So today I woke up to this text message from a friend of mine:

"OMG! I just fist-fucked a guy who took it all the way up to the armpit!"

I responded that I hoped he wasn't wearing his good pair of evening gloves.  What do you say to something like that?

Somewhere, The Most Jaded Bottom In The World is telling his friends about being--quite literally--armed to the teeth.

Somewhere, a man is dipping his arm in Lysol.

Somewhere, the CEO of "Depends"-brand adult diapers is dancing a gleeful jig.

I love living in such a strange world.

Here's a picture of me "kickin' it" with some old-school friends, taken a few days after Christmas 2009.  As I type this, it is not yet 6 a.m. and I have already been awake for 2 hours, mind racing and full of morbid thoughts.  The urge to erase myself is strong at this moment, and feels like a maze that I'll never find my way through.  But I look at this picture and see myself with lovely longtime friends.  I'm smiling.  Cute, even.  "See?" I say to myself, "It's not all bad.  You *can* feel happy and high-spirited, and there's the proof.  So go to bed, ya wee poof, and stop bloody worrying."  (My inner voice has taken to affecting a Scottish accent, for some reason.)

In the interest of full disclosure, in the above photo I'm also freshly drunk, and roughly two hours later I vomited in my friends' kitchen, blacked out, and---so I'm told---was carried (by no less than three people) to a couch, where I remained until late the following morning.  I had not drank with particular vigor---two beers, two shots---but was still entirely decimated.  It occurred to me that this was probably due to the fact that I'm taking various prescriptions for depression and heart issues, and perhaps this had something to do with my early collapse.  In spite of repeated viewings of The Valley of the Dolls, I forgot that pills and liquor are often a problematic combination.  Yet there I was, conducting myself like Karen Walker minus the killer rack, smilingly unaware that in a matter of minutes I'd be on the floor, out cold and smelling of puke.

Classy.

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I don't know what the best music of this decade was, or what the best song of the year was.  My feeling is that pop music is, like candy-colored breakfast cereal, for kids; it is as unseemly for people over 30 to tune into who's hot on the charts as it is for them to tune into who's hot on the playground.  (I suppose I'm talking specifically about the listening habits of gay men or childless heterosexuals, since people in the act of raising kids inevitably come into contact with this stuff.)   

Gay men over thirty, please take note:  Lady Gaga is the gay man's comb-over.  Just as a bald man is fooling no one but himself when he sweeps his remaining hair over his balding pate, you cannot soothe your anxiety over the aging process by learning all the lyrics to "Bad Romance."  The 21-year-old guy standing next to you does not view you as his peer, and yes, he thinks you need Botox. 

So, as a tip of the hat to my own arthritic, largely acoustic, entirely edge-free tastes (and my own inability to project myself as being in any way "current"), here's a list of the music I spun the most in 2009, regardless of when it actually came out.  "Um, Dave," you'll probably point out, "almost everything on here is older than you are."  Yeah, it's true.   But that's the music I find myself going back to the most---music from an era where songwriters could touch a whole array of human truths, AutoTune didn't exist, and interesting *music* was more celebrated than interesting clothes.  To quote Joni Mitchell:  "All you kids with your tight little abs and your two hits, take a look at these guys." 

( In no particular order... )

Because I have nothing but time on my hands, I just put together a somewhat amusing slideshow to accompany a fragment from David Bowie's ex-wife Angela's dishy memoirs.

Out on some borderline, some mark of in-between
I lay down golden in time, and woke up vanishing
Sweet bird, you are briefer than a falling star
All these vain promises on beauty jars
Oh, somewhere with your wings on time, you must be laughing.

Behind our eyes, calendars of our lives
Circled with compromise
Sweet bird of time and change, you must be laughing,
Up on your feathers, laughing.

Golden in time, cities under the sand
Power, Ideals, and Beauty fading in everyone's hands.
Give me some time, I feel like I'm losing mine
Out here on this horizon line
With the earth spinning and the sky forever rushing.

