Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile.
“Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experiment dangerous, judgment difficult.”
50 years old.
I had read he recently started visiting the dermatologist that played a role with his skin issues, and where he met the nurse who carried his children. He was probably getting some strange treatments that impacted his heart.
Wow. This is sad. My thoughts and prayers go out to the family, friends, all of us fans, and the comics who will finally have to find some new material.
My guess is he will see a postmortem rise in popularity. Dude did write some great songs, but it's been so hard to say you liked Jackson these past fifteen or twenty years. Oddly, it may be easier to appreciate Jackson's music without Jackson.
I'm really broken up over this. I was born in 1981. I grew up with his music and I love music now because of his influence. I'm in shock. I can't stop listening to his music now
Wow. Thriller pretty much was my childhood, from ages 5 to 8 at least. Heard the news, rocked back in my chair a little, and immediately thought of this poem by William Matthews. I think I understand it (the poem) a little bit better, or in a more immediate way.
Blues for John Coltrane, Dead at 41
Although my house floats on a lawn
as plush as a starlet's body
and my sons sleep easily,
I think of death's salmon breath
leaping back up the saxophone
with its wet kiss.
Hearing him dead,
I feel it in my feet
as if the house were rocked
by waves from a soundless speedboat
planing by, full throttle.
same source now confirms that he's been pronounced.
Honestly, I have no reason not to trust TMZ on this. You can't exactly run this kind of story on a b.s. lead and expect to hold any sort of weight if you get it wrong.
Things are fucked when I'm hoping dude is in a coma. Off the Wall is the first album I actually remember. Thriller is the first album I actually bought. There is no modern pop music without Michael.
Wow! MJ was a huge part of my formative years. Off The Wall was one of the first cassette tapes I ever bought. The only poster of a celebrity that I ever hung in my bedroom was of Mike (from the Thriller album - white pants, yellow sweater vest and bowtie - still brown, after nose job #2). I remember when he first moonwalked on Motown 25. Nothing can make me smile and rock like an MJ cut.
RIP, MJ. Thanks for the music. Sometimes creativity and fame are hard to bear. Who knows how I would have handled it had I been in your shoes. Godspeed.
I just watched the old Jackson 5 "I'll be There" video over at Sullivan's. I'm kind of sad about the whole thing after seeing that, and I never even liked Michael Jackson. He was just a bright and talented kid with his whole wild and bizarre life ahead of him back then. It made me wonder whether it was all worth it for him in the end.
I'm in shock. Off The Wall was the first album I bought with my allowance. His talent was immense. I guess this is how my sisters felt when Marvin Gaye died.
I'm kinda surprised at how I feel about this. I don't think I'm mourning his death as much as I'm mourning the loss of someone that anyone under the age of 35 grew up with. The death of Farrah Fawcett has hit me too. I'm too young to have watched Charlies Angels, but her documentary about cancer shook me to the core.
I was JUST getting into him in a major way, thanks to TNC's writings about him. & now...Yeah, strange. This was the first place I came after I heard the news. How terrible. Right before the come-back. Goddamn.
Memory of Micheal: In the early '70's, the Jackson 5 was at the height of their popularity and on tour. I was a flight attendent and the group, their roadies and their father filled my first class cabin on a short hop from NYC to Rhode Island for a concert. We had some pretty bad turbulence and were trying to land. I was in the galley, closing out the liquor when the very shy, beautiful teenaged Micheal walked in and said "My father would like two more double Johnny Walker's-- and your phone number." So, his married father sent his young son to solicit for him. Whatever problems Micheal had later in his life, I place at least some of the responsibility at his father's feet.
Oh, I have absolutely no doubt that Joe has a lot to answer for. I've never been a fan of Michael Jackson, but I did have some sympathy and pity for him and I have absolutely no doubt that his life would have turned out much happier if his dad hadn't essentially stolen his childhood.
For quite a few years before this I considered him to be just as much of a pop stardom tragedy as Cobain, Hendrix, 2Pac or Jim Morrison. I just hope he's finally at peace now.
I think what breaks me up is a few things, combined. I really felt that his soul was tormented and in a very bad place. The music industry and stardom just totally destroyed this man. And while I suppose that should make me happy that he's now at peace, it just feels tragic. I am listening to his records now and I hear this innocence, this optimism, this purity, and the feeling that he was ruined... it just breaks me up. He will never be able to right his course in the eyes of some. Maybe he couldn't. Maybe this is what that is. Either way though, I'm just gutted. I was raised by MJ. All these posts that you've been making, Ta-Nehisi - those scenes were repeated on every playground all over.
