All pallbearers should wear spangled gloves

Today marks the 81st anniversary of the creation of sliced bread also known as “The Greatest Day Ever.” Very seldom has an inventor had the chance to look down upon his creation and go, “There has never been anything greater than this in all of existence.” Only thing I can think of is the first guy who marketed hotcakes who got to say “These sales are unprecedented.”

I did watch a bit of the Michael Jackson memorial service at work. I was tempted to live blog it but the thought of losing my job because I live blogged Michael Jackson’s funeral was something that I didn’t want to tempt. Somehow I could not figure out a way to spin that one in future job interviews. “Why were you let go from your previous position?” “Apparently my company and I did not see eye to eye on how to act during the most critical cultural event of my lifetime.”

I also lost money on my bet that at some point during the ceremony that the casket would open and Michael would step out wearing his Thriller jacket and makeup and perform with a cast of zombies. It would have made wonderful television for the entire thing to be shown to be a promotional ploy for his concerts in London. That said, it wouldn’t surprise me that people in the crowd were prepared for the appearance of a zombie Michael Jackson. I have said it before and I will say it again, no matter where you find yourself you should always be able to answer the question “What would I do if there was an uprising of the living dead?”

The other topic that I have been requested to discuss is the whole Sarah Palin situation. In a way I have to give her credit for doing something that I have never seen a politician do before; especially one who seems to feel that she has a future in politics. Essentially she destroyed any possibility of running for higher office in the future by this move. All anyone would have to do to counter her campaign is run an ad stating “She quit on the people of Alaska when things got tough. What makes you think she would not do the same again?” Instant campaign killer. And no matter how she tries to spin it she is quitting. She is resigning from office with years left on her tenure for a rather poorly explained reason.

So why did she quit? I don’t buy into the whole rumor mill that she is resigning ahead of a scandal because given all of the investigations into her already you would think that it would have come up by now. I also don’t think that it was to run for president in 2012 because as I said, I can’t see how in the world she would win a campaign with half a term of governor as her history. My theory is this. I don’t think she liked being governor of Alaska and preferred being famous in her own right. Politics is nasty, dirty work and it sucks when you are on the wrong end of the stick as she is. So instead of being stuck in Juneau she has decided to leave office. Maybe we can give her the benefit of the doubt and say that she truly wants to spend time with her young child and grandchild. I also think she sees the fact that she can have a book deal and television show in nothing flat and make a lot more money for a lot less heartache.

It is going to be a great what if of history as to what her career would have been like if John McCain hadn’t called. My guess is that she would have been a successful multi-term governor working in obscurity. No one in the mainstream would ever have known that she existed. Maybe that would be better, maybe it would be worse.

The five random CDs for the week (which I have been forgetting to post):
1) The Neville Brothers “Live on Planet Earth”
2) Josh Ritter “The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter”
3) Freakwater “Springtime”
4) Sarah McLachlan “I Will Remember You”
5) Jump, Little Children “Vertigo”

Bubbles the Chimp could not be reached for comment

Did anyone else have a strange desire to be in the autopsy room when they worked on Michael Jackson? Now like most people who aren’t directly involved in either the medical or morticiary professions I prefer to keep as much distance between myself and cadavers as possible but this one would have to be fascinating. It would be like a real life case of Alien Autopsy. Certainly there is a lot of mystery as to the cause of death and what led up to it but the bigger mystery has always been just what did he do to himself over the years. Does he in fact have a nose? Can we prove once and for all just why his skin color changed? What was up with his hair anyway? This is probably the first autopsy where cause of death is one of the least important questions on the table.

Also, I love the fact that his three kids…let me hold up there for a moment. Michael Jackson had three kids? I knew that he theoretically had children and would occasionally dangle them out of windows but can you even comprehend the thought of Michael Jackson as a father? It seems so far out of the realm of possibility that the entire concept is meaningless. Anyway, the big push is for the kids to be given to Michael’s parents because we all know that Joe Jackson has always been a loving and caring father. You know, other than all of those alleged beatings and everything. Plus, if they were able to raise LaToya to be a fine and upstanding citizen I am sure that they can do the same for these three.