No one knows---we can never get that close
Guesses at most
Guesses based on what each set of time and change is touching.

Inch by tiny inch, I'm beginning to cautiously re-engage myself with other human beings after a long, self-imposed exile. It's too early to guess whether or not this will be a successful endeavor, as the outside world is pretty much just as I remember it: warm and wonderful people engaging in what are to me banal and charmless pursuits. I'm deeply and genuinely moved to discover that the people who liked or loved me before I began breaking down are, for the most part, still here and ready to keep on liking or loving me. I did not expect that, and it's amazing.

What will still be a challenge is finding some way I can actually interact with these amazing folks in a way that will be mutually satisfying. Since it is unlikely that any of them will immerse themselves in the things I enjoy---and no socially healthy person can enjoy religious studies, existentialism, and 70's prog rock---it will be up to me to become versed in the things that make daily life a shared experience for most other people. I am going to have to learn how to play--and like---video games. I am going to have to start watching reality TV, True Blood, and those Twilight movies. I might even have to attend a sporting event of some sort. And I'm almost certainly going to have to swallow hard and start listening to whatever the popular music is right now.

I'm going to have to formulate some kind of opinion about Lady Gaga because, apparently, no one is currently allowed to go more than three sentences without mentioning her. If nothing else, 2009 will be remembered for the simultaneous emergency-level outbreaks of swine flu and Lady Gaga.

It's not that I don't like her. It's not that I do like her. I just can't find anything about her to react to. Or rather, whatever there is to react to, I feel as though I've already reacted to it, repeatedly, for decades, and I'm unable to react to it again. Everything about her, we should already be inured to. My generation has witnessed the canny ascent of Madonna, the rape and cannibalizing of Britney Spears, and at least two Cher comebacks. Haven't we already seen Lady Gaga's entire shtick---dance-pop lip-synced by a provocatively attired lithe thing surrounded by a horde of posing, gyrating backup dancers? Haven't we seen it over and over and over? Predictably, her most vocal audience is The Gays, who, as a matter of cultural preservation, never fail to throw their considerable energies behind wig-wearing, pop-singing chicks in crazy outfits. With Cher now officially a senior citizen, Madonna eligible for AARP membership, and Britney used-up like last night's condom, the next generation of drag queens are going to need someone to emulate, and Lady Gaga is perfect for this purpose.

Don't get me wrong---I'm glad she's successful and everything, and I think it's cool that so many people can share the common experience of liking what she does, but is it really worth the scale of attention she's getting? She is not going to cure cancer, end the war, or clean up Washington. She can only continue to change outfits and keep her backup dancers leaping around. She is, after all, an entertainer---for all I know, a pretty good one. Can't I just be indifferent to the spectacle without being made to feel as though I'm missing the return of Jesus Christ?

An otherwise delicious dinner at ___ restaurant was marred tonight when, at the bottom of my entree, clinging to the plate via the viscous mango sauce, swirled a long-ass pubic hair.




After suppressing the split-second urge to yak, I quietly addressed my friend Jeffrey, sitting across from me crunching on heavily-vinegared fish and chips.  "That," I pointed, "is a very specific kind of hair."

I looked at it again, and found myself measuring the relative merits of finding different types of hair in one's food.  I attempted to console myself with the notion that, maybe, it was just a regular hair that had simply been swirled into that telltale shape by the motions of my pushing all those chunks of juicy chicken around the plate.  The plate from which I'd been eating.  And there again was that pesky impulse to puking.  (The impulse was thwarted.)

But, no.  In the final analysis, there was no denying that this was a hair that had obviously come from some part of the body that should not be remotely involved in food preparation.

Do I tell the waitress there's a hair in my chicken, or do I tell her there's a full-on flaming zebra-riding Zulu pubic hair on my plate?  In my mind, there was a clear distinction.  One is gross.  The other is fucking nasty-ass.  

