As Saturday morning blooms in the east, looking hot and summerish in a way that we haven’t seen yet, I find myself listening to the birdsong, appreciating Willie’s continuing good energy and the deepening greens in our gardens and woods as things dry out just a little bit (hopefully) and we have a chance to catch up on outdoor work.
HollyCornblog and others commented yesterday on the hateful things being said about Michael Jackson … and what it says about us.
And HollyCornblog got me to thinking about how I can feel license to say nasty and sarcastic things about folks whom I have in a particular slot in my head. I’m thinking of Rush and Bush and Dick and Rummy and Palin and such … I could go on and on … a rather extensive list, as I start enumerating.
The license I feel is pretty much in the same ballpark as the license that I imagine the far right Rush types feel (with the small difference that I am right and they are wrong, of course). Nah -- it’s the same flip and tawdry hatred -- I can see it. Hate to see it, to be honest, but I do.
So where’s the fun? I don’t know. I guess it’s kind of cheap humor -- satisfying as it may feel in the moment -- calling Dick a Dick and such. I don’t know that I’ll be able to stop -- but perhaps I can at least sharpen the rapier when possible -- and not indulge in the obvious and blunt-edged stuff.
As for Michael Jackson -- one wonders what his life might have been, had he been allowed to have a childhood … had his talent and genius not been exploited by the avaricious adults around him. I still feel that, looking at him is like looking at ourselves and our culture’s values in a mirror -- a “funhouse” mirror.
The changes in his face are what I keep coming back to … as he moved from a face that reflected a connection to self … and the true beauty that accompanies that … to some learned and assimilated idea of beauty that is, in the end, a tragic mask.
Deepak Chopra writes of the man behind that mask. I hope that what he says is true and there were layers of real warmth and love in MJ’s truncated life.