Since I am on a Michael Jackson kick I might as well go over something else that someone asked me today: whose death was more shocking and more meaningful: Lennon, Elvis or Michael Jackson. For shocking the answer is pretty simple in that it would be John Lennon. I know that it was nearly thirty years ago but the guy was murdered in front of his apartment building. No one anticipated it and while he wasn’t as much in the public spotlight from a musical perspective as Paul McCartney he was still important. After that I would go with Elvis and then with Michael Jackson. I say this mainly because a) we all know that Michael has not been the picture of health in recent years as most people don’t walk around in surgical masks at all times and b) up until last week no one gave a damn about what Michael Jackson was up to. Musically, Michael Jackson has been meaningless for at least fifteen years and his death, while shocking and sad, is not going to cause a major impact on the music world.

To be honest, the most shocking and significant death in terms of musical impact in my lifetime is that of Kurt Cobain. Here was someone in his musical prime who not only dies young but does it by taking his own life (unless you are more conspiracy minded and then Courtney Love may play a bigger role.) We lost all the music that he would have created but even more it marked the end of grunge and the end of the importance of Gen X as the cultural leader. We saw that our heroes were frail and no one rose to take up the banner. In a few years we were awash with the Spice Girls and boy bands and the entire musical landscape had changed. So when people talk about the impact of the events of last week remember what they are stacking up against.

The ending of pop culture eras

Well, I guess I won’t have to struggle for a blog topic tonight.

First off, I just want to say that the luckiest and unluckiest guy on the planet right now is the governor of South Carolina. He is lucky in that from this moment on no one is going to give a rat’s ass about him jetting off to Argentina to be with his mistress. It is now gone from the cultural zeitgeist. But man, if he could have just held off one more day for his press conference it would have been the best defusal of a scandal ever.

But I’ll start with the death of Farrah Fawcett. She holds an interesting place in pop culture history and one that I am only tangentially involved with. See, she was before my time. She left Charlie’s Angels when I was a wee lad of five and outside of reruns I never watched her episodes and no matter what I was too young to understand the jiggletastic wonder of the show. But for one moment in time she was the most desired woman on the planet if just for a television show, a poster and really, really good hair. That is probably the best definition of how huge she was. Every teenage boy had a poster of her in their bedroom and women everywhere went to the salon for the Farrah Fawcett look.

Her career did not age well. Yes, she did pull off some strong performances in made for TV movies but she never got past the 70’s bombshell phase. Every appearance harkened back to Charlie’s Angels, which is sad in a way. To have your entire life tied to one moment isn’t the healthiest way to live. I even find it tough to find a modern equivalent. Online people have said Pam Anderson or Jennifer Aniston but I tend to fall in the Jessica Simpson camp. She is someone who became famous but no one was ever quite sure why. We all knew that she had talent but that it was mainly her looks that carried the day. And no matter what happened we knew that she would remain in the headlines long after her mainstream popularity had vanished.

Then we have the more shocking death of Michael Jackson, which has completely usurped all of the coverage of Farrah’s death as well as the continuing unrest in Iran. There may never have been such an enigma in the mainstream of popular culture to the point that I am conflicted in writing about his death in any sort of personal way. Because I don’t know how to discuss it without speaking ill of the dead. Here you have one of the top music artists of all time and in the eighties and early nineties he was the man hands down whose later career became a parody of itself. On top of that you have antics that continued to make little sense: marrying Lisa Marie, dangling the baby from the window, and the plastic surgery that brought him to the point where not only did he not look like his former self but he scarcely looked human just to name a few. Then there are the allegations that were never proven in court but that make an all out media blitz mourning his death a bit unnerving.

So I will focus on his career. There is no one who exemplified the 80’s better than Michael Jackson. Thriller and Bad were the be all and end all of the era. Yes, it was the age of hair metal but every single person knew every song on those albums. They were that huge. We really were huddled around our TVs to see the premiere videos for Black or White (including the bizarre crotch grabbing on top of the car) and Remember the Time (look it’s Magic Johnson!) I had friends who looked forward to his performance at the Super Bowl halftime show. No matter how odd he was people cared about what he had to say.

I think the best way to look at his career is that he suffered from the tragedy of fame. It takes a certain type of personality to stand in front of the spotlight and accept the accolades and I don’t think Michael ever had it. He was raised to be a star almost from birth and as a result he had no grounding as an actual human being. If you switched him at birth with a child from another family in Gary he probably would have grown up to be a quiet, sensitive guy who sang in his church choir and kicked ass on the dance floor but he would never have tried to be famous. I think he spent most of his life trying to escape his fame and recapture the dream childhood that no one ever has. If there is a tragedy to this story that is it.