King of Pain

It turns out the King of Pop really was the King of Pain. Even though he may have brought a lot of pleasure and joy to billions of music fans around the world, he seemed to reside in his own very private hell.

That's a premise for a novel, or movie, or maybe just a trashy TV mini-series. But we don't really need to see it. We all know way too much about this particular King, although, really, most of us never knew the man. Can one soul ever really know another?

This same King had way too many eyeballs on him. Way too many cameras flashed on him. There's way too much video. A universe of images. The images are not the man, not the same thing at all. The images have life of their own. And they will continue to spin out for a long time. There's money to made. Fortunes to build. Some people are worth more dead than alive.

"Authorities are investigating allegations that the 50-year-old Jackson had been consuming painkillers, sedatives and antidepressants."

And this is not a surprising development. Sometimes I think the Pharmaceutical Industry is an incredibly seductive criminal enterprise. And if you have enough money and pain, with Doctors on the payroll, well, there's a prescription for every ailment, real or imaginary.

This happened to another King too. A bloated whale of a man. So different, almost the reverse mirror image of this latest version. And it didn't turn out all that well for that guy either. Until he died. And then well, the King becomes a Deity. And we worship at the altar of fame and fortune and untimely death. We turn a sordid and sad life into pop cultural myth. It's a strange and amazing thing of necrotic beauty.