Within a little under a two-week period the world of entertainment, politics, and sport has lost several luminaries: announcer and Carson sidekick Ed McMahon, actress Farrah Fawcett, actor Harve Presnell, comic actress Gale Storm, Academy Award-winner Karl Malden, product spokesperson Billy Mays, and former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.
However, the bulk of the media coverage has been centered on the reported “King of Pop,” Michael Jackson.
Since Jackson’s sudden death at age 50 on June 25, the major – as well as minor – media has had non-stop coverage of everything from the singer’s childhood to his stratospheric rise to the heights of musical stardom to his personality “quirks” that were the fodder of the tabloids. And there seems to no immediate end to the “Jackson-mania” as fans and collectors are scooping up anything with his name on it or associated with the late entertainer.
As one who is just five years older than MJ, I grew up with his music and bought my share of 45’s recorded by him and his brothers as The Jackson Five as well as the singles and albums that he made as a solo artist. “ABC,” “The Love You Save,” “Ben,” and “I’ll Be There” were the songs that I danced and listened to while in junior high and high school.
I “graduated” with Michael as he, like all in his generation, matured, got older, and branched off on his own, declaring his own musical independence by releasing, as well as making history, with the albums “Off the Wall,” “Bad,” Dangerous,” and the monumentally successful “Thriller.”
Of course, I, too, followed the eccentricities that included Bubbles the chimp, Neverland, the “sleepovers,” the changes in his physical appearance, the “marriage” to Lisa Marie Presley, the dangling of “Blanket” over the balcony, and his friendship with Elizabeth Taylor who was twenty-seven years his senior.
Yes, I was there watching the tube when the trial on sexual molestation charges leveled against Jackson was the lead-in story on the likes of Inside Edition and Entertainment Tonight.
But, the singer’s “faults,” depending on how one looks at them, should not take precedence over his accomplishments. No other entertainer in recent memory has had such an impact on popular culture as has the Gary, Indiana native, not Frank, not Marilyn, not the Beatles, not Madonna, and not even Elvis.
I am sure that in some of the more remote parts of the world there are some individuals of whom MJ is as alien as a visitor from Mars but these are few and far between. I am basing that assertion on the global reaction to his passing,
“The King of Pop” is no more and his likeness won’t be seen for any time soon.
Well, his likeness will be eligible for a commemorative postage stamp in 2019.
Hey, I waited for the Lucille Ball stamp when it came out in ’99, a decade after she went to that big television studio in the sky.
If I may borrow from one of Michael’s hits, “I’ll Be There,” standing in line to get the MJ stamp when the postal service issues it.
Just a little over a month ago, I went to the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta. The collection of aquatic life is impressive and the facility shows the creatures in the most realistic setting possible, allowing visitors an opportunity that they would not get unless they were explorers of the oceans' depths.
