It’s really sad news that Michael Jackson died yesterday. I was leaving Yosemite and I saw the headline on the cover of USA Today. Without any contact with the online world I had no choice but to find out the news the old fashioned way. I had no phone coverage, nothing. What I immediately thought was how sad it was that Jackson had had no life whatsoever. He started out as a young performer, was famous way too soon, became god-like way too early. He never had that thing to help him along. Madonna rose to fame around the same time but she’d had the benefit of having had a real life. Michael Jackson just didn’t know what real life was. Everything that happened to him on the way down in recent years was horrible to watch – and it shows you what that level of wealth and fame can do if you don’t find something to hold on to: religion, a Yoko, a real family.¬† And you wonder what might have been:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVSYJXpD2_E[/youtube]