When the waitress came, I simply reiterated my initial, shell-shocked declaration to Jeffrey:  "There is a very specific kind of hair in my plate," I told her.  Ohh, she said, not quite catching the implication, sorry about that.  "Please have a talk with the folks in the kitchen," I suggesed, "about...."  About what?  About making sure to sweep up any pubes that may be flying around after they've finished masturbating into the cream sauce?  "...about....whatever they should know...about sanitation, or...or whatever."  

A tactful, if awkward, suggestion.  The entree was comped, nobody puked, and it was a memorable experience.  You really can't ask for more than that, even from an ideal dining-out experience.

It was a Monday morning in the most pejorative sense of the term. 

Like any other morning, I staggered crusty-eyed to my car, drove to the 7-11 for some coffee and a shitty breakfast, and made my way into the office.  I arrived on time, powered up the computer, and retired to the lavatory.  Upon sitting, I finally noticed something that I should have been mindful of from the word Go:



Wearing white after Labor Day... what was I thinking??

1:
The bottom quarter of Dad's right lung is being removed this coming Tuesday, and everyone is edgy and terrified.  Dad himself, though, is mainly worried about one thing:  "How am I going to go six days in the hospital without a cigarette?"  I told him that, after having his ribcage sawed apart, pulled open, and having part of a lung hacked off, he might not even want  to inhale gusts of hot smoke for a while.  As soon as I said this, I remembered that after I had my tonsils out in 2003, my own recuperation consisted of coating my throat in codeine syrup so I could do bong hits more comfortably.  So, who knows?  When it comes to defending our chemical dependencies, we're a very stubborn lot.

2:
I'm obsessed with the possibility that Dad might not make it through the surgery, or, worse yet, will make it through the actual surgery but end up riddled with cancer anyway.  He's 70 years old, frail, and has zero---and I mean zero---sort-term memory.  I'm horrified to find myself wondering if he'd be better off expiring sooner rather than later.  But, the idea of losing my dad----the only person in my family who has loved and defended me unconditionally my entire life---makes me want to blow my brains out.  Still, every time I try to express my love and appreciation for him, I hit a wall and can't bring myself to say a single word.  Mostly I just kind of look at him.  Trying to take as many mental pictures of him as I can.  Trying to freeze him in my memory, to make time stop passing so quickly.  Wondering when exactly the strapping, heroic man who taught me (in vain) how to fish, play baseball, and throw a punch became so shrunken, addled, and helpless.  And then it strikes me that the only way I've been able to express any love for or attachment to my dad in the last 16 years has been to sleep with men 20 years older than me.  At then it's all I can do to down a shot of whiskey and crawl into bed, disgusted with myself.

3:
I had my appeal hearing with the Illinois Department of Employment Security a few days ago.  For someone who is technically supposed to be impartial, the moderator (or whateverthefuck he is) was distinctly aggressive towards me.  I must have angered him by being, perhaps, too casual.  I was chided three times for beginning to answer his questions before he'd finished speaking, and scolded a fourth time for not answering quickly enough after he'd finished speaking.  This last incident was rather unfair, as his instruction for me to speak only after he had asked a question was complicated by his tendency to make statements, rather than pose questions.  Presumably, I was supposed to either agree or disagree with these statements (i.e., "On January 18th, you applied for a job with Invisible Fence."  Pause.  "Answer the question, Mr. Eeenz," he prodded, brusquely.)  I wanted to point out that, technically, he hadn't asked a question, but fortunately I kept my Inner Smart-Ass in check.  That was another thing that irked me about him---even after I had corrected him as to the correct way of pronouncing my last name, he continued to mangle it afresh with each repetition, leaning into it a little more each time.  "What were you earning per hour, Mr. Eyenezz?"  "And on what date, Mr. Innizz, were you let go from that job?"  "And it is your claim, Mr. Ayneez, that you were told not to contact the temp agency?"  There was barely a single answer I gave that he didn't immediately try to argue down.  By contrast, the opposing side was barely asked anything more than her name, and responded to his softball questioning with a clipped, "Yep" or "Nope."  It will supposedly take two weeks for them to hand down their decision, but since pretty much everything else in my life has dived into the shitter, I am not terribly optimistic about the outcome of this, either.

