Since school ended a little over a month ago, I haven't had any desire to blog. Once liberated slash graduated, it seems there was no need to be subversively sardonic on the internet. I had accepted the realization that Ovarian Mind Tricks was merely a reaction to all the time I spent trying to appropriately use phrases like "economies of scale" and "leverage your risk" while avoiding "fuck off you mindless pricks" and any mention of Chomsky or Fanon.
I was willing to let this blog fade peacefully into interweb history until Michael died and I discovered I have a lot of words inside of me still... Yes, everyone loved him - but to me Michael was like family. He was probably the weird uncle that you never quite felt comfortable being alone with in a room. But still, he was family and we loved him.
I've seen plenty of footage of Japanese people passing out at his concerts. The BBC interviewed distraught fans in Nairobi and Mumbai. A bloke in London babbled idiotically in shock over the news. But it really doesn't matter how many white kids moonwalked across the kitchen floor in their socks. He was OURS.
Michael Jackson was entirely and unequivocally a product of black amerika.
His skin bleaching (or skin disorder, however you'd prefer to look at it) and the hair straightening and the nose slimming are freakish but familiar to black folk. That perverted shit is something else altogether, but watching a beautiful and talented black person hate how they look and do everything in their power to change it? Yea, that's real life.
But these are not the conversations that people would like to have, as they nostalgically
shamone! We miss you for your dancing and music and style and personal tragedy, and refuse to acknowledge the context from which you came. I guess you were right Michael, you really can't win...
Labels: music
