Deaths of the Poster People

When I was little (not sure how young, but certainly no older than Grace is now) I loved the Jackson 5. I mean LOVED!!! I suppose they and the Osmonds (who I also loved) were the Jo-Bros of their day; we all (and by we, I of course mean the pre-teen set) loved them, and, to some extent, we all had our favorites.

Michael was my fave. I had many posters of him, but my favorite (a large head shot, his chin on his hand, smiling into the camera, I'm sure many of you had the same poster) I hung on the ceiling over my bed, so I could pretend to kiss him goodnight. (yeah, there are some mildly sexual connotations there, but give me a break, I was 8 and innocent!).

My brother was a teenage boy in the seventies, so of COURSE he had The Poster of Farrah Fawcett, or Farrah Fawcett-Majors as she was called then.

Now, I'm sure that there were many things that those two shared beyond the posters hanging in my childhood house -- the trappings and trials of fame, for starters.

And, as of yesterday, a death date, which is just weird. I'm not sure why we're all so taken with that notion, other than it's just odd for two famous people to die on the same day, for unrelated reasons (sure, there are car wrecks, and plane crashes, etc, but those are different).

I have to admit, I'm mourning MJ a bit.

Yeah, I know, the man was, well, freakish. And quite frankly, whether there was actual molestation or not, he had relationships with young boys that were not appropriate.

But he was also a fantastic musician, and a consumate performer, and quite frankly, I'm reasonably convinced that his issues were not his fault. Kids need to be kids; they do not need to be turned into little adults (or little teenagers, for that matter), or pushed to grow up too fast.

All the Jacksons, but Michael in particular, had their musical career decided for them; not that they weren't talented, or didn't enjoy it. But let's be honest -- a 9 year old who's the lead-man for a band, getting lavished with attention from, oh, everybody, just is not healthy. I think that much of Jackson's oddities were (duh) an attempt to recapture a childhood he never had.

Which is just sad.

But, I have to admit, the allegations have always bugged me; I've had a hard time reconciling my enjoyment of his music with the other side. I LOVED Thriller, and have wanted to buy it on CD for awhile, but also couldn't quite bring myself to, in anyway, support this person with the utterly freakish lifestyle. Yeah, sure, it might not be his fault. But, DANG! And, yeah, the little-boy thing is just wrong.

So, I couldn't do it; no, my money would not make or break him, but I just couldn't do it.

Not while he was alive.

So, this morning I ordered myself Thriller (and Off the Wall, which I also loved!)