I'm glad he's dead.

A normal person of my age cohort would typically have learned to either love or hate Michael Jackson as a pop persona -- sorry, in my case, it's probably worth mentioning that I'm talking about the musician and not the beer guy -- either in the 80's, from Thriller, or if they were really, really culturally precocious, in the late '70's, from Off the Wall.

Being not-normal, I was not interested in either and didn't think much at all about Michael Jackson until sometime in the late 80's when I was listening with geekishly ferocious omnivorousness to music of all types, and discovered Motown, including the Jackson Five. I still really like the Jackson Five numbers I discovered then, but I mostly watched Michael over the years since with a raised eyebrow, and so on this fateful day I can't claim to feel a loss related to cherished childhood memories.

What I do feel is a lot of pity for a man who was obviously terribly damaged by his history, and relief that we were not all required to witness its dénouement. On several occasions in the recent past, when MJ came up in the news because of a trial, or an auction of his worldly possessions, or some other sort of personal nightmare made public, I thought to myself that watching this man grow old while penury and obscurity gathered around, always being compared to the startling heights he'd reached decades before, would be the most unpleasant thing I could possibly find on the teevee for the remainder of his/its run.

And so I'm saying right here that I'm glad Michael Jackson died today at the age of 50, not because I'm a bastard (I hope) who wishes death on someone, or disappointment on his fans, but because Michael Jackson's continued existence in a world that wasn't actually Neverland was bound to bring suffering to us all, and none more so that Michael himself. I don't really believe in an afterlife but I sincerely hope this poor, lonely man experienced enough joy when he was performing to have made his 50 years on Earth worth the bother.