The Living Room Times

In the wake of yesterday’s shocking events, most people seem, unsurprisingly and perhaps even understandably, to be primarily eulogizing Michael Jackson, pop icon and troubled genius, rather than Michael Jackson, accused child molester and all-around weirdo. This reminds me a bit of Richard Nixon’s death, when there was a tendency, at least in the initial days after he died, to emphasize Nixon Goes To China and such, while de-emphasizing Watergate, his paranoia, his racism and anti-Semitism, etc.

It also makes me wonder about O.J. Simpson, who is a reasonably close analogue to Michael Jackson, in terms of being someone who was already incredibly, incredibly famous, and was then accused of very serious crimes. When O.J. dies someday, will he be remembered first and foremost as a great football player (and a terrible actor), rather than as an accused murderer and a convicted armed robber? I sort of doubt it — his criminality has seemed to almost completely overtake his prior public persona, due to the obscenely high-profile nature of his murder trial — but then, I thought Michael Jackson was pretty much known first and foremost these days as a plastic-surgery-obsessed, race-and-gender-confused, child-molesting freak.* Suddenly he dies, and he’s the “King of Pop” again.

*Lest I be attacked by Jackson defenders, and/or accused of speaking ill of the dead, a caveat: this description of Jacko is intended as simply my summation of what I have perceived his public image to be, not necessarily my personal opinion of him. Now, maybe I was wrong about his public image; maybe I watch too much South Park for my own good; maybe I don’t “get it” because the peak of his music-based fame was before my time. But, right or wrong, that has been my perception.

On the other hand, maybe Jacko’s situation is different from O.J.’s, because a) people just aren’t as convinced that, notwithstanding his acquittal, he was really guilty, as they were with O.J. (even before the armed robbery trial, which I think is really a minor blip — Simpson’s reputation was cemented long before that); and/or b) Jacko’s pre-criminality fame was simply more transcendent and massive than O.J.’s ever was.

As an aside, I looked up O.J.’s Wikipedia entry in the course of writing this, and I love its first sentence: “Orenthal James ‘O.J.’ Simpson (born July 9, 1947), nicknamed ‘The Juice’, is a retired American football player, actor, spokesman, and convicted felon.” That’s almost poetic, somehow.

Anyway, back to Jacko. Today is one of those days when it’s kind of fun to look at newspaper front pages. Newseum has a Top 10, as well as an archive. Here are a few selected ones:

Jacko also made the front page, above the fold, of the New York Times. (“All the Nose that’s fit to print,” indeed!)

But the most shocking to me, by far, is this:

The Wall Street Journal?? Really?!? … [shakes fist] DAMN YOU, RUPERT MURDOCH!!!

(At this point, I think it would be appropriate to repeat yesterday‘s self-deprecating “conversation” with the voice-in-my-head “editor”: [Yeah, and what’s the top post on your blog right now, buddy boy? -ed. Shut up.] Heh.)

One final note, as a follow-up to my post yesterday about the L.A. Times homepage Continue reading →