I danced to "I'll Be There" by the Jackson Five with my father at my wedding. I will never admit this to my husband, but that was the single happiest moment of my life.
i'll always remember michael jackson the first time i saw him, live and in living color.
it was around 1970 or so, and believe it or not, the jackson 5 were the headlining act at the michigan state fair, in detroit, over on woodward near 8 mile. (actually, closer to 6 mile, but folks who aren't familiar with detoit know 8 mile, not 6 mile.)
this was back in the days of their big fros and the tight, brightly-colored spandex bellbottom jumpsuits and the show was everything you could imagine it would have been. unforgettable.
michael was a real person back then, not the cartoon figure he has become, probably 10 or 11, a child. but he sang with the maturity and force of a grown man. hearing a little kid sing, "who's lovin you" with an understanding that a little kid is not supposed to have, well, it was stunning. and almost as weird as watching jacko the freak in later days.
so, yea, he's been a weird sucker the last couple of decades and i'll never forget or forgive all of the messed up things he probably did to and with children. but my anger and discomfort with him, at least, will be tempered by the fact that michael himself probably had been subjected to some truly vile stuff as a kid. and you could hear it in his voice.
i used to represent kids in the juvenile justice system and what was plain as day was that kids who victimized other kids had always been victims themselves, and when they abused other kids they were simply mimicking bad stuff that had been done to them. so, with kids at least, the question always was: when does a kid stop being a victim and when does he/she start being just a bad person, a perp? who knows the answer to that question, but i'm sure it had to be applied to michael jackson.
so when i think of michael, i'll always think about that little kid on the stage at the michigan state fair, singing "who's lovin you" like a love-struck 50 year old man, wondering how the heck a kid like that could understand and feel a song like that.
to tell the truth, in a way, i really didn't want to know.
I'm only 23, so I never knew Black Mike in his heyday. But my junior year of high school, around the time he was readying the big comeback tribute concert, all the hip-hop heads in my high school was feelin the classic Mike songs. HARD. From Off the Wall to Dangerous. I guess it was because the R Kelly scandal was breaking at the time, so MJ looked pretty good in comparison and we were all ready to forgive Jacko. Then that stupid documentary came out a few months later and deaded all that. Still, "Thriller" was one of my favorite songs to do during beatbox battles.
It's a shame.
A couple of months ago, I was walking past a Suncoast video store in the mall. The TVs in the window were showing a compilation of his videos. I saw a "Smooth Criminal" title card appear on the screen. I stopped and watched. When the video ended, a security guard walked up and said "alright alright, show's over keep it movin". Only then did I look behind me and notice the 20+ brothas who had also stopped to watch that ill ass video.
Some of us were 10-year-old girls when "ABC" hit the charts. We were much too mature for the playground, though not above swooning over 11-year-old rock stars.
McMahon, Fawcett and Michael Jackson...this is my childhood.
I think of being little, and the only way you saw Ed McMahon was if you snuck out of bed, and was standing in the doorway, trying to hide from your parents as they watched Carson in the living room (no such thing as a tv in every room). Sometimes they scolded you, other times, they told you to come on and sit with them.
Farrah - Charlie's Angels was revolutionary for its time, as odd as that might seem now. That poster was everywhere, and we wanted that hair.
Michael - wow...for my sisters, who actually went to see The Jackson Five routinely when they were growing up, to me being fully aware of Michael with Off The Wall first, then Thriller, and him MAKING MTV, and all that meant.
Yes! I remember sneaking over to a friend's house to stay up late to watch Johnny Carson, and both Michael and Farrah held prime poster placement on my walls.
I really hope that's true. I want that to be true. For some reason I'd been thinking about the McCartney/MJ collaborations recently, even before TNC's recent posts.
For me, what really evokes MJ is the Fatboy Slim cut "Michel Jackson". It sounds nothing like an MJ tune, but it just moves so fast and pure, like lightning in a bottle, while young Mike says "look out, here I come". So much promise, so much joy.
I feel so badly for all those near and dear to him. I just heard the man who discovered him dissing Michael's family and Atlantic Records on talk radio--kind of unseemly. There are good and not-so-good elements in everybody's family. Mine was more dysfunctional than the Jacksons.
I had Jermaine Jr. in a 10th grade English class I taught at Beverly Hills high back in the 90s.He was the most down-to-earth, real kid, compared with so many of the others who talked of shrinks and how their maids were caring for them while Mom ran off to Europe with her producer boyfriend. J.J. used to talk about his technique for taking out the trash, how he had it down to a science. I said, "You're kidding me! You actually take out the trash?" "Of course," he said, "My pops doesn't play. We work or we get grounded." I thought Jermaine did a great job with that kid and I wrote and told him so.
