Michael Jackson

[I responded to a post on Jackson's death at The Blackboard -- ostensibly off-topic for a film noir board, but perhaps not.]

Someone pointed out that with the deaths of Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, and David Carradine, the Seventies Are Really Over.

You just know that the autopsy/toxicology is going to reveal that this is another Anna Nicole/Heath Ledger-type situation.

I've always felt that Jackson was distinctly over-rated. He made three super-slick, very popular albums (Off the Wall, Thriller, and Bad) between 20 and 30 years ago. I think a few of the songs are OK, but they don't hold up particularly well. His sister Janet's album Control might be a better album than any of Michael's. Of the Class of Summer 1958 (Jackson, Madonna, Prince, and me!), Madonna has had longer-lasting commercial instincts and a much less freakish life than Jackson, and Prince is a genius far above Jackson's league.

There is no question of Jackson's being a serial pederast -- Vanity Fair celebrity journalist (and Tim Russert's widow) Maureen Orth has been scathing on that point. He just kept buying his way out of it. And among the many other bizarre behaviors, the Frankenstein experiments he willingly had performed on his own face give me the shudders -- I've haven't been able to look at a photograph of Jackson for a long time without wanting to turn away in disgust.

He is the poster child for the sickness that is modern celebrity; compared to him, everyone else, with the possible exception of Elvis Presley (his father-in-law!), is a piker in that respect.