Michael Has Left The Building

If you wanted to pattern your death after someone, Elvis isn't exactly the best example I could think of. Yet, here we are, want to or not, hovering over every word of the L.A. coroner, analysing every detail of Michael Jackson's death, and the comparisons are uncanny. I suppose MJ wouldn't have had it any other way, had he had a choice in the matter.

We've gotten good at public sentiment when it comes to the early death of a celebrity. It's too bad I missed the hubbub over James Dean. The first I can remember (vaguely) was Marilyn Monroe. I was in, what, second grade at the time, and even I recall the media frenzy. Passing over the political deaths of the 1960's we all know so well, we had Otis and Janis and Jimi and then that great leap forward in public insanity surrounding Elvis in 1976.

I never understood that one. I always thought of Elvis as some sort of joke perpetrated on America by the redneck south. I mean, really... a semi-literate singer from nowhere who shook his hips, had a "jungle room," spent his money lavishly, shot his TV, and died on the toilet from too many drugs... a folk hero? Worthy of a postage stamp? Why should everyone get all shook up (pardon the pun) about the death of a celebrity so uncool the mere mention of his name incited laughter for more than a decade?

But suddenly, in death, Elvis was king once again. The women wailed at the gates to Graceland. The press swarmed. Priscilla, though divorced from the dork, became the low-rent version of Jackie Kennedy.

All that pales in comparison to what's going on now. The pop culture world has learned a lot about how to grieve. Thank Lady Diana for that one. Let's all troop down to MJ's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, or his rental house, or the hospital, or the family estate -- or all four -- and leave heaps of flowers and teddy bears. (Teddy bears? WTF.) Then, let's all sing songs like we did outside the Dakota where John Lennon was shot. Let's all cry for the TV camera, and tell the world what an inspiration Michael was. To pedophiles, I assume. And black men who want to be white. And wish to look like Elizabeth Taylor.

I'm even waiting for Elton John to rewrite "Candle in the Wind" again.

Was Michael Jackson talented? Sure. He was a good dancer, and singer. I think his "genius" should be really attributed to producers Barry Gordy and Quincy Jones, and the engineers and musicians who worked in the shadows while Jackson received all the credit. A good engineer could probably make even me sound good, when my recorded voice normally is akin to Kermit the Frog.

In a couple of weeks, once all of Jackson's employees are off payroll and the rent is due, we'll start seeing the exposes in the tabloids, on Entertainment Tonight, and in a few quickie books that are even now being prepared for the publisher, their authors burning the midnight oil this weekend, one eye cocked at the TV to capture the latest "news".

But, hey, it's the American way. In death, Michael is again King of Pop. He'd love the attention; you know he would.