Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough...

I think everyone probably has a “I remember where I was when I heard that ‘such-and-such’ had died” story. For me, it’s John Lennon. Despite being far too young to know anything about him when he died, I remember my teacher telling us that he was the guy who wrote ‘Yellow Submarine’ and for some reason that etched itself onto my infant mind.

Of course, there have been others over the intervening years. The mass hysteria surrounding Princess Diana’s death left me feeling excluded. I didn’t feel a part of the subsequent outpouring of national grief, and, to this day, I still don’t get it. I remember coming into my parents living room and hearing some reporter or other talking about a royal death and just assumed that the Queen Mother had finally snuffed it.

This week Michael Jackson joined the exclusive group of dead personalities and celebrities that give people their ‘I remember where I was’ stories. This small group have surpassed mere celebrity and became ‘Icons’. Along with the likes of JFK, Elvis Presley, James Dean, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Marilyn Monroe (amongst others), this group’s fame reached across generations and, with the aid of a tennis player scratching her arse and a guy holding a baby, kept Athena going for years. (Come to think of it, Athena only went bust after MJ became a plastic manfreak – I wonder if it’s related?)

Anyway, I digress...

It’s always rather sad when someone dies young, and despite what you may think about MJ as a human being, he was a talented musician, entertainer and showman. He touched many people (pun intended).

However. while watching the last three days of ‘Michael Jackson still dead’ updates on every news bulletin, interviews with the always relevant Uri Geller and ‘Blanket’ coverage of MJ’s family, I can’t help but wonder if there is anytihng else that could be considered newsworthy happening in the world?. I suppose the loyalist paramilitary decommissioning of weapons is, at heart, simply a local interest story and when you get really into the detail of the situation in Iran, it’s still really far away and they’re all ‘a bit dusky’ over there... !?!

I expect that the editors of the Daily Telegraph are crying their eyes out. Not because ‘the King of Pop’ is dead, but because the run they have had on the expenses scandal has finally been relegated to page five.

For the members of ‘the Icon Club’, it’s not the contributions they made to popular culture that we typically remember, it tends to be the ‘car crash’ (figuratively or literally) that really elevates their status. For every live fast, die young James Dean, there are at least a million live slow, don’t die Chesney Hawkes...

Also, we have lost out on some great and worthy icons purely because they didn’t have the forethought to die before they did something to fuck-up their blossoming iconic status.

For example, Ozzy Osbourne could have been remembered as the Prince of Darkness forever, rather than the shambling, incontinent wreck he is these days, if he’s only thought to die in the early 90’s. Cliff Richard really could have been the British Elvis, if he’d only have crammed-down a couple of pies and shat his way into the Iconosphere – but no! He had to don a purple stripey blazer and sing to the grey-hair brigade at Wimbledon. We’ll always pine for the wasted genius of John Lennon, but Paul McCartney? If you wanted to die a real Icon, you should have thought of that before you hooked-up with the one-legged, mental, gold-digger...

Anyway, goodbye Mr. Jackson. If you see her, give Ms. Fawcett my love. You are not alone...