| | As some don't know this, my father is a journalist. Specifically, he is the editor-in-chief of one of the most prestigious local papers we have in Cebu. It's also embarrassing to say that I don't really read his columns, as most of them are about politics. However, there are a few that I'd like to quote him on, and here is an excerpt of what he thinks of MJ's death. Take note that this is his own perspective.
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Frankly speaking, the death of the pop icon (some called him king) Michael Jackson did not strike me in the same way that the killing of John Lennon did. Indeed, the death of Princess Diana probably made me more unsettled.
Maybe because the deaths of John Lennon and Princess Diana were far more senseless than the death of Michael Jackson. Lennon was shot by a crazed person and Diana died in a car crash in the middle of a high speed pursuit by crazy paparazzi.
Lennon was probably just as eccentric as Jackson was. But there was a certain sincerity in the way he projected his eccentricity that people realized that was just the way he was. In Lennon, people saw that all great beauty had some strangeness in the proportion.
I believe that in John Lennon and in Princess Diana, people all over the world felt they truly lost a person. In the case of Michael Jackson, people merely lost an icon. And there is a whale of a difference in that.
Of course, I may be a little biased since I am a Sixties man....
The songs of Michael Jackson may electrify you to the point of dancing. And there is great power in that. It is this great power that drove people to make his "Thriller" album the greatest seller of all time.
But pray tell what song or tune Jackson has in his vast repertoire that can equal, much less surpass, the beauty, the grace, and the raw power of Lennon's "Imagine"? The difference between the two is that Jackson has great songs, but Lennon had great music.
And this is why I go back to what I said earlier, that when John Lennon died, the world lost a real person, but when Michael Jackson died, we merely lost an icon. And that explains the great disparity I noticed in the public reaction to both losses.
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Unrelated to this, I have made my own perspectives on some things:
1. I deleted some of my subscriptions, as I want to subscribe only to those whose writings I can relate and interest me. However, I still retained them in my friends' list.
2. I decided to unblock the people I have blocked before. In all the years I've been here in Xanga, I noticed I have blocked about 5 people. And with just one click of my mouse, I unblocked them. I have learned lately that you don't have to close your doors to people just because some of them made you feel uncomfortable, or because you are pissed at them or something. They're still people, and they have every right to say what they want to say even if I don't agree with them. And I'm not saying I'm a very positive person. I can get cynical and furious, but I realized blocking them would not be fair. And I am a Christian. My door isn't locked. Sometimes it is closed, and at times it is ajar. But never locked.
3. Connection is important to me, so I've recently been very meticulous in my e-mail address book, saving e-mail addresses and phone numbers. Who knows? You might really need some help someday, or like there'd be some reunions and trust me, getting in touch is very, very important.
Well, that's it.
Adieu for now.
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| | Posted 7/3/2009 7:33 PM - 31 Views - 14 eProps - 7 comments
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