Diary of a Low Budget Superhero

Well, it's been a few days since we lost Michael Jackson. I find that I'm not able to let it go. His death marks a cultural milestone of some kind that I can't quite get past. I know, I know, people die all the time, but losing Michael is like coming to terms with my own aging, my own generation's march towards irrelevance. I grew up on the Jackson 5 and Motown. I was a baby when they were on Soul Train (which my parents watched every single week without fail) and I was a tot when they had their cartoon. We LOVED the Jackson 5 cartoon. I was 13 when we excitedly gathered around the TV for Motown 25. We taped it...VHS doncha know...and watched it a hundred times.

Follow up:

We had Off the Wall on vinyl, we played Thriller until it warped. OH how we practiced and practiced the moonwalk. My brother is actually a really good dancer...the boy could move, he had a lot of those Michael Jackson dance moves nailed. Heh...if only we had a video camera.

I owned a single silver glove. I remember my asshole grandfather making fun of me for it. I had a big poster on my bedroom wall of Michael in a butter yellow sweater vest and Dockers. This was before he went batshit crazy. He'd had a single forgivable nosejob, and was still cute. He hadn't started to look like a cartoon version of La Toya, hadn't straightened his hair, hadn't gotten the cleft chin or the wide outlined eyes. He hadn't bought the Elephant Man bones or a chimp or a llama or the Beatles. He was just this awesome pop star.

My mother must be pretty upset. She loves Michael Jackson. When John Lennon died she went to the memorial in Central Park, and she started a gigantic scrapbook collecting every single magazine cover, newspaper article and pulp zine published. The 80s version of a tribute website, now that I think about it. I wonder if she's doing the same thing right now.

Motown 25 was a special night in our house. The original Jackson 5 doing a medley and Michael moonwalking to "Billie Jean" just about defined the front half of the decade.

I don't know what it must have been like to be Michael Jackson, growing up in the public eye...and then dealing with fans turning on him when the wheels came off the wagon. That weird Lisa Marie marriage, that hard to watch TV kiss they staged, the Webster era, the collapse of his entire face...tragic, all tragic.

Now he's actually gone and died.

THIS is how I'll always remember Michael Jackson.