Fame, death, music and us

In high school I got in trouble for wearing a Kurt Cobain t-shirt shortly after the grunge singer’s untimely death.

Well, not in trouble, exactly. As paltry tribute, I happened to buy the Cobain shirt almost immediately after his suicide. I loved Nirvana, like thousands of millions of others. And Kurt was great – surreptitious and wise when not indulging in narcissistic, destructive behavior — actually hilariously funny when not languishing in the spotlight.

I wore the shirt – Kurt D. Cobain, 1967-1994 – one spring day to school during my sophomore year. I thought nothing of it. Not to brag, but I was an A-level, honor-roll student, possibly a future college athlete, and pretty much an All-American kid. I didn’t even drink at age 15 and 16, and I couldn’t get any girls to look at me.

But I wore the shirt, and a teacher, the high school baseball coach, stopped me in the hall. Without quoting verbatim, he said something like, “Really? You really like Kurt Cobain? You think he’s a good role model?” Something crappy like that; like a bonehead parent would say or something.

I defended myself, brushing him off a little too snidely, but sufficiently well-behaved. And I really thought nothing of it. I think I wore the shirt maybe two more times, before it was replaced by that Black Nirvana with stoned smiley face T-shirt. Took me months to find that back in 1994, now they sell the same thing at JC Freaking Penney.

Fast-forward to now. Michael Jackson has died. Maybe you’ve heard.

Though his death isn’t surprising – is it? – I actually was fascinated by the outpouring of people, even within my generation – who immediately sought to remember Jackson’s indelible stamp on pop, R&B, and culture as a whole – casually placing any or all of his music within certain seminal events of their lives.

(Note: I was six when Thriller was released. But I rolled my eyes every time MTV would count down its Top 100 of all time, and you knew Thriller was No. 1, because the network would leave forty full minutes between No. 2 and No. 1. They’d always shorten the full-length We’re Not Going to Take It, but never Thriller.)

Like Chuck Klosterman and Bill Simmons discussed on podcast, this surprised me. Jackson’s relevance, to me, had long past. And his freakish descent into oblivion just grew, well, more bizarre yet totally uninteresting. Even now, I still can’t really quantify Michael Jackson – but probably no celebrity has seen his demons swept under the rug at his death faster than the King of Pop.

But who am I to criticize? Just as I wore a Kurt Cobain T-shirt in 1994, I suppose it’s OK that a fortysomething colleague brought a sequined glove to work the other day. (Note: This actually did happen.) MTV is now playing videos again, a friend reports, even if they are The Way You Make Me Feel at 5:30 a.m. with cut-ins from B-level pop stars remembering the importance of Bad.

I think this phenomenon – our investment in the cultural elite, even the otherworldly famous, is altogether gripping. Not surprisingly, a legend dies. Not surprisingly, a legend’s greatness is remembered. However, this legend’s greatness was forever past. Still, it’s almost as though the death rocks society as much as a legend passing in his prime – Jackson is Elvis compared to Cobain, Hendrix, Joplin, maybe Lennon. Neither has a more preferable epitaph, each one’s greatness still ushering the requisite amount of sad nostalgia.

To me, the seismic nature of Jackson’s death was actually best captured by Joe Posnanski. A whole legion of pre-Generation X inhabitants remembers Jackson and his music, as so overwhelming of their time – all-encompassing. Even though it may not have been their favorite, but, wow, it totally mattered.

… I don’t want to be the sort of 42-year-old man who looks back and reminisces about stuff that wasn’t all that great in the first place. … It isn’t that childhood is so great or so lousy. It’s all of that. To me the point is that there’s a certain feeling that goes with being young and full of hope/fear/grief/anger/loneliness. The sunny days of my childhood were bright yellow. It’s cool, I think, to get a whiff of that brightness again. …

If you grew up in the last 20 years, you would probably only know Michael Jackson for being famous. You might like the music, you might not, but either way you couldn’t hear it. There were only a few years there in the early-to-mid 1980s when you could have truly heard the music. I happened to grow up in those years. So, yeah, I was sad when I heard the news. He was a part of my life. It’s not like I want to hear Thriller again. But I wouldn’t mind hearing it again for the first time.

I totally get Joe’s logic, (And I love his final line) similar to my generation’s’ view of Cobain and his contemporaries. Nirvana was a great band, but there is no earthly way I consider them superior to Pearl Jam. Or even Alice In Chains. Dave Grohl, for that matter, has some superior stuff sprinkled through (way too many) Foo Fighters records. But Nirvana mattered during 1992 through 1994, much more than Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Guns N’ Roses, or Metallica ever will or did.

Cobain ushered in a new era of realism, self-awareness, and nihilism within music. Almost by accident yet somehow by morose, myopic choice – he totally represented all of us who came of age in the 1990s. Though I’m much more likely to queue up Jar of Flies on my Ipod, I totally understand that Nevermind is a vastly more important record. As consumers of culture, we all repeatedly search to re-create the moment when we heard Come As You Are for the first time, and how perfect that moment has become in our minds.

If not Come As You Are, maybe I Want to Hold Your Hand. Or Jailhouse Rock. Or, now, Billy Jean. Subconsciously we all understand where the legends fit within our memories, and how best to celebrate them within our perspective.

So it’s OK to listen to Man In the Mirror; the last 20 years and weird sleepovers be damned. And it’s OK to join a legion of Michael Jackson Groups on facebook; just as it was OK to wear a Cobain T-shirt. You revisit Rock With Me, I’ll go back to Floyd the Barber. Just so we’re OK with one another.

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(Side note: As bizarre tribute to both the late Jackson and the late Ed McMahon, I searched for a clip of a Saturday Night Live when Dana Carvey riffs as Johnny Carson, mimicking Michael Jackson: I’m the king of pop, and there ain’t no higher. A grinning Phil Hartman, playing Ed McMahon, booms: SUCKER MC’S CALL HIM SIRE. YES! I realize after writing this I’ve probably detracted from my post. Such is life.)

(Other side note about McMahon: I also searched for the Weekend Update bit when Kevin Nealon hints at Ed McMahon as the hidden shooter in the Kennedy assassination. Couldn’t find it. