Look, I’m Sorry He Died – But WTF Is Wrong With Our Priorities?

I’ll be the first to admit I have never been a Michael Jackson fan. I thought the “Thriller” video was cool at first just because of the premise – a zombie music video! – but after the 255,795,234th time I saw the stupid thing on MTV and/or heard the stupid song on the radio, I pretty much hated it due to relentless overexposure. The rest of his music I just found overblown, self-indulgent, and laughable by turns (Remember Michael singing “Bad” and mock-fighting with garishly-clad “gangsters” in some kind of West Side Story-esque dance off? Please. The entire idea of him as a badass was just stupid.).

Nevertheless, I recognize that despite my personal tastes running more toward Echo and the Bunnymen and The Sisters of Mercy than the King of Pop, Michael Jackson had a sizeable influence on music whether I like it or not. I can respect that he was talented even if I loathed his music. I can also empathize withthe reality that he was thrown into stardom as a child by a controlling and abusive father, he grew up in a fishbowl and never got to experience the normal kid things most of us average nobodies take for granted – summer vacations barefoot with our friends, backyard barbecues with the neighbors, camping, school dances, enjoying, or at least enduring, that first kiss, first date, first time we made a giant ass out of ourselves without being filmed by 378 paparazzi. I can imagine that the unrelenting scrutiny in every area of his adult life, the constant torment by the tabloids, the estrangement from his family and the real world, the faltering of his once-massive career would drive him further into the arms of whatever demons lived inside him. I can see how it must have all combined into the perfect storm that drove him into what he became in his later years – a continuously disintegrating parody of himself; a confused, increasingly eccentric, sad and lonely recluse who made bad choices in many areas of his life.

He was also a father, and regardless of how I feel about the circumstances in which that occurred, or his abilities as a parent, the reality is, his children are devastated right now. I feel desperately sad for them, these three children who will also never be allowed to have a normal life and who have now lost the only parent they were ever allowed to have.

Having said all of that, when I see the never-ending coverage of the planned memorial in L.A., which is expected to surpass the ‘84 Olympics for attendance by some estimates, I feel bewildered. When I see coverage of fans literally sobbing in the streets because they did or did not get a ticket to the memorial, or because they are personally devastated by his death, I feel impatient. When I pull up CNN and 95% of the Top Stories concern the Michael Jackson memorial, which true to form is set to become just another overblown circus, I feel angry.

This is our priority as a nation? This is all we’ve got? 

Michael Jackson was not a saint. He was not a hero. He was a gifted performer with extraordinary success in decades gone by, and a bizarrely behaving celebrity with a troubled past more recently. Yet his death has seemed to make many people, and particularly the media, feel like he somehow deserves this continuing accolade, this ongoing worship as though his presence was some sort of gift that we will now be forever and tragically lacking.

I don’t begrudge his fans the opportunity to pay homage to an idol – nor am I hard hearted enough to suggest that Jackson shouldn’t be remembered at all. What I am suggesting is that while we are being force-fed MJ coverage around the clock like geese who are destined to offer up their livers to the gods of foie gras, there are other people, people making real sacrifices for us all, who are literally giving their lives and being overlooked.

Seven U.S. soldiers died in Afghanistan yesterday. That’s seven more families who will be getting the news that their loved ones will not be coming home safe and sound. Seven soldiers fighting in a war far away from home, who actually took a vow to serve our country and lived up to it, and who are now coming back in boxes, got less than 30 seconds of coverage on the national news last night, bumped in favor of the hoopla of the Jackson memorial.

That is disgraceful.

Where are the packed memorials for these fallen soldiers? 

As a large part of  the media obsesses over whether Jackson’s son will sing at the service, I find myself disillusioned. It seems like we as a society are increasingly focused on the sensational, the tawdry pieces of cheap glitter that make up the flotsam of the flea circus we’re being told is important, nay, essential information. Don’t worry about that silly war, ha ha! Look here, look at the shiny beads! I realize it gets depressing to be constantly barraged with what’s wrong in the world, but to be constantly deflected into investing so much time and energy into minutitiae that, in the grand scheme of things, really aren’t going to affect the lives of us or our children, seems utterly foolish.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – we need to stop watching Nero fiddle while our version of Rome burns around us. Unless we wake up and figure out how to fix the problems that DO affect us, really affect us, we may very well wake up one morning and find out that we know exactly where we and all of our friends were when Michael Jackson died, but we have no idea how we’re going to feed our kids this week because of widespread famine and food rioting.

And then it really won’t matter if we have that Michael Jackson Memorial Service Video with 25 million hits in our youTube account, will it?