Here's a piece no one cared about. Meh, whatever, probably the most enjoyable article I did during my stint at TIME. Premiered a month before I got laid-off. The nail in the coffin? Ya think?
Here's me going after Al. I didn't so much have a problem with him, as I had a problem with media acting like this dude was the go-to guy for everything black.
This was my first real story at time. I was writing for the Business section, a real change of direction for me. At any rate, it's about Wal-Mart's attempts to colonize the inner-city. As much as I enjoyed this piece, I mostly enjoyed going out to Chicago, which is a beautiful, beautiful city.
This a piece I did about the cops just outside our nation capitol, in Prince George's County, a few years back. I wanted to offer a counter to the dumb, conventional wisdom that if you paint your police force black, you could eradicate police brutality. In fact, Prince George's--one of the richest, blackest counties in the country--also had one of the most brutal police force's in the country.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Yes I hope he is okay.
btw typo in the post title - "Jackon" = "Jackson"
Thanks. Fixt.
Hope he's fine.
On twitter LaTimes say he isn't/wasn't breathing.
oh man...
Say things happen in 3s. Ed McMahon Farrah Fawcett. I certainly hope not. Last update was Joe, his father said he wasn't doing well.
Holy cow. Very surprising.
Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile.
“Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experiment dangerous, judgment difficult.”
50 years old.
He passed according to TMZ on twitter
I had read he recently started visiting the dermatologist that played a role with his skin issues, and where he met the nurse who carried his children. He was probably getting some strange treatments that impacted his heart.
A real loss. I hope his tortured soul has finally found rest.
My immediate thought as well.
Me too. God.
Oh my God.
I can't deal. This is tragic. I hope his soul finds peace. Just devastated over here.
Playing his music for the rest of the day in my record store. RIP to the king.
Wow. This is sad. My thoughts and prayers go out to the family, friends, all of us fans, and the comics who will finally have to find some new material.
The king is dead long live the king.
My guess is he will see a postmortem rise in popularity. Dude did write some great songs, but it's been so hard to say you liked Jackson these past fifteen or twenty years. Oddly, it may be easier to appreciate Jackson's music without Jackson.
here's to hoping.
I suspect twenty years from now his star will have risen again.
I'm really broken up over this. I was born in 1981. I grew up with his music and I love music now because of his influence. I'm in shock. I can't stop listening to his music now
Wow. Thriller pretty much was my childhood, from ages 5 to 8 at least. Heard the news, rocked back in my chair a little, and immediately thought of this poem by William Matthews. I think I understand it (the poem) a little bit better, or in a more immediate way.
Blues for John Coltrane, Dead at 41
Although my house floats on a lawn
as plush as a starlet's body
and my sons sleep easily,
I think of death's salmon breath
leaping back up the saxophone
with its wet kiss.
Hearing him dead,
I feel it in my feet
as if the house were rocked
by waves from a soundless speedboat
planing by, full throttle.
You all trust that TMZ more than I do. I'm switching between CNN, MSNBC and even Fox. Nobody else has said that he died.
Hope you're right rik...
Regrettably, you arent...
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/06/pop-star-michael-jackson-was-rushed-to-a-hospital-this-afternoon-by-los-angeles-fire-department-paramedics--capt-steve-ruda.html
Sorry to say that it's true, according to the LA Times. See link below.
L.A Times -
[Updated at 2:46 p.m.: Pop star Michael Jackson is in a coma and his family is arriving at his bedside, a law enforcement source told The Times.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/06/pop-star-michael-jackson-was-rushed-to-a-hospital-this-afternoon-by-los-angeles-fire-department-paramedics--capt-steve-ruda.html
Pray for homie.
now The L.A Times is confirming - he's gone.
...
Damn. Them songs he did with Biggie are gonna sound extra creepy. What a shame.
I'm not aware of those songs. Do you have a YouTube link by chance?
La Times now confirming he passed.
same source now confirms that he's been pronounced.
Honestly, I have no reason not to trust TMZ on this. You can't exactly run this kind of story on a b.s. lead and expect to hold any sort of weight if you get it wrong.
damn, damn, damn...
Things are fucked when I'm hoping dude is in a coma. Off the Wall is the first album I actually remember. Thriller is the first album I actually bought. There is no modern pop music without Michael.
Holy crap. Hard to believe he's dead at 50. I wonder if the family will authorize an autopsy to find out why he died.
I heard something about prescription drugs earlier. That hasnt been at all confirmed
I'm surprised at the depth of my sadness. What a terrible day.
