As if to prove the urban legend that celebrity deaths happen in threes, you get weeks like this one. Tuesday it was Ed McMahon, early Thursday morning it was Farah Fawcett and now just about 12 hours ago, the King of Pop, Michael Jackson.Of course, Michael's death overshadows both of the others in the eyes of the media. For better or worse, the gauge of one's fame can easily be measured by the amount of play-time you get on the TV, Internet, radio and print media outlets when you die. And, even though it's still very early, it looks like Michael will get coverage rivaling, if not surpassing that of either Elvis or John Lennon.
Simple proof of his uber-fame? If I say "music" and then say "Michael", who are you gonna think of? Who else could take what I believe is the second or third most common male first name for the late baby boomer generation in the Western world, possessed by millions (myself, of course, included) and make it so indelibly attached to his own person when one spoke of the world of entertainment?
Do you need another measure of his unfathomable popularity? Though I have no idea what the viewership numbers were before tonight for clips of him in concert on YouTube, right now, at less than 9 hours since the breaking news of his untimely death hit the world, the video of one of his biggest hits "Thriller" has 37,081,281 views. An hour ago it was around 35 million. 2 million views in an hour. In the wee hours of the morning USA Eastern time.
As a young kid, I became aware of the music of Michael and his brothers through the enthusiasm of my father. My dad, usually stuck in the '50s and early '60s with his musical affections loved the funky music of the Jackson 5 and played it often. We would gather as a family in front of the living room TV, adjusting the rabbit ear antennas to be able to clearly see the talented young black quintet do their jive thing on the stage. They were the sound of the new decade of the 1970s.
In the late '70s and early '80s "Off The Wall" and it's party-friendly, disco-influenced tunes greeted my awakening gay awareness and spoke to my ability to find joy in my newfound identity.
The irresistible dance beats in this album and then "Thriller" defined the style of music not only in the gay dance clubs I was now frequenting regularly each weekend, but filled the air whenever you turned on the radio or tuned into the new and super-popular music video channel, MTV.
Let's face it, Michael MADE MTV the media icon it would become in the '80s. He broke the "black ceiling" for artists of color and paved the way for the eventual rise of R&B, hip-hop and rap for not just African American fans, but people of all races and creeds.
While in sculpture class in 1983, I created a 15-inch tall papier mache figurine of Michael in his signature red and black band major uniform with gold sash and single white sequined glove. I wasn't very satisfied with its technical construction as it turned out to be a bit more difficult to execute than I'd originally thought, the rest of the class, including the instructor applauded the subject matter and ingenuity. Everyone loved Michael.
When I went to what was then West Germany in 1985, I got in my rented Volkswagen, and as I drove down the autobahn I turned on the radio. Though I expected to hear either German Oompa-band music or classical tunes from the likes of Beethoven or Mozart, instead I was greeted by the strains of the very same music I could hear back in the States...songs like "Billie Jean" and "Beat It". It felt like I was back home. More importantly, I knew that for all intents and purposes, Michael had insured that American pop culture was now universal.
Much press followed Michael's eccentricities over the following years but I remained a loyal fan. I don't take the molestation allegations as truth. I fully believe Michael was an asexual being who preferred to love rather than lust. His affection for children was genuine and I think some of his affections towards them were misinterpreted and then exploited by a population of over-worried, suspicious and perhaps greedy individuals.
In closing, let me say that I think that it's so sad that we humans seem to only express our deepest love and appreciation for one another once the loved one has died. If only we could celebrate one's life and their impact to our own while they are still alive. That's the really sad part of dying.
Here's what is arguably my favorite song by Michael. It's sung about a rat, but couldn't that rodent be anyone who has felt ostracized or left out? Couldn't it be about any one of us?