Terran Franklin

Add me to the list of people pissing and moaning over where all this sudden love for Michael Jackson was while he was alive.  Just a month ago, the poor man was little more than a punch line.  The fodder of sick jokes and a somewhat improved face of the “Not Guilty” image that OJ had.

You might not even have heard about the albums ‘Thriller’ or ‘Bad’ until just a couple weeks ago.  Hands down.

My personal take on Michael Jackson isn’t scorn, or ridicule, or fear for your children, but just plain pity.  I feel sorry for the man.  Michael Jackson was the kind of man who never had a positive thing said about him until those two albums, and like what I did with the first part of the original Blood and Metal—the very story I’m reworking into a non-fanfict form—he tried to keep a hold at that goodness he had with all he held dear.  But unfortunately, his past—which I take all the blame and crucify his asshole father Joe Jackson on it—came up and dragged him down.  (There’s a number less than the fingers on one hand of the people I just flat out hate.  Only two or them are black:  Joe Jackson and OJ Simpson.)   Here was a man who could recreate images of the Confederate South with the way he held that whip over his children, and especially his youngest, Michael.  Some people would think that children could bounce back by it, but let me tell you something:  During the public school years, I’d probably got a tenth of what Michael had to suffer through.  I had a psychotic break from reality before age 13, and was a hikikomori (It’s a Japanese term that you’ll see me use often; it’s somebody who stays in his bedroom for most of his life) for over a decade after High School which I’m still recovering from. 

You don’t go through what MJ had when he was a child and just don’t come out normal, and for a while he was just normal enough to be accepted and eccentric enough to be charming.  But in time, the madness made by his dysfunctional past rose up and dragged him down to what we used to know him as until recently.  And to top it all off, it all happened in public, if you will.  (Five bonus points if you can tell me where I got that little quirk) It was worse than a train wreck, it was a slow grinding and painful destruction that would make you cry or laugh at the sheer scope of what is happening.  And all the while praying to God and praising Him for not putting you through that hell on earth.

In a macabre sense, I didn’t mourn MJ’s passing.  I was morning for him while he was alive.  And I have to admit that I’m actually happy that he’s gone.  Where he’s at now, he no longer has to deal with all the pain he had to go through.  Both by his childhood, and by his reality.