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Unplugged when Michael died
I was unplugged in the Valley when Michael Jackson died: no Internet, no TV, no cell phone, no NPR, no newspaper.
I was an adult sponsor of a church youth group mission trip last week to San Juan, TX, a bedroom community of McAllen. We worked with a small church, Iglesia Menonita Buenas Nueves - helping build a fence, removing tile from a workroom floor, clearing trash, helping a Spanish-speaking family with home repair, etc.
A week unplugged and, yes, life went on.
We found out about Jackson’s death through a youth minister’s iPhone and its Web connection, followed by CNN headlines that night on a restaurant’s TV sets. Reaction in our group was mixed: Some were saddened by the news, appreciating Jackson for his singing and musical gifts; others thought him a pervert, a freak or a figure whose fame rested with an earlier generation, not theirs.
Count me among the saddened. The Jackson Five were a musical strand in my school days and the songs from his Thriller era were landmarks in music videos, revitalizing pop dancing that had stagnated in the dying days of disco. Despite sporadic tries over the last 30 years, I still can’t moonwalk.
I saw Michael and his brothers perform in Dallas during their Victory tour in the late ’80s, even if the audience mania was more entertaining than the concert. Almost all I knew of him came through TV and radio, two media that he learned how to use well.
At the same time, I was saddened how his personal life became such a train wreck and wonder if the millions of us who bought his albums and attended his concerts contributed to the success that crushed his happiness rather than enabled it.
Being unplugged in the days after his death, I missed the incessant media coverage and tributes - and the reinforcing loop that deepens our emotional response to celebrity deaths and world events. Because Jackson’s gift was music, an art that touches us emotionally, the replay of the songs that served as background to our school days, our first relationships and our friendships rubbed those feelings into our thoughts of his death. Jackson, like Elvis and Lady Diana, will be magnified by his death.
I wonder, too, if Jackson will be the last music superstar we mourn in such a way. Will the deaths of Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger or Bob Dylan trigger similar popular grieving? With the music industry’s star-making machinery stumbling in today’s digital music era, will we see any future entertainer with his global reach? Would Jackson have become internationally known if he had had to build his fan base through MySpace, YouTube and Facebook, the way many contemporary bands are doing?
Just some thoughts after his death - a consequence, perhaps, of being unplugged.
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By David
June 29, 2009 2:54 PM | Link to this | Report comment abuse
I tend to think MJ was not guilty of the molestation charges. After hearing about his beyond screwed up childhood leading directly into being a child star, he never had a childhood and thus never really grew up in a normal sense. From a very young age he was living in a bizzaro alternate universe where he was simultaneously exalted and victimized.
As a result, he ended up the bizzare adult we got. Someone with profound psychological issues manifesting in creating his own private theme park, odd relationships with kids and chimps, and endless plastic surgeries.
He had a tremendous talent. I tend to think if he had a more reasonable childhood and not starting his music career until at least his teens might have resulted in a more “balanced” adult.
The upshot for his memory is from now on when MJ’s music is mentioned he will now be the “skinny Elvis”…. ie pictures from the heyday of the 80s back when he was still black and resembled a human.