4:
To solidify my family's impeccable White Trash credentials, my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew were arrested two nights ago for assaulting their neighbors---at knifepoint.  Their mutual antagonism over the last couple of months has been epic.  It began with some minor-league feuding between my sister's daughter and the neighbor's daughter.  This was extended into a recurring debate along the lines of, "You're a bad mother" / "No, you're the bad mother."  Then the neighbor began telling everyone else on their block (falsely) that my sister is an alcoholic.  My sister retaliated by telling everyone on the block (truthfully) that her neighbor had her first child taken away from her by the DCFS.  This culminated in the neighbor marching outside with a camcorder and videotaping my sister and her husband drinking beer in their garage.  A few four-letter-words forcefully articulated by my sister, and the shit was ON.  Quicker than you can say "Girls gone wild," they apparently lunged at one another.  Then, one by one, members of each opposing family joined the melee.  Five squad cars and ten cops later, my sister, bro-in-law, and nephew were on the ground, cuffed, and taken away.  It was my nephew's bright idea to involve cutlery.  Now, the police are upping his charge from battery to "disarming an officer," which I believe is a felony.  I also believe it's a farce.  The only way my nephew could disarm anyone would be with a wink and a smile.

5:
My so-gay-you-can-see-his-homosexuality-from-space friend Jeffrey is having a full-blown affair with his best friend's recently widowed rich aunt.  They drink, they fuck, they drink some more, they fuck again.  Occasionally she'll write him a check with many zeroes. 

Nice work if you can get it.

Even though I haven't had the honor in quite some time, I must confess that I love having sex with musicians.  That is to say, I like to have some music playing whenever a special friend and I are enjoying one another's intimate company.  Sometimes it sets the right mood and tempo; other times it provides a discreet distraction from a partner's less-than-stellar performance.  (I find that if I get bored with whatever the guy's doing, zoning out to the music is less offensive than, say, whipping out a crossword puzzle.)

Bjork's "Come To Me" works wonders.  "Creepin'" by Stevie Wonder is a charm.  Chopin's "Nocturne No. 1 in B-flat minor" is a full-on  tongue-bath. 

I know a girl who used to have sex with her boyfriend to the rowdy accompaniment of Pantera and Skinny Puppy.  God only knows what went on.

Another friend once had me make him a CD of Moby's "Machete" repeated throughout the duration of the 80-minute disk, specifically so he could have rapid bunny-sex to the song's frantic techno pulse.

I once had the pleasure of entertaining a young fellow that I had been crushing on for months, and it took me completely by surprise.  When go-time arrived, I hit Play on the CD player and discovered I was woefully unprepared for this fantasy-come-true.  The music was "Song Against Sex" by Neutral Milk Hotel---an overdriven cacophony of fuzzed-out guitars and trombones.  My handsome guest avoided me for weeks afterward.  I blame the music.

Back when we were teenagers, royko would occasionally come over with his girlfriend, and the two of them, and my first boyfriend and I, would flop out in my bedroom and make out.  Unfortunately, this friendly configuration never blossomed into a full-blown menage a quatre---both couples stayed on their own sides of the room---but I attribute this failure to my snarky humor and bad taste:  I'd switched the music mid-hump from The Prince of Tides soundtrack to It's a Sunshine Day: The Very Best of the Brady Bunch.  I gotta hand it to royko and his ladyfriend---their passionate concentration remained unbroken, and "Time to Change" bounced right off them.  Had I opted instead for, say, Isaac Hayes' "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic," I'm sure we would have all gone bi for about six minutes.

So....what puts you in the mood?

I hope he'll chase me around after I die.

Maybe it's all the Michael Jackson in the air, but lately I've been thinking a lot about an old friend of mine, who for the purposes of this blog I'll call Denny.

