The Michigan Telephone blog

As if you haven’t read enough already, right?

Normally I’m not a person impressed by celebrities. I remember one time, when I was much younger, helping a friend out with a show that was essentially an opening act for a private birthday party for someone who was very big in the motion picture business (people today might not recognize the name, but let’s just say he was a huge name in the 30’s and 40’s, and this was like his 80th birthday party, if I recall correctly).  It was held in the Palmer House in Chicago, another institution that had once been huge, but was already past its prime. There were some big name celebrities there (one big TV star in particular) and everyone was going ga-ga over the fact that all these big shots were around.  And I remember being totally unimpressed – I was so tired from the setup work we’d done that I wouldn’t even go out to see the show. Everyone looked at me kind of funny, but I just explained that those people didn’t impress me, and I meant it.

But I would have gone to see Michael Jackson.  I liked his music.  Unlike most folks, I think I liked him better when he was with the Jackson Five (I didn’t care for “Thriller” much, although the song “Billie Jean” definitely got stuck in my head for a while).

The reason I bring this up is that I remember when I first saw the Jacksons on TV, probably when I was in my late teens, and upon learning that Michael was only eight years old, I remember thinking “this kid has already done more with his life than I will probably ever do with mine.”  And I think it was the first, and maybe one of the only times that I was ever genuinely envious of any celebrity.  Of course, I had no way of knowing that he’d been raised in an allegedly abusive home (I can’t believe that his father is being allowed to take care of his kids, even temporarily!), nor how much he envied “normal” kids. And I certainly had no idea of the paths his life would take, nor how it would end. I suspect that when the dust clears, there’s going to be plenty of blame to go around for who caused his death (see this article from the U.K. Daily Mail for some additional insight), but probably not enough to pin on any specific individual.

I’ve always said that groups of individuals will do evil that no one of them would do if solely responsible (hence my dislike of large corporations, which are almost always evil to some degree). That was probably the case here. No one person killed Michael, but many people – primarily greedy people – took their toll. It may have been a case of “death by a thousand cuts”, some much deeper than others.

In any case, looking back, it’s obvious how foolish I was to in any way be envious of Michael Jackson. And nowadays, I always wonder why celebrities seems to have so much “clout” with the public. Why can they get elected to public office, even if barely qualified for the job? Why can they address legislative bodies on social matters, delivering their opinions as if they were some type of authority on any subject? Why do people look up to them at all?

If there’s any lesson to be learned from Michael Jackson’s life and death, I think it is this: Although we can appreciate the talent a particular person may have, we should not wish to be them, nor to emulate them. Sometimes it seems as though the bigger they are, the more troubles they have, and the more likely they are to fall into a destructive lifestyle and (sometimes) early death. Not only that, but if they have kids, those kids will always be in their shadow. No matter what Michael Jackson’s kids do, they will always be known as his children, for whatever that is worth. Would you really want that sort of life? I wouldn’t, and most people wouldn’t. Michael was sort of forced into it by the choices his parents made, and by the time he was old enough to make his own decisions, much of the direction of his life had already been set. Would you want that sort of life for one of your kids?

I’m not big on organized religion (to put it mildly), but one thing most major religions teach is that envy is a destructive force. And it really is, but the kicker is that most of the people we envy (celebrities in particular) we probably would not envy at all if we really knew what they were going through. Is envy driving your life, or your aspirations for your children’s lives? Just something to think about.

Thank you, Michael, for all the great music.