Reactions Are Mixed

So I'm actually stunned and kinda sad that Michael Jackson is dead. Pop culture icon of my childhood, man! We sang "Black or White" at school assemblies! (We really did. What were my teachers thinking.)

But I can't help it. I just keep cracking jokes.

Like the people in glittery costumes and glove (one glove) descending on the hospital doing the thriller dance? That's not mournful, that's just...funny! Hands going up like little claws, marching toward the hospital? It's apt, for sure, but doesn't have quite the same impact as a candlelight vigil.

And seriously, I'm wondering if the guy was dead already, for years now. Like this was some kind of J.T. LeRoy ploy, and the headlines should actually read "Actor Who Played Michael Jackson Dead of a Heart Attack." Or maybe Thriller was prophetic, and he was actually a zombie, but being in all that debt cut off his fresh-meat food supply.

And poor Farrah. Shunted to a tiny corner at the bottom of the front page.

You've got to wonder if there are going to be Michael Jackson sightings for years to come. Some weird-looking dude of indeterminate race or gender shuffles along looking wide-eyed, and people might wonder. Who knows? It could all have been a hoax. I certainly didn't believe it when I first heard it, and people on the street were stopping me and my friends, asking if it was true.

I was genuinely sad about Natasha Richardson. I was really, really sad about Heath Ledger. I can't quite claim that here, but there is something to be mourned. I'm just not sure if it can be found beneath the layers of creepy.