Denny and I have not spoken to each other in years, but every so often I'll see a picture of him smiling out from one of the seedier corners of Craiglist's "M4M" section.  I miss the guy like crazy.  We briefly tried dating, ten years ago or more, but the fact that he was still very much in-the-closet at the time was a deal-breaker for me.  I was annoyed that, whenever we hung out with other friends of his, we had to first get our stories straight about how we knew each other.  Because he was a grade-school teacher his secrecy made some degree of sense, so I never pushed the issue.  Instead we became good friends, and I couldn't have been happier about that.  Denny had a genius for busting chops in a most hilarious and endearing way.  He also had a remarkable buoyance and perspective on life, having lived through cancer, a lung operation, and a knife attack before he had even turned 30.  He was a rare thing---a smartass who was actually smart.

He also used to make the most killer pot brownies ever.  The only drawback was that I'd go into work the following day and, using the toilet for sit-down business, it was as if I were blowing bong hits out of my behind.  You didn't have to look into my squinty, red eyes---anyone could sense my pollution from thirty feet away.

I saw it on the news one night a few years ago:  Denny had been arrested for, allegedly, soliciting a 15-year-old boy online.  As is usually the case, it was actually a 50-year-old cop, and---needless to say---this effectively ended his teaching career and made his life a living hell for quite some time afterward.

The first time I got to talk to him on the phone after his arrest, the first thing he said was, "I just want you to know I didn't do it."  It hadn't even crossed my mind if he were guilty or not.  He was my friend.  In fact, had his arrest been filmed and broadcast on one of those To Catch a Predator shows, I would have asked him to autograph my youngest nephew. 

The upshot was that he had finally had the closet exploded from around him.  The downside, of course, is that it totally destroyed his life.  All his friends deserted him, he lost his job, he was driven out of his neighborhood, and although he was not technically found guilty in the end, the mere accusation was enough to leave him tarred-and-feathered in the eyes of virtually everyone in his world. 

Some time after this ordeal had wrapped itself up, I entered what my friend Bill refers to as one of my "Garbo periods," meaning I close myself off from everyone and everything for a period of weeks or months.  Denny, of course, perceived my prolonged silence as having something to do with his arrest and left me a voice mail saying, "I get the message, you don't want to be friends with me anymore, so I give up."  He had it all wrong, but I never did get around to calling him back and explaining myself.  I figured that he felt rejected, and now I felt rejected, so what was there to discuss?  It was a sad, needless, whimpering end to a fabulous friendship.

I wonder what would happen if one of these days I were to answer one of his Craigslist ads.  Would that even be adviseable?  Would it matter?  

I'd appreciate any input anyone might care to make....

I used to have a print of a painting similar to this one, which I used to meditate on before I'd begin my shifts at a pizza restaurant I briefly worked at in 2002.  That job was, for me, one of my all-time low points---for hardly any money, I had the honor of serving, flattering, and cleaning up after people who seldom bothered to look me in the face as they ordered me around.  That's what food service is all about, of course, but my ego bristled at being "the help."  The only thing that got me through day after day of sauce-stained degradation was the time I'd spend meditating upon this image.

Here I am now in 2009, and after 18 months of spectacularly bad fortune, I'm reacquainting myself with what this picture means.

But Davy, you're probably asking, what the hell is it?
( Read more... )

It's been a strange weekend.  Actually, no, the weekend has been perfectly normal.  I'm feeling strange.

Yesterday morning I was called-on by a friend who said he needed some "Dave time."  I haven't seen him in several months and was really, really touched that after such an extended absence he would still request my company.  My usual feeling is that I'm out-of-sight, out-of-mind, or more pointedly, that after I've done my disappearing act for long enough, people understandably stop wasting time knocking on my turtle shell.  It was nice be forgiven for being such a slippery little shit.

I also had the pleasure of meeting my friend's new sweetheart, pictured below:


There is no mood grim enough to withstand the persuasive powers of a puppy dropping at one's feet and saying, "Hello, I think you should scratch my tummy now."

