The soul has greater need of the ideal than the real for it is by the real that we exist, it is by the ideal that we live

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

What's in back of the sky?...

I paid little to no attention yesterday during the Michael Jackson memorial. I don't subscribe to such public outpourings and I figured this would be a big one.

I was puzzled as to what the fuck John Mayer was doing there? What the hell did he have to do with Michael Jackson?

I'm not jumping on the "John Mayer is a douche" bandwagon, I kinda like the kid. His music seems to keep developing even if his personality gets called into question, and since it's not likely that he and I will ever be close friends I don't much care what he does. It was just incongruous that he suddenly appeared onstage and played Human Nature. I don't get it. This may be due to the fact that I only saw him because it was one of the video features on msnbc and I have no context for his appearance. It just seemed odd that someone I'd never even heard associated with Jackson to be there.

But the real problem for me came at the end. And it's Paris Jackson's fault.

At my ripe old age I don't think about it much anymore, but I lost a parent during my adolescence. It's kinda like that widow's club I alluded to yesterday. Those of us who've got that hole in them seem to instinctively know each other. Without considering it much I can think of four close friends who've lost a parent in their adolescence.

It's not an easy thing.

Mostly because you feel so robbed of that guidance at a time in life when you REALLY need it. But also, and in a huge way, because that relationship is arrested right there at 11, or 15, or 17. You never get to put all that stuff down. It keeps you an adolescent a long time. And the tough part is that you don't have an adult frame of reference for that relationship no matter how much time passes.

So, Paris and Prince, and Blanket will have that experience in this life. And with the surreal environment they live in I'd say it'll be a tough row to hoe.

I do have to say that those kids may have an extra tough time of it because they're apparently not really Jackson's children, and he never adopted them. I've no idea how that can be handled, but I'm sure with their money they can get some kind of iron clad posthumous adoption thing set up wherein they are his kids and their rightful inheritance is never questioned.

I had been adopted, but I didn't know it at the time I lost my parent. I suspected something was up, but never knew what it was til much later.

My sympathies go out to those and all kids who lose a parent in adolescence. It sets you apart at time when you are most desperate to belong, and if you were set apart already it's doubly difficult.

So in an effort to assuage John Mayer's outcasted-ness, let's celebrate him today. I'm not into tall guys at all, and he's a biggen, but he has turned out to be quite a handsome guy. Let's hope he grows up one day soon.