I wouldn't have posted about this, since I'm not exactly a news blog and the lives/deaths of washed up pop stars don't rank very high on my personal interest meter. I did find this news item about Michael Jackson's death somewhat curious, though.
Michael Jackson's death stuns fans across nation
LOS ANGELES – Across the country, people reacted in stunned disbelief Thursday as word spread that Michael Jackson had collapsed and died. Within minutes of Jackson's arrival by ambulance at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center people began arriving by the hundreds, the crowd quickly filling a grassy entrance outside the hospital. Overhead, news helicopters whirred noisily and TV trucks clogged streets.
As word spread a few minutes later that Jackson had died, several people burst into tears. Others stood silently, looking pensive, as they waited for official word from the hospital. Still others whipped out cell phones and began calling or texting friends to pump them for information.
A similar scene played out just a couple miles away, in front of Jackson's tony Holmby Hills home, where a Fire Department ambulance had arrived to take him to the hospital.
Okay, sure. You've got to express some shock when someone famous dies at age 50. But is anyone really that surprised that MJ dropped dead? I'm more surprised that he lived this long, given all of his plastic surgeries, anorexia, drug issues, bizarre health habits, mental instabilities, etc. But then again I often underestimate the ability of human beings to survive in the face of almost indescribable self-abuse. That Amy Winehouse and Pete Doughtery remain sentient and functional is a source of great consternation, as well as disappointment, to me.
The official verdict on MJ's death is heart failure, but that's a fairly meaningless description. The question is what brought it on, in a fairly young, non-obese man. I'll be shocked if the autopsy doesn't find enough exotic substances in his blood stream to kill a horse, along with numerous signs of past cardiac events. Like how they say the hearts of cocaine addicts are all scarred and stretched from past abuse.
I was more shocked a month or two ago, when word came that he'd sold out 50 concerts in London in like 5 minutes. I wouldn't have thought he could sell out one show anywhere, at this point. When was his last hit? The 90s? I asked a friend of mine in the UK if MJ remained popular there, and she immediately waxed nostalgic about how much she'd liked his music when she was young, and how she would have bought tickets if she could have. Which was a surprise to me, but then again, I never go to concerts or have any desire to do so. I especially don't get the nostalgia thing that's driving the renewed touring success of every band that was popular in the 70s and 80s. Like most people, I liked a lot of really bad music when I was a kid and teen. But I like to think I've moved on and matured, and the thought of paying top dollar to watch the modern day, aged, washed up version of some band I listened to in 8th grade fills me with horror. Not delight.
That digression aside, I wonder if MJ's death will usher forth fresh geysers of juicy details about his freak show of a personal life. I don't follow tabloid bullshit that much, but I am kind of curious about his kids. MJ was manifestly not their biological father, since
the kids are white. (Without requiring the extensive surgery and skin bleaching that dad underwent to achieve his eventual pigmentation.) So who was that baby daddy?
I don't think MJ picked the woman he rented for her womb (and ovaries?) at random, and I'm sure he didn't go that route to find the baby daddy either. It might have been a straight adoption, but if so he did amazingly well at covering his tracks. More likely he had some woman give birth for him, but in that case, where did he get the sperm? I can't see him picking a guy at random, or doing the usual sperm bank dream request, "I want an athletic, six-foot, medical student." Getting the right sperm to create your adopted children is important, and I don't think they saved any samples from
John Merrick. Would MJ buy it from someone alive today, who he admired and who could keep a secret? Was MJ a believer in destiny and nature over nurture? Would he want a skilled dancer/singer? I'm fascinated by that question, not for the parentage of the kids who will almost certainly never be heard from again, but for the insight it would give into the weirdness that was MJ's psyche.
And no, I hadn't given that issue or MJ himself more than 10 seconds of thought in the past 10 years, until now. It's true, deaths really do bring people together!
Update: Nothing about that question yet, but there's
a nice article from Time about his income and debts. Apparently he was over $300m in debt when he died. How is that even possible? He had a huge income, from his own music catalog and the Beatles catalog he bought the rights to decades ago, so he was able to continuing signing loans for money now, leveraged against his guaranteed future income. The article estimates he could have cleared $100m from the 50 sold out London concerts, and up to 5x more from an ensuing world tour.
There's good news, though, since as another article points out, he'll probably be worth more dead than alive. That's
the actual title of the article, lest you think it's just another example of my callousness. It's just conjecture, but they point out that Elvis was worth less than $5m when he died in 1977, and that his estate is now worth nearly $100m annually. So good for "his" kids, I guess. Assuming his will doesn't leave everything to a chimpanzee or something.
Labels: celebs, death