So we went to the dog beach and I got giddy watching all the dogs running and frisking and splashing and rolling around in the sand.  Then my friend and I got some ice cream from an honest-to-goodness ice cream truck (complete with tinkly, maddening, deranged-clown ice cream truck music), flopped down on a towel, and had a heart-to-heart talk about all the fears, doubts, and disillusionment that is a frequent hallmark of the introspective-and-over-thirty set.  Not exactly a topic for a sunny summer's day, but, as I had no idea he's currently experiencing similar existential aches and pains as me, it was a good opportunity for us to remind one another that we are still lovable and worthwhile people even if we haven't yet cracked the nut of Life.  Life is currently cracking our nuts, but that's OK.  There are still sun, ice cream, and dogs.

Then we moseyed over to Pridefest, where I spotted my brother---he of the bark-brown suntan, ripped V-shaped torso, and perfect teeth--cavorting shirtless with a young(ish) guy who, upon being introduced to me, was clearly having a hard time spotting any family resemblance.  "Oh, David!" he said after I grabbed him by a well-muscled arm, "I didn't recognize you!"  That should give some indication as to how often we see one another.   I barely know my brother, who would be mortified if he learned I was writing of the fact that he is in the home stretch to turning 50.  I've always found him kind of intimidating.  He's always been driven, successful, rich and beautiful---Mom's obvious, undisguised favorite.  The look of bewilderment on the faces of his friend and mine on seeing the two of us next to each other confirmed the lack of visible evidence that we both sprang from the same set of loins.  "He's...not at all what I was expecting," my friend, ever the diplomat, said later. 

As we stood around being gay, my brother mentioned that our sister's wedding was taking place somewhere in Wisconsin at that very moment.  "Oh, yeah," I said, "I forgot about that.  Oopsie."  I took a bit of comfort in the fact that, although he possesses all the fabulosity that I do not have, we're both shitty and self-absorbed enough to opt for attending a gay block party instead of our sister's nuptuals.

Whatever, it was her second wedding.  Those are always anticlimactic anyway.  What were they going to do--hang another bloody sheet out the window to prove her chastity?

Nonetheless, the encounter tipped my mood back into the glum-and-self-flaggelating end of the spectrum.  I returned home and resumed the careless trashing of an apartment that I'm supposed to be cleaning and organizing and packing-up.  I thought about how much I hate---and completely depend upon---my barely-there job and even-more-barely-there case worker and psychiatrist.  And today, it's as if there aren't any friends, sunshine, ice cream, or dogs left in the world.  How does that happen?  Why does happiness have to be so fragile? 

If my head were shoved any farther up my own ass, I could French-kiss myself from the opposite direction.

"You can eat all you want, and you don't get fat.
Where else can you go for a meal like that?"
     --Madonna, "Where Life Begins"

So yesterday I heard from an old grammar school friend who I've recently reconnected with, who is very excited about the plethora of recent celebrity deaths.  She and her husband have invented a rather ghoulish, but fabulous, game.  They both make a list at the beginning of each year of what celebrities they think will die in the following twelve months.  For each one they get right, the other owes them twenty minutes of oral sex.

They've also expanded the game into making weekly lists of which contestants will be booted from each of the major competition-based reality shows, and also making seasonal lists of what television programs they think will get axed from the network roster. 

It seems they've both been on a winning streak.

"It's cheaper than going to Vegas," she reasons, "and the buffet is still open 24-hours."

I've missed her so. :)

"Gosh, ya think Michael Jackson's been in the news enough?" the craggy faced woman with dyed orange hair complained at work this morning.  Ever since I was moved to the opposite side of the building I've been having a difficult time interacting with any of the people around me.  Not that I have to--I'm not actually doing work for their department--but it's nice to have people at work you can be friendly and playful with when the mood strikes.

Unfortunately, every last person in this wing of the building is an atomic douche explosion.

"Oh my gawd, I know, right?" the saggy-titted brunette next to her (and behind me) concurred.  "I went out to eat last night and the restaurant was playing Michael Jackson songs, like, all night.  I was like, OK, I am sooooo Thriller-ed out!"

