King Jester

The end of the first full week of '09 was celebrated with a blast to the past: a Michael Jackson dorkasm.

Adri and I watched his "Live in Bucharest" DVD, a stop on his "Dangerous" tour. God, this guy is an anomaly. He was the biggest pop star in the world, almost to the point of actually being bigger than Jesus to some, and then he becomes one of the most shunned figures in the public eye. He's still loved, but only retrospectively.

We all break out his classics around the time of fall. "Thriller" is heard in bars, dance clubs, radio stations for the two weeks surrounding Halloween to an almost unbearable degree (I can't stand that song anymore). But then I tend to hear a lot of his older songs around that time as well. Almost all of the time the songs are either from "Thriller" or "Off the Wall". Nevermind "Bad", "Dangerous", or (shudder) "Invincible".

Okay, maybe "The Way You Make Me Feel" is heard, which is from "Bad". But my point is everyone still goes apeshit for this guy. With good reason! He's just so fucking epic. The reason the actual MAN is seen as complete fodder, I think, is that he showed the world that epic martyrs CAN fail. Throughout the 90's, we saw a yearly descension. Epic to awesome, awesome to cool, cool to good, good to alright, alright to eh, eh to holy crap. Because of the child mongering? Because of his bankruptcy? Because of the obvious and non-creative messages throughout his later CD's (I empathize with "Heal the World" and that "Lost Children" song, but in terms of artistic crass? Thhppppp!!!!)?

If Whacko Jacko came back on the scene with something like "Epic but Mortal", we'd eat that up. The music he put out all of his life merits our forgiveness, and I think most people would forgive him for his 90's and 2000's failures. If he keeps it cool, about love, about relationships, about dancing the night away, and not about hokey save the children and the world and have peace on earth bullshit -- he could reclaim the throne for King of Pop. This guy actually left his live stage shows by flying a real jetpack rocket contraption over the crowd and behind the stage. That is the definition of EPIC. And no one can be as EPIC as he was at those moments (no, not even Freddie Mercury).

We're ready to forgive. There are no more megastars in pop. We want the real King of Pop to return. Apparently, the current King of Pop has his dick in a box, for Christ's sake!



Q-Tip -- "Move"