Wow! MJ was a huge part of my formative years. Off The Wall was one of the first cassette tapes I ever bought. The only poster of a celebrity that I ever hung in my bedroom was of Mike (from the Thriller album - white pants, yellow sweater vest and bowtie - still brown, after nose job #2). I remember when he first moonwalked on Motown 25. Nothing can make me smile and rock like an MJ cut.
What a sad and terrible loss.
Shit.
I feel as if a part of my childhood just died. I can't even begin to process his death. I just can't.
Yeah.
RIP, MJ. Thanks for the music. Sometimes creativity and fame are hard to bear. Who knows how I would have handled it had I been in your shoes. Godspeed.
I just watched the old Jackson 5 "I'll be There" video over at Sullivan's. I'm kind of sad about the whole thing after seeing that, and I never even liked Michael Jackson. He was just a bright and talented kid with his whole wild and bizarre life ahead of him back then. It made me wonder whether it was all worth it for him in the end.
I'm in shock. Off The Wall was the first album I bought with my allowance. His talent was immense. I guess this is how my sisters felt when Marvin Gaye died.
I'm kinda surprised at how I feel about this. I don't think I'm mourning his death as much as I'm mourning the loss of someone that anyone under the age of 35 grew up with. The death of Farrah Fawcett has hit me too. I'm too young to have watched Charlies Angels, but her documentary about cancer shook me to the core.
MTV is showing Thriller and running a crawl on the bottom of the screen.
I remember that's how I found out that Pac died, MTV.
MTV was how I (and a good number of my friends) found out Cobain died.
MTV News used to be a pretty big deal, back in the day. One more thing they've let die on that channel.
Bizarre.
I was JUST getting into him in a major way, thanks to TNC's writings about him. & now...Yeah, strange. This was the first place I came after I heard the news. How terrible. Right before the come-back. Goddamn.
Crushed... Just took my Thriller CD out.
Memory of Micheal: In the early '70's, the Jackson 5 was at the height of their popularity and on tour. I was a flight attendent and the group, their roadies and their father filled my first class cabin on a short hop from NYC to Rhode Island for a concert. We had some pretty bad turbulence and were trying to land. I was in the galley, closing out the liquor when the very shy, beautiful teenaged Micheal walked in and said "My father would like two more double Johnny Walker's-- and your phone number." So, his married father sent his young son to solicit for him. Whatever problems Micheal had later in his life, I place at least some of the responsibility at his father's feet.
Absolutely. Joe will have to make peace with himself as to whether he cost his son a happy centered life by his actions toward his son.
Oh, I have absolutely no doubt that Joe has a lot to answer for. I've never been a fan of Michael Jackson, but I did have some sympathy and pity for him and I have absolutely no doubt that his life would have turned out much happier if his dad hadn't essentially stolen his childhood.
For quite a few years before this I considered him to be just as much of a pop stardom tragedy as Cobain, Hendrix, 2Pac or Jim Morrison. I just hope he's finally at peace now.
I think what breaks me up is a few things, combined. I really felt that his soul was tormented and in a very bad place. The music industry and stardom just totally destroyed this man. And while I suppose that should make me happy that he's now at peace, it just feels tragic. I am listening to his records now and I hear this innocence, this optimism, this purity, and the feeling that he was ruined... it just breaks me up. He will never be able to right his course in the eyes of some. Maybe he couldn't. Maybe this is what that is. Either way though, I'm just gutted. I was raised by MJ. All these posts that you've been making, Ta-Nehisi - those scenes were repeated on every playground all over.
I danced to "I'll Be There" by the Jackson Five with my father at my wedding. I will never admit this to my husband, but that was the single happiest moment of my life.
I teared up reading your comment. That song gets me every time. Beautiful.
One of the best, if not the best pop songs ever
May he rest in peace. His music will endure.
i'll always remember michael jackson the first time i saw him, live and in living color.
it was around 1970 or so, and believe it or not, the jackson 5 were the headlining act at the michigan state fair, in detroit, over on woodward near 8 mile. (actually, closer to 6 mile, but folks who aren't familiar with detoit know 8 mile, not 6 mile.)
this was back in the days of their big fros and the tight, brightly-colored spandex bellbottom jumpsuits and the show was everything you could imagine it would have been. unforgettable.
michael was a real person back then, not the cartoon figure he has become, probably 10 or 11, a child. but he sang with the maturity and force of a grown man. hearing a little kid sing, "who's lovin you" with an understanding that a little kid is not supposed to have, well, it was stunning. and almost as weird as watching jacko the freak in later days.
