Just watching Larry King, again

So, we have toxicology results and Michael Jackson is finally being buried, 70 days after he died. Despite the stated excuse that the family couldn't decide where to bury him, I kind of wonder whether his being kept out of a permanent resting place has to do with potentially needing to retrieve his body for further testing in the homicide investigation.

I'm not sure I really want to ponder the mortuary technology needed to prolong the pre-interment phase this long, unless someone reveals evidence that he's been stashed in a freezer all this time. In my particular line of work, I have colleagues who have exceptional knowledge of historic mortuary practices, which means I know way too much about the minutiae of coffin construction and other macabre trivia. I know way too much about the reasons why, prior to modern mortuary practices, rural Americans in the South usually buried family members in a small family cemetery out back rather than in a church cemetery at a greater distance. (And I found this book absolutely fascinating.)

This also solidifies my intention that when I die, I will be cremated. Along with averting embalming and later decomposition of my earthly remains, I want no possibility of digging me up decades later to see what really killed me.

It does seem sort of odd to hear Larry's almost breathless coverage of this "historic evening." I'm all for further Jackson fanfare, but after Ted Kennedy's beautiful memorial service and funeral this past weekend, this coverage just seems so...not respectful. Despite the supposed no-fly zone, through the magic of helicopter coverage, we can watch Elizabeth Taylor being wheeled in while Deepak Chopra interviews with Larry.

I watched Ghostbusters last night, for the first time in probably 20 years. Gotta love those free movies On Demand! Despite the length of time since I last watched it, I still know that movie so well that I can anticipate many of the lines. "There is no Dana, only Zooool!" Yes, this is unbelievably lame. This movie was part of wayyyy too many 6th grade birthday slumber parties. It was like, pizza, cake, too much soda, Mad Libs, Ghostbusters, "light as a feather, stiff as a board." Every time.

But the reason I mention this is that I noticed something new in the movie: Larry King has a cigarette-smoking silhouetted cameo in the movie. I had no idea who Larry King was back in the day, and Casey Kasem was the only cameo I recognized (well, at least his voice - I was a devotee of Casey's American Top 40). It's sort of funny to look back now, and realize that Larry has had so much "work" done since that 1984 appearance that he doesn't look much different now.

Tabloid Junkie

So Michael Jackson has been dead almost 3 weeks now, and it's still a top headline. I know this should be deeply disturbing to me. Why are all the networks covering this crazy (and now dead) guy when soldiers are dying in Afghanistan and Kim Jong Il has cancer and Obama just went to Africa and Bernie Madoff is off to the slammer and the Episcopal Church is finally taking a stand on the "gay issue"? (AMEN to this last development- it's about time!). Can't they just drop it until there's some real development, like when the toxicology results come back, or they finally bury him somewhere permanent, or the judge awards custody of his kids to someone?

But here's the thing: nobody in the media is ready to let this go, because nobody wants to get scooped on the latest twist in MJ's long and twisted and media-profitable story. Even I am not ready to let it go. I am not a tabloid-follower most of the time, but I've been looking incessantly at internet coverage and even print tabloids for any new tidbits.

Like people all over the world, I've always been fascinated by MJ. I've never actually bought any of his albums, and I wouldn't call myself a fan exactly, but I was always impressed by his talent and creativity (and awesome music videos). For any of us who are part of the first generation of kids to grow up watching MTV, he is unforgettable. Even as his looks got weirder and his personal life got even weirder than his looks, there was this intrigue, and so many contradictions and questions. What goes through the mind of a guy who lives in a child's fantasyland estate surrounded by zoo animals, Hollywood memorabilia, and carnival rides? He blazed a trail for black pop musicians even as he paled to white. He went from a good-looking black man to a Jheri-curled mannequin to a pale, androgynous, almost mime-like distortion who seemed to be raceless and sexless. On one hand he wanted fame and attention, and on the other hand he wanted everyone to leave him alone. Was he a total sicko with many loose screws, or a damaged adult who had sustained a lifetime of mental and physical pain and made a lot of truly unfortunate (and very public) choices? Would he have been as famous if he'd lived a more circumspect personal life?

Regardless of whatever MJ did or didn't do with other people's kids at Neverland, and whether or not he was a druggie, and the bizarre and cringeworthy parenting choices revealed in the 2003 Martin Bashir documentary, his own kids clearly did love him. I hope and pray those three children have a good support system, and that eventually they'll be able to live quieter lives out of the spotlight. Now that their faces are no longer under wraps, I'm not sure the world will be able to leave them alone until the issue of custody is settled and, perhaps, their biological origins are made known. It's nobody's business, I know, and probably cruel to speculate about, but people will always wonder (look at Anna Nicole Smith's daughter - once they determined who her daddy was, the attention stopped). I truly hate to think of the Jackson kids becoming paparazzi bait through no fault of their own, and hope the family is set to protect them.

