Farrah Fawcett died this morning; Michael Jackson died this afternoon. Wow. I didn't feel a close personal attachment to either one of them, but sad for the loss of both. And both at one time or another personified -- or maybe created -- a momentary popular ideal of glamour and success.
Funny... With the news of Farrah Fawcett this morning, one TV station showed a snippet from a shampoo commercial she did with Penny Marshall about a million years ago. The set-up was, Farrah was the pretty and popular roommate, Penny Marshall was the less attractive sidekick. It's just strange to look back at that. At the time, no one had heard of either one of them and it would be a few years before either was associated with an actual name.
Do remember that damn "big hair" style with the long bangs curling away from your face. That was so incredibly popular and looked so dorky on so many other girls, almost like they were peeping at your from behind a ruffled curtain. You can see the bad copies of that hair style every now and then on the reruns of "Family Feud" on the Game Show Network. That big hair and a few years later, the shoulder pads. Both trends at some point kinda got beyond any type of reasonable control.
And I just can't help but feel sorry for Michael Jackson. First of all, I remember when I was a kid (a few years before Michael Jackson was) driving through Gary, Ind., on one or another vacation. The steel mills were still open. It'd be sunny in Chicago, then Gary was like you'd suddenly driven into an overcast, the air was so polluted. It always smelled like burnt metal. And you could actually see like large particles of something suspended in it, particles larger than dust but smaller than cinders, just kinda hanging in the air. Michael Jackson spent at least part of his childhood in Gary.
A lot of comments about Michael Jackson never having a childhood. Just the opposite: he never could grow up. By the time he was a teenager, he was such a big star -- so recognizable, and so many incomes depending upon him -- that he never really had the opportunity to go through the typical horrors of high school and pimples and all that kind of thing. If his parents wouldn't do something for him, he could pay someone else to get it done.
A long time ago a big topic on the therapeutic talk shows was the results of a study that indicated that kids who'd been spoiled and pampered all their lives exhibited similar behaviors and neuroses as kids who'd been abused and neglected. I do believe you need to experience both bad and good to learn to recognize and understand the difference. I worry about kids who grow up on Ritilin for the same reason. How are they ever supposed to learn how to control themselves without chemistry? Kids are supposed to run around like crazy maniacs (or wild indians, as my mom would say, so politically incorrect.) The maturing process is learning how to direct their own behavior -- learning usually through trial and error.
Commented to my mom one time about those electric-socket caps they have now so your toddlers don't stick their fingers in the wall sockets. I said something like, "I remember being almost electrocuted." Mom just looked at me for a minute, like trying to figure out if I was blaming her for something, then she said, "Well, you only did it once." For sure. She didn't raise any stupid kids.
Michael Jackson was strange. Quite possibly he never really understood, or ever had to learn, social behavioral norms or expectations. All that ever mattered was what he did on stage. All of his energy went into creating the perfect illusion. How do you define reality then? He was probably over-sensitive, never having to learn the emotional defenses most of us acquire as a matter of survival to get past the senior prom disaster and not being picked for the football team. And he was incredibly talented. One of the best dancers I've ever seen. That takes enormous discipline.
Just too bad. Doesn't matter to me how he died, so much as the strange legacy he leaves behind. By the time he was really popular, I'd moved beyond listening to Top Ten music, but remember a young girl I worked with for a time involving me in this conversation about how Michael Jackson was probably a really nice guy, even though at that time there was a big question about his sexual orientation -- this was before he was accused of being a little too interested in children. I think he'd just acquired the skeleton of the Elephant Man, and his chimp, Bubbles, was another curiosity.
Then came his apparent fixation on children. It is entirely possible that he simply felt most comfortable around children without any really evil or sexual intentions. You know where children are coming from and they usually don't strike out to hurt you for no reason, don't understand that a Pop Star is supposed to be... whatever. They wouldn't befriend him for his money or fame, or spend three hours with him and then try to sell their story to the National Enquirer -- though apparently their parents would.
Poor Michael. I hope he's at peace. If you listen to his earliest recordings with the Jackson Five, there's such a gleeful abandon in his voice. And R.I.P. to Farrah, too.
And I still haven't gotten over the fact that Frank Sinatra is no longer with us, or Bob Hope, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe, or John Wayne. I grew up watching "The Late Show," and still have a strong preference for old black-and-white movies. No amount of special effects can replace a plot and characterization. I remember being maybe seven or eight years old and my mom taking my sister and I with her to see "Love Me Tender," Elvis Presley's first movie. He dies in the end. That was the first movie I ever cried over, and I cried all the way home. I'm sure my mom never expected that.
Re-makes just aren't the same. Can you ever imagine anyone surpassing that scene in "On the Waterfront"? When Marlon Brando, turns to his brother, Karl Malden, and says, "I coulda been somebody... I coulda been a contender." Just thinking about it makes me cry. Think I was halfway through "Teahouse of the August Moon" when I realized which character Brando was playing. Then sat silently for a minute trying to wrap my mind around that. He was probably one of the best actors who ever lived. He grew up only a couple miles from where I live now. "People around here might think you're a one-eyed jack, but I seen the other side of your face...."
I'm glad we have audio and visual recording technology today. No one can ever know what Chopin sounded like when he played, or exactly how Beethoven conducted his own symphonies. I love ballet, and without film, or digital now, it could never be recorded. I believe at least one or two audio recordings of Sarah Bernhardt exist, but no visual. But now, like the famous quote says, "Death is nothing at all...."
Really, we have all these people forever.
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