so, yea, he's been a weird sucker the last couple of decades and i'll never forget or forgive all of the messed up things he probably did to and with children. but my anger and discomfort with him, at least, will be tempered by the fact that michael himself probably had been subjected to some truly vile stuff as a kid. and you could hear it in his voice.
i used to represent kids in the juvenile justice system and what was plain as day was that kids who victimized other kids had always been victims themselves, and when they abused other kids they were simply mimicking bad stuff that had been done to them. so, with kids at least, the question always was: when does a kid stop being a victim and when does he/she start being just a bad person, a perp? who knows the answer to that question, but i'm sure it had to be applied to michael jackson.
so when i think of michael, i'll always think about that little kid on the stage at the michigan state fair, singing "who's lovin you" like a love-struck 50 year old man, wondering how the heck a kid like that could understand and feel a song like that.
to tell the truth, in a way, i really didn't want to know.
I'm only 23, so I never knew Black Mike in his heyday. But my junior year of high school, around the time he was readying the big comeback tribute concert, all the hip-hop heads in my high school was feelin the classic Mike songs. HARD. From Off the Wall to Dangerous. I guess it was because the R Kelly scandal was breaking at the time, so MJ looked pretty good in comparison and we were all ready to forgive Jacko. Then that stupid documentary came out a few months later and deaded all that. Still, "Thriller" was one of my favorite songs to do during beatbox battles.
It's a shame.
A couple of months ago, I was walking past a Suncoast video store in the mall. The TVs in the window were showing a compilation of his videos. I saw a "Smooth Criminal" title card appear on the screen. I stopped and watched. When the video ended, a security guard walked up and said "alright alright, show's over keep it movin". Only then did I look behind me and notice the 20+ brothas who had also stopped to watch that ill ass video.
It's a shame.
You never expect people like him to pass on at all, let alone so quietly.
MTV is actually running his videos nonstop right now. I am just so sad.
Some of us were 10-year-old girls when "ABC" hit the charts. We were much too mature for the playground, though not above swooning over 11-year-old rock stars.
Such a sweet, sweet talent. Such a sad, sad life.
I'm hearing the he's our Elvis, he's our Princess Di cultural icon comparisons.
I'm blown away.
McMahon, Fawcett and Michael Jackson...this is my childhood.
I think of being little, and the only way you saw Ed McMahon was if you snuck out of bed, and was standing in the doorway, trying to hide from your parents as they watched Carson in the living room (no such thing as a tv in every room). Sometimes they scolded you, other times, they told you to come on and sit with them.
Farrah - Charlie's Angels was revolutionary for its time, as odd as that might seem now. That poster was everywhere, and we wanted that hair.
Michael - wow...for my sisters, who actually went to see The Jackson Five routinely when they were growing up, to me being fully aware of Michael with Off The Wall first, then Thriller, and him MAKING MTV, and all that meant.
Yes! I remember sneaking over to a friend's house to stay up late to watch Johnny Carson, and both Michael and Farrah held prime poster placement on my walls.
hi. ty for this post. the sound on that vid is horrid and does not do the song justice. here is a better link.
i mean, cant have MJ with no bass!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbH04pY7alA
Remember the Moonwalker video game for Sega Genesis? Where his special move was to make all the enemies dance and then fall over dead?
Michael Jackson May Have Left Paul McCartney Rights to 200 Beatles Songs in His Will
http://www.clevelandleader.com/node/10457
If true, that was a good look on Mike's part.
I really hope that's true. I want that to be true. For some reason I'd been thinking about the McCartney/MJ collaborations recently, even before TNC's recent posts.
For me, what really evokes MJ is the Fatboy Slim cut "Michel Jackson". It sounds nothing like an MJ tune, but it just moves so fast and pure, like lightning in a bottle, while young Mike says "look out, here I come". So much promise, so much joy.
Wow. Good for him, if it's true.
I feel so badly for all those near and dear to him. I just heard the man who discovered him dissing Michael's family and Atlantic Records on talk radio--kind of unseemly. There are good and not-so-good elements in everybody's family. Mine was more dysfunctional than the Jacksons.
I had Jermaine Jr. in a 10th grade English class I taught at Beverly Hills high back in the 90s.He was the most down-to-earth, real kid, compared with so many of the others who talked of shrinks and how their maids were caring for them while Mom ran off to Europe with her producer boyfriend. J.J. used to talk about his technique for taking out the trash, how he had it down to a science. I said, "You're kidding me! You actually take out the trash?" "Of course," he said, "My pops doesn't play. We work or we get grounded." I thought Jermaine did a great job with that kid and I wrote and told him so.
As some one greater than me once said:
So it goes.