Don't Stop Til You Get Enough

Among all the weird and sad and tributing thing I can think to write about Michael Jackson, the one that keeps popping up in my head as I watch all the national networks show special coverage and BET showing a video marathon and the local Fox News going to Gary to see people who grew up in the family and WGN out in the Chicago neighborhoods where people are spontaneously tributing* on the street is that, despite living in a celebrity hungry culture, no one will ever be that famous again.  Heck, nobody will ever be as famous as Farrah Fawcett was once upon a time.  I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, but it's true.

* the made up word so nice I used it twice

Last week, in an unrelated but prescient post, Ta-Nehisi Coates published a couple of nice tributes to the King of Pop (which he's posted again here) and it got me reading on the rumored and otherwise events that inspired "Billie Jean":

According to Jackson's biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli, "Billie Jean" was derived from a real life experience the singer faced in 1981. The Magic & The Madness documents how a young woman wrote a letter to Jackson, informing the singer that he was the father of one of her twins. Jackson, who regularly received letters of this kind, had never met the woman and ignored it. The woman sent more letters to Jackson, claiming that she loved him and wanted to be with him. She wrote of how happy they would be, bringing up the child together. She pondered how Jackson could ignore his own flesh and blood. Due to the stress of receiving the letters, the singer suffered from nightmares.

Following the letters, Jackson received a parcel containing a photograph of the fan, as well as a letter and a gun. Jackson was horrified—the letter asked that the pop star kill himself on a certain day and at a specific time. The fan would do the same once she had killed their baby. She wrote that if they could not be together in this life, then they would be in the next. To his mother's dismay, Jackson had the photograph framed and hung above the dining room table of their family home. Afterward, the Jacksons discovered that the female fan had been sent to a psychiatric hospital.

Jackson denied the story and instead said it was based on the groupies his brothers dealt with who made false paternity claims. But if was true, it still wouldn't be one of the top 100 odd things about Michael Jackson, and it certainly doesn't rank any higher if we're only talking about rumors. And though eventually somebody has to take responsibility for their actions, things like that had been happening to him before his age was in the double digits, and due to his upbringing, he was ill-equipped to deal with even a dull life, let alone the one he lived. And he managed to still use his talent to bring lots of joy to lots of people. I hope folks can keep that in mind as the re-dissect his life in the upcoming weeks.