Written last week and not posted until today: A belated word on the King of Pop. I'm writing about this because the second I heard about Michael Jackson's death, I phoned my sister Katharine because I just had to talk to someone about it right then and there. Lo and behold, my sister Vern was calling Katharine at the exact same time, and through some wild advance in technology, Katharine got us on a three-way call and there we were, separate entities together as one, which is really the best way to describe the relationship I have with my sisters. We are all the same person, just split three ways. Anyway, it was the most exciting phone conversation I've had in years. Granted, it made me a bit sad because I hadn't seen Katharine since Christmas and I hadn't seen Vern since late winter and there's this corner of my being that hibernates when we are not together, but it was wonderful to talk and laugh with them and to feel like we were all in the same room together but with eyes closed. So the three of us shared in the death of an icon together and revisited that special time of childhood innocence and excitement, that decade that my generation was fortunate enough to experience through young eyes and hearts. We are the Children of the 80s. We are that generation that people keep wanting to group with X or Y but that falls more comfortably somewhere in between. We remember the silver glove and the moonwalk, which we tried to replicate on our little elementary school legs. We did not experience war as children, but we sure as hell remember the Challenger exploding and we remember images of the Berlin Wall coming down and knowing that something truly amazing was happening around us. We remember our parents being really concerned about something to do with Iran and Contras, but we did not understand because we were distracted by the fact that Pink 'N Pretty's head broke off and we had to force it back on to her now stump of a neck, but she didn't look right anymore because she had no neck and was all shoulders and head, and Ken just didn't think he could sleep with a woman whose head popped off spontaneously from time to time, so we cried a little bit and then we threw Pink 'N Pretty into the trash and we knew that it was THE END OF AN ERA because, after that, we moved on to Barbie and the Rockers and that gang did not come wearing a pink boa but was clad in spandex, or at least the '86 versions of Dana, Dee Dee, Derek, and Diva too. (And the fact that I still remember all of their names is sad, but Diva came with a cassette tape of the Barbie and the Rockers theme song, and you know I played that thing, like, all of the time because it was only one of three cassette tapes I had in 1986 and it fit really well into the rotation with Tina Turner's Private Dancer and Whitney Houston's self-titled album—you know, the one where she's in the toga and pearls and is saving all her love for you.) And I think that's the whole point of pop culture sometimes. It's something that we can all have in common and that can bring us together, either in a moment of splendor or tragedy. So I'll remember the King of Pop through the eyes of a little girl circa 1984. May he rest in peace knowing that I still dance with reckless abandon every time Billie Jean is played.