MJ's music has been with me since "Off the Wall" and as he progressed through the 80s and 90s, I liked some of it, hated some of it, but always found the videos impressive, and enjoyed his collaborations with other artists. Thanks to the magic of YouTube, I've been able to revisit a lot of them, none of which I've seen in the past decade. They've aged well; the genius of music, choreography, and videography is evident. There are definitely disturbing ones ("You Are Not Alone" anyone?), but I enjoyed the others.

My hands-down favorite revisit: "We Are The World". Not all his, no, but he was a core figure in the project, and though he was already into the mannequin phase, he looked so young and handsome. I also enjoyed getting some perspective on how this was accomplished. I liked the song back when it came out, but it flat-out amazes me now - all that vocal talent in one room, and nearly all of them artists I loved. Not only did they get this unbelievable array of singers, all top names and most at a high point in their careers, but they pulled this off in ONE NIGHT. And they worked all night to do it. When you look at the final video, you can tell many of them were pretty fried by the final take of their solos (Paul Simon, Tina Turner, and Billy Joel in particular look close to a collapse).

And the styles...my God, the hair! The HAIR! Daryl Hall's amazing mullet on steroids. Lindsey Buckingham's 'fro. Diana Ross' floating cloud of hair. Billy Joel with hair. I look forward to telling my kids someday that these styles didn't look all that weird to us (with our own perms, mullets, feathers, and vertical bangs) at the time. Cyndi Lauper and Tina Turner excepted. Tina's hair always looked like it was cemented in place. Cyndi's hair scared me then way more than it scares me now (the "Time After Time" video gave me more than a few bad dreams in sixth grade). Cyndi and Boy George would have made quite a pair. And Annie Lennox too. Yikes.

But getting back to MJ. Whatever further revelations emerge about him posthumously, he'll always be an icon of many things: music, dance, pop culture, the downside of success, and the pitfalls of cosmetic surgery. I hope whatever parts of him were tormented are at peace now, and that anyone victimized by him is at peace as well.

And, well, I need to go check TMZ again. MJ is hopefully resting in peace, but I've got to hear the latest La Toya-generated conspiracy theory....

Waiting on the world to change

Today is amazing. It's not often that one can consciously be part of a historic moment in time. As a historian, that is beyond mind-blowing.

I went to vote at our township building first thing this morning, stood in line for a merciful 35 minutes, ran into all kinds of neighbors and acquaintances. Even though we're in an unincorporated area, it felt like a cozy small town. Everyone greeted those they knew warmly, and an undercurrent of excitement made all the standing around worthwhile.

Even though the people in line with me were voting for different candidates, it really felt like we were all together, hanging on this precipice in time, using our voices, hoping and praying for a change that will turn this free-falling country around. Hoping that whichever candidate's oval we blackened would help our future. Instead of feeling like we're fighting over control of our battleground state, it felt like we were all striving toward a common purpose, and that each action by each one of us was tremendously important.

We Democrats are hoping the third time is the charm. I remember that tumultuous election in 2000; DH and I had been married a year, and we'd just moved into our first house in DC. We sat up for hours as the pundits tried to figure out the whole Florida thing and couldn't. We went to bed thinking there would be answers in the morning, and when we got up nobody knew the answers. And then the waiting went on for weeks, and the bad partisan feelings surfaced and exploded as the election spiraled into a debacle.

In 2004, we'd just moved here, with Melrose approaching her first birthday. We stood in line for over an hour each to cast our ballots, grousing about the inconvenience, but realizing fully how critical it was. (We actually got off pretty easy on the waiting, unlike the record-breakers of Gambier, Ohio). Again we sat up late watching the returns, again it was too close to call that night, but the end came much more quickly. And again, at least to us, it sucked.

Today really felt promising and empowering, and that things were already changing for the better. As I stood in line and a young woman ahead of me approached the registration table, one of the poll workers called out "New voter!" The entire room cheered. I felt light and optimistic and on the brink as I left the township building and headed to work. Having finally done my civic duty after all this waiting was a relief. I don't think anyone got much done today, myself included. Around midafternoon my colleague in another office e-mailed me that she was itching to go home. I too felt like climbing the walls, ready for the day to end and the polls to close so we could settle in and watch the results.

So now, as we've done the last two times, DH and I are planted on the sofa in front of the TV for our third presidential election night. We've driven past other polling places where people are spooled around the building in patient, umbrella-wielding lines, and marveled at the determination driving people out of the woodwork to vote. We're glad we did what we needed to do this morning, and that it's all out of our hands now. We're watching and waiting for the answers, and praying they will come sooner and be more definitive. They're already calling Pennsylvania for Obama, and that makes me so proud, and so encouraged.

And all day I've had John Mayer stuck in my head:

One day our generation
Is gonna rule the population
So we keep on waiting, waiting on the world to change