People always told me be careful of what you do
And don’t go around breaking young girl’s hearts
And mother always told me be careful of who you love
And be careful of what you do cause the lie becomes the truth

I fell off the grid for a while this weekend. Got off the plane on Thursday evening and every television screen throughout the terminal was ablaze with images of Michael Jackson.

Dead? At 50?

No, scratch that. At any age, it just sounds wrong.

Truth be told, this has been a really bad week for a lot of our beloved media icons. How would Johnny Carson have ever found the stage without Ed McMahon to herald his way? Farrah Fawcett? How can an Angel die? Say it ain’t so, Charlie.

But Michael Jackson?

I said you wanna be startin’ somethin’
You got to be startin’ somethin’
I said you wanna be startin’ somethin’
You got to be startin’ somethin’

Pop music wasn’t part of my childhood. But Michael Jackson wasn’t pop music. Michael Jackson was…Michael Jackson. MJ. The Gloved One. The King of Pop. It was an accolade that no one dared question, because it was fact. Was any artist more pervasive, more talented, more representative of an entire decade? Madonna maybe. But Madonna was not the King.

Michael Jackson was.

That this is thriller, thriller night
‘Cause I can thrill you more than any ghost would dare to try
Girl, this is thriller, thriller night
So let me hold you tight and share a killer, diller, chiller
Thriller here tonight

Pepsi, Disney, MTV. At times it seemed he held the entire world in that bedazzled gloved hand of his. Quirky, eccentric, odd, or just downright bizarre