"Must've been a slow news day yesterday," Ms. Craggy Face said.  "Otherwise it wouldn't even be news!  When I go, you can bet I'm not going to get that kind of coverage." 

Because I was already in a bad mood, have no personal investment in these people, and have no expectation to remain in this position for long, I put down my pen and uttered the first words I've spoken in the six weeks I've been in their midst.  "Actually," I said, "the reason it's news is because it was Michael Fucking Jackson.  Selling 750 million albums worldwide over a period of 45 years is a pretty major accomplishment.  People knew him all over the world.  The reason your death isn't going to be on the news is because you're known by maybe ten people, and you think you've accomplished something special when you apply your nail polish correctly."

I'm so charming at the workplace.

I was born in 1974, so while I technically can remember Farrah Fawcett on "Charlie's Angels,"---and, of course, that poster---I wasn't quite old enough for it to have made any kind of impact.  I primarily remember her from her intense, harrowing portrayals of a battered wife and rape victim in proto-Lifetime Network fare like The Burning Bed and Extremities, which were in constant rotation on cable television throughout the latter half of the '80's.  The last time many of us saw her on TV was during her famously addled appearance on David Letterman's show in the late '90's.  Through the tabloids, we were aware of her recent cancer struggle and--comfortingly--her ever-enduring love affair with Ryan O'Neal.  It was very sad to hear of her passing today, but it wasn't entirely unexpected.

Michael Jackson, though... He was the kind of person I couldn't imagine ever dying.  He was pop music's Peter Pan, after all.  When the news broke of his sudden passing today, I found myself reacting the way I'd always reacted to any news about his life:  "No way... Are you kidding me?"  His life, and his death--both seem unreal.  

Like millions of other kids growing up in the '80's, I bought Thriller---and, later, Bad---with my allowance money, wore a chintzy glitter-socks-and-single-glittery-glove set, and spent hours in my mom's kitchen in my stocking feet trying to do the Moonwalk.  I watched morning reruns of the old Jackson 5 cartoons.  I shoplifted Off the Wall from my neighborhood K-Mart.  I stayed up extra-late to watch Friday Night Videos (before my parents were willing to spring for cable) so I could see "Beat It," "Billie Jean," and maybe even "Say, Say, Say."  The way he sang, the way he danced---it was all you could do to say "No way!"

Then the real circus began.  He arrived at the Grammy's with Brooke Shields on one arm and Emmanuel Lewis on the other.  He bought some llamas and a chimpanzee.  He slept in an oxygen tank and fancied the bones of the elephant man.  His facial features grew sharper and narrower.  He began to grab his crotch an awful lot.  Everything he did made people gasp, "No way!"

Then the stories of his exploits darkened considerably.  I don't know what, if anything, really occurred with those boys.  Was he another tortured child-star acting out, or a cash cow being exploited by unscrupulous rabble?  When it came to Michael, you could believe almost anything.  What had already been made clear, though, was that "the public"---always hostile towards anything different or strange---had been waiting to damn him for years.  They were just waiting for a good enough excuse.  At this juncture, "No way" started to morph into "No doubt." 

(Lisa Marie, the 2nd wife, and the 3 kids, though---those were all major "No way" moments.)

By the mid-90's, he had become such an out-of-touch, pitiable creature that it was easy to forget that he'd been making incredible records for thirty years.  Each new album took seven years and a dozen producers to squeeze out, and was released in a hailstorm of corporate-generated publicity and fabricated excitement.  Sales dwindled.  Punchlines grew meaner.  Would he ever be able to stage a real comeback?  No way.

And today his long, amazing, confusing, terribly sad story ends.  Already the Jacko-jackals are flailing at his flesh.  I suspect that, like most very small people, these professional and part-time haters are resentful of anyone extraordinary.  But who are they?  All they've ever given the world is a headache.  Michael gave the world joy for forty-five years.  So let them all choke on their bile.  Michael's body gave out but his songs, and the memories he gave generations of music-lovers, are indestructible.

Will we ever see his like again?  No way.