“So, how long are we going to have to listen to Michael Jackson? Two weeks?”
It was a fair question, posed by some random fellow I bumped into not three nights ago at Fourth St. Pizza, perhaps the only specimen of full bar and slicery combined. Indeed, when the full news of Michael Jackson’s death spread, the slicery became a musical outlet for the late Mr. Jackson’s entire catalog.

- Farrah Fawcett, freestyling it up. The poor dear just passed recently. Has anyone else looked this good on a skateboard since? Wouldn’t you rather have seen this picture plastered over the news rather than all that Michael Jackson stuff?
“At least,” said I, rather an autopilot response. But as I returned to my well whiskey on the rocks and slice of cheese (an odd combination best avoided, FYI), “Thriller” pumped in the background, and I couldn’t help but ponder this wise man’s lament.
Every time a certain grade of celebrity does something drastic, like die, all news outlets shut off and become a national memorial service for whatever entertainer has just passed on.
The question that went through my mind, though, was this one: What makes one celebrity deserving of a media circus whilst another passes damn near un-mourned?
Think about it. When Jack Lemon died, did the networks shut off all normal programming to force upon us back-to-back movies starring the late comic star?
No.
What did Johnny Cash get, but the morbidly humorous sudden spike in sales that is so useless to dead rock stars? Hell, Farrah Fawcettdied just recently, and damn if Michael Jackson didn’t steal her thunder by dying around the same time. I have seen few Farrah Fawcett retrospectives.
The life of Michael Jackson was already a media circus, so perhaps it makes sense to give him one last hurrah. I suppose the news knows a cash cow when they see one, and Mr. Jackson was very nearly a go-to guy for news of the weird.
It just goes to show you how precarious the news situation is right now. After President Daffy Duck, you sort of got used to hearing bad news about the prez. It’s interesting that with Obama in, the worst they can find is that he swatted a fly and that he hasn’t quit smoking yet.
So that’s the basic structure of the news this week. Days after his death, we have more front-page stories about how he’s not alive anymore. Obama is still smoking and is a proven fly murderer. And another one of them conservative politicians had an affair, for which he is “deeply sorry” — a sentiment that goes hand in hand with getting caught.
Not to sound like a grumpus marumpus, but is this all really front-page stuff? While it is amusing to read about how Gov. Mark Sanford’s aids were wringing their hands with only a vague idea that Sanford was hiking in the Appalachians (while he was in fact he was screwing around in Argentina, an awful place to go if a media circus is going to erupt, just for the horrible headline possibilities) as lawmakers banged down the door , I would expect that we’ve gotten to the point that we just expect our politicians to be sleazy and affair-prone.
Go fig.
–Angelo Lanham






