A look at the book: Goodbye, Billie Jean: The Meaning of Michael Jackson

By (O)CT(O)PUS

Here it is -- the anthology containing my article on Michael Jackson is now in print. You can hook a copy direct from the editor, details here, or you can order it from Amazon.com in a few weeks.

The article was discovered here at The Reaction.

(Cross-posted at The Swash Zone.)

The tsunami to come

By J. Thomas Duffy

Now, there may be other offers out there, but this is the first I have seen.

Laying on the sofa, veggin' out for a brief respite earlier today, a commercial popped on, pitching Michael Jackson Lithographs.



And the money line from it is this;

"... wearing a white suit, as pure as his heart ..."

Gag me!

And, you can get a "bonus" litho, of Michael shown in his "regal attire".

Guess, they need to cater to the freaks, as well ... Sort of, hit the span of fans ...

If this isn't the first, it surely is a sign of the tsunami of Jackson stuff to come ...


Bonus Jacko

Unconvicted Child Molester Summoned For His Judgement Day

Jacko Bombshell! ... Jackson Offers Embattled West To Be Mayor of Neverland ...Needs Experienced Help; 4-Year Contract, Regardless of Either Trial's Outcome



(Cross Posted at The Garlic)

Truth in Comics

By Creature


If it's Sunday, it's Truth in Comics.

An ink-the-aquarium special edition: What makes (O)CT(O)PUS livid

By (O)CT(O)PUS

(O) (O) MICHAEL JACKSON ON CNN (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) MICHAEL JACKSON ON MSNBC (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) ABC HAS MICHAEL JACKSON (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) CBS HAS MICHAEL JACKSON (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) BOUGHT A NEWSPAPER (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) JACKSON HERE (O) (O) (O) (O) JACKSON THERE (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) MICHAEL JACKSON EVERYWHERE (O) (O) (O) PLEASE! (O) (O) (O) (O) (O) ENOUGH ALREADY! (O) (O) (O) (O) NO MORE MICHAEL JACKSON NEWS !!!

(Cross-posted at The Swash Zone.)

A New York minute

By Creature

On the streets today I saw a person wearing a white glove in honor of MJ and another person wearing a green arm band in honor of the Iranian uprising. I'm not sure of the societal significance of the juxtaposition but I'm sure there is one (and I'd say it's not good).

Michael Jackson (1958-2009)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Well, what more is there to say? One of the genuine icons of our time, which says a lot about our time (more for bad than for good, I would argue), has died at the age of 50.

Like him or not, there is no denying Michael Jackson's significance in global popular culture. He was a star above stars, as outsized a celebrity as we have ever seen. He was an artist, I'll give him that, but he was so much more, and over the past twenty years or so his art, his music, receded further and further into the background, eclipsed by a life descending into sordid decay and the media frenzy that covered his salacious demise.

In this sense, he was one of the truly towering figures of our time -- and, speaking personally, one of the towering figures of my life. I was almost ten when Thriller came out -- and it was an event. I remember it well. It was right as I was growing up and into popular culture, as I was first listening to popular music in a serious way. The album was that touchstone that everyone needed to own, and I had my copy, and I listened to it, and loved it. "Beat It," "Billie Jean," "The Girl is Mine," "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" -- these were the soundtrack of my life for a time.

The love soon faded. In my Grade 6 class, a year later, everyone seemed to adore him but me. I had moved on, notably to The Police. For some reason, in my mind, you were either a fan of one or the other, and I preferred a far greater album, Synchronicity, to Thriller -- even now, Synchronicity holds up as some of the best music of the '80s, as music that transcends that musically appalling decade and continues to be relevant, whereas Thriller remains very much of that time, a remnant of a time that evokes embarrassing nostalgia, the '80s version of what the Bee Gees and Saturday Night Fever meant to the '70s.

Of course, Michael Jackson was far superior to the Bee Gees, and much of what he did was quite good -- even if I now find almost all of it to be awful. Thriller was solid, Bad had its moments (like "Man in the Mirror," "Dirty Diana," and "Smooth Criminal"), and there were what I thought were good songs elsewhere (like "Say Say Say," a duet with Paul McCartney that was once, I am almost ashamed to admit, one of my favourites.

Bad came out in 1987. By the time the terrible Dangerous came out -- and it was already his eighth solo album -- it was 1991, and he was already something of a joke, if not yet quite the freakshow that he would become. The rest, of course, is history, and it didn't go well. The music was nothing memorable, and it was Jackson's personal life, and alleged criminality, that took over. He was still an icon, bigger than ever, the mystery only heightening the appeal (to many, if certainly not to me), but he was an icon to be gawked at, sensationalist tabloid fodder, not to be admired.

I don't know what he did or didn't do, but what is clear, I think, is that he was, through it all, a child, a developmentally stunted human being. There was something he had lost as a child -- his innocence, perhaps, or even the entirety of a normal childhood -- and he was looking for it. It is easy to conclude that what he may have done was despicable -- and, again, who knows? -- and that he was a pathetic monster hiding behind a plastic mask and a life of abject weirdness, but, in the end, I think it just comes down to this: The life of Michael Jackson was a life of sadness, a life that evokes sadness (in me, at least, looking back, thinking about his decline and fall, and about the culture that enabled the arc of his star, from childhood stardom to global megastardom to final implosion).

And now it's over.