael had a steady income from ill-advised investors that made him the big moneymaker in the Jackson family. Because of this position, rumors were always rife that Michael used money as a bludgeon to keep his sibs under his thumb, going so far as to put them on salary so their show-biz aspirations didn't upstage his own.
Bizarre, if true. So don't be surprised if the following months bring odd news from the ranks of the Jackson family. And if Bilbo and Frodo suddenly become famous again, then maybe there was something behind all of those weird rumors.
The Self-Proclaimed Title Observation This is just something I want to get off my chest. You might have noticed that not once in this entry have I referred to Jackson as "the King of Pop." I will never refer to Jackson as the King of Pop. Ever. First of all, it sounds silly to my writer's ear. It's attaching an inflated title to something of little or no substance. Think about it. That title is about as substantive as saying that you're the Shah of Cotton Candy.
Besides, I have no respect for that title because he didn't earn it.
I'm serious. If you recall, he issued a press release bestowing the title upon himself. Apparently he couldn't wait for his adoring fans to come up with a title for him like Elvis' fans did for him. I mean, c'mon. The Beatles never held a press conference declaring themselves to be the Royal Family of Rock and Roll
4, right?
In my book, you don't write titles for yourself (something our elected officials might want to make note of). If someone else wants to dub you something, fine. You thank them, then you don't mention it yourself. You don't go giving yourself accolades just because you think somehow you deserve them. We don't deserve anything in this life. Just this little thing I have with a concept called humility.
One Bonus Prediction. In days to come, Michael Jackson's death will be revealed to be not all it was initially reported. Shocking or saddening revelations will follow, along with a lot of finger-pointing by various factions. And the press will eat it up, because they've got to have something to fill their time with, and they sure ain't gonna comment on the President's bumbling. No special insight here on my part. I'm just sayin'.
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- As I go to post this, one has surfaced on Facebook this morning: "Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett. Two white women in one day!" I call that a twofer.
- I don't know what allegedly gave the Mayans special insight as to when the world will end. Those who say they are "experts" say that it is because the Mayan calendar ends in 2012. Funny, I thought it ended then because that's when they ran out of room on the rock they carved it in. Hey, my desk calendar ends in December. Does that mean there's no 2010?
- Remember, the world was supposed to end as the calendar flipped from 1999 to 2000 (c.f. Prince) - and 2000 was supposed to be the year Elvis made his back-from-the-dead comeback (because his shows always began with the "Theme from 2001" - never mind that this was not actually the name of that particular piece of music).
- Although John apparently declared that Paul was the Walrus. Or something like that.
So I'm currently reading
Driving Like Crazy, the newest book by
P.J. O'Rourke, the funniest man in the world
1. In one of the later chapters in this book, which is a collection of his automotive writing, he refers to a young police officer who tickets him for speeding as a "Twerp."
And the word sent me rocketing into the past, almost as if I hadn't seen or heard the word in 30 or 40 years. And maybe I haven't. After all, it's a faily mild invective, one that's almost quaint in an era where more and more of George Carlin's "Seven Words" can be said on television.
The memory that came rushing back was that of Little Twerp, our quaint name for one of the Playground Ladies when I was in 6th grade. The nickname came about because she was little, almost down to my size, which at that point in my life found me as traditionally The Smallest Kid In Class. You know, the one with the target painted on his back.
Anyway, Little Twerp had a craggy face and pre-Britain's-Got-Talent
Susan Boyle hair, a stocky frame, and a voice that could peel paint, especially when she yelled "All right people, up on the playground!" when recess was over. It was a voice that carried for blocks and earned noise complaints from bowling alleys and the airport. It was also widely imitated by my group of friends, and most of us could gravel up our voices in a fair imitation, this in the years before Monty Python's Pepperpot Ladies.
But we always obeyed because we were afraid of her.
The whole reason I'm telling you about Little Twerp now is because I just realized, after all this time, that even though she spent her time herding us off the playground, she treated us with respect - she said, "All right
people", not "All right boys and girls". Something in retrospect that becomes important later, even though I doubt most of us would have been considered civilized enough to be "people" for at least another decade. But she did it consistently, every day, sun or snow.
I suspect she's gone now, but this is my nod to a woman whose name I never knew, someone who did her job and whose influence, like that of some of those rare memorable teachers we encounter in our lives, would not be felt - or even fully comprehended until years later.
So I tip my hat to you, LT. And I hope that Gillette Junior High has someone like you prowling the schoolground as I write this, making sure that people stay in line, smile, and play nice.
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- At one point, Bantam Books asked me to come up with a list of people they should send Ferman's Devils to with an eye toward getting a blurb , and the top name on my list was O'Rourke. Nobody on the list responded, but O'Rourke had his wife call me to thank me for thinking of him - he was literally on the way to some foreign country when the request came in, and wouldn't have time to read the book. Funny, and a nice guy.
Some of my Facebook friends have recently posted some Father's Day thoughts that were more ache than memory - accounts of absentee fathers, dads who were never there, dads who didn't care. It makes me realize all the more how blessed I was to have the father I had for the time that I had him.
This isn't to one-up my friends who have father issues. I hurt for them because I was blessed with one of the good dads, and wish I could have shared him. I guess I'm writing this to inspire the rest of you to think about your fathers. If they have a list like this coming, perhaps it's time you made one. And most importantly, if they're still around, perhaps it's time to share it with him.
1) My dad dropped out of high school. I didn't know this until after he died - he kept it a secret from me, and rightly so, I suspect. It explains a lot about how he spent his life, always seeking to learn new things. He taught himself calligraphy, how to brew beer, and even invented his own chili recipe. He did dozens of other things, too, all with only the help of books from the public library.
2) My dad was a great carpenter. When I was a junior high brat, we went to one of those tourist trap shacks where the gravity is supposedly screwed up. They showed us a two by four full of nails, most of which had been bent during hammering. The tour guide said, "I'll bet you can't drive a nail straight. It's because of the gravity." I tried and the nail bent right over. Then my dad took the hammer. After the third nail sank in the wood up to the head, the tour guide suddenly said, "And over in this next room, we have..." That was one of those cool moments where I thought my dad could do anything in the world. And I think of him every time I try to nail two boards together and they end up out of plumb.
3) When I was in first grade or so, I sent off some money to a kid's magazine and got a kit to make my dad a present for Father's Day. It was in the shape of a medal, only big - about ten inches long and four across, with all sorts of fake jewels set into it and a large cardboard piece that said, "WORLD'S GREATEST DAD". He said he liked it so much he was going to wear it when he went golfing with one of his clients. When he got back that evening, he had a huge smile on his face as he told me, "There wasn't one other daddy on the golf course that had one of these." When I looked at the medal, it was dirty and worn and some of the fake jewels had fallen off. And that meant the world to me because I knew he had actually worn it, on the golf course, all day long.
4) I think my dad wondered what to do with me sometimes. I remember him trying to teach me things like how to golf and bat, but it turned out that even though I'm right handed, I do many things left handed, and they didn't have left handed kid golf clubs back then. I was physically inept, and not much of a carpenter, but at least I paid attention when I helped him build stuff. He supported me in the things I turned out to be good at - he sat through plays when I had a bit part as a window cleaner; he admired the trophies I brought home from the speech team; and he read all the science fiction novels he lived to see, and commented on them, even though I knew he hated science fiction and would rather have been reading a western.
5) My dad could read a book, watch a football game on TV, and listen to a high school football game via a transistor radio plugged into one ear. And at any given time, he could tell you what was happening in any given one.
6) The tube on the TV might spend months fading into oblivion... but we always managed to get a new set in time for football season.
7) I laugh at things nobody else thinks are funny. My wife has gotten used to having this happen in public places. I inherited this from my dad. One time he came to see me in another play (I had a bigger role this time) and one of the lines really set him off. He laughed for the next ten minutes, upstaging everyone in the cast. "Who is that guy laughing out there?" the director moaned. "It's my dad," I confessed. But secretly it made me very happy.
8) I learned to be a good husband from my dad. He always made sure that he maintained an exclusive relationship with my mother, even though they had kids. They would always go out to dinner together at least once a month. When I got old enough, they would buy me a steak at the grocery store and I would cook it myself while they went out to dinner. That was a big deal for me. Dad would hold hands with mom when we went places together. He'd also buy her clothes for Christmas and Birthdays. I'd do that for my wife, but I have absolutely no eye for color. That's what gift certificates are for.
9) My parents met on a train when he was a soldier during World War II. If that sounds romantic, it was, although crafty person that he was, he sort of engineered it. Theirs was a storybook meeting and courtship, accomplished mostly through writing letters and the occasional rare phone call.
10) My dad was an ordinance officer in World War II. He taught other people how to blow things up.
11) In a politically incorrect sort of way, I owe my life to the Atom Bomb. After VE day, America began to gear up for the invasion of Japan. My dad was pulled from ordinance duty and trained to be a tailgunner on a B-24. Not an enviable place to be. He got his orders to fight in the Pacific and got on the train to ship out. When he got off the train at his destination, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was in all the headlines. The war was over.
12) My dad had this odd way of whistling when he was working with his hands. He'd blow air between his teeth and tongue, and it would come out not so much a full blown whistle as a musical sort of hiss with some whistleish overtones. I catch myself doing that sometimes. I suspect I do it more that I realize.
13) My dad died 6 weeks before my daughter was born and The Company Man was published. But he'd read the book, and Desperate Measures as well, the former in galleys and the latter in manuscript form. I knew that his time was probably short, and wanted to make sure he knew that this writing thing of mine wasn't a one-shot deal.
14) My dad died at age 66, thanks in part to smoking. I figure I'm owed 10 years somehow. But it's funny - even though he could be considered a cigarette casualty, I'm still libertarian when it comes to smoking. After all, no amount of money is going to give me that 10 years, and it would be an insult to my dad to deign to put a price on them.
15) My parents were close friends with a couple who were known for their warring ways. The oldest son of that couple once told someone, "I wish that Charlie Faust had been my father." I can think of no higher honor for a man, and as a result, I've always tried to treat other people's children with respect. No easy feat for me, since one of my claims to fame is that I don't have much use for kids other than my own.
16) I still miss my dad. Every day.
Maybe I'll do one of these about my mom for Mother's Day. But be patient, it might take me a couple of years. That wound is still pretty fresh.
