Musings (musings?) on the death of a pop star

So many people have written to me begging me for my opinion about Michael Jackson and his tragic demise that I felt I should appease their curiosity.

That statement was a blatant lie, by the way.

Two days before Michael Jackson died, Ella and I were singing "Man in the Mirror" (which was playing on the PA) in the children's department at K-Mart.

If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make a change, yey
Na na na, na na na, na na na no

This is a true story. So, as you can imagine, his death has floored me, left me bereft, confused, and struggling with my own mortality.

Another blatant lie. It was an odd coincidence, however.

(Michael- methinks you took your own lyrics a bit too seriously and literally. The "changing" parts, I mean. I mean in regards to the way you butchered your own face.)

I was satisfying my own curiosity today googling the results of Jackson's autopsy on the internet. The man, at his death, weighed 115 pounds and his stomach was completely empty except for pills. He had scars and needle wounds all over his body.

If he hadn't died, he would've made an excellent candidate to play the part of a zombie in the future "thriller" Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

I don't mean to be trite. The whole thing is sad, has been sad for a long time. I do say this, however. This was a man who lied in front of millions of people (just like I did at the beginning of this post! Minus the millions of people bit) about never getting plastic surgery. Did he genuinely believe that we would believe his nose and cheekbones became like that naturally?

If he lied about that, with no qualms, why should we have believed him when he said he never behaved inappropriately around the dozens of boys who stayed at his ranch?

For a moment, I would like to hearken back to the days of my youth, when I was a small fry at the elementary school #37 in the city of Rochester. At my school, there was a store, run by much older and wiser fifth graders, that sold supplies: pencils and what not. For a couple of years, all of my notepads donned the face of Jackson. The young, extremely popular, black Michael Jackson.

Weird how culture permeates our lives and infiltrates our memories whether we want it to or not. Jackson, to me, will always be associated with 2nd grade mathematics.

Those are my limited thoughts on that subject.

When John heard about Michael Jackson's death, by the way, he too expressed his morose, stating, "It's always sad when an elderly white woman dies."

Also, you will notice that I used the word "musings" in the title of my post. I think every blogger should use the word "musings" at least ONCE. Now that I've done it, hopefully I won't feel the need to do it again.