I fell asleep last night and when I woke up around 4pm, I was surprised to see the same Jacksons documentary on most of the MTV/VH1 channels. I guessed something was up.
Obviously, this was confirmed this morning when I heard the news. It seems it was a heart attack. It’s a shame – no matter what you thought of him, he was a talented (if latterly, very confused) individual.
There’s a good write up in The Times. The one in The Sun isn’t too bad, either. All the other papers are covering it, of course. Best if you read those instead of me quoting anything.
I’m sure this will upset some people, but in many ways it is as significant as Elvis’ death. Not just the fact that Jacko was a superstar and supremely talented person (more so than Elvis, in my opinion), but due to the way the public is behaving already. The media has gone crazy.
Right now on breakfast TV they’re at Glastonbury interviewing people about what it means. And they’ve got a Jacko impersonator in the studio. And I took the car to the Ford dealer this morning to get it looked at (EMS fault), and on the radio they have got people phoning in with their opinions: mainly middle-aged women, clearly contemplating suicide over his death. The news channels have covered little else, though it is tiresome listening to Z-list celebrities stuttering and stammering (why is it they can’t talk properly off-screen?) for 5 minutes just to say ‘I’m shocked’.
I was never into Jacko’s kind of music, but I didn’t specifically hate what he did. I just recognised him for what he was: musically gifted.
Edit: 26/06/2009 #1 – Daytime TV is driving me nuts. Phone-in after phone-in with such gems as:
I’m just [pause]… really [pause]… really sad! He was very [pause]… very [pause]… good!
People really are idiots.
Edit: 26/06/2009 #2 – And now they have Uri Geller on the phone. I don’t think I need to say any more on that: you know what he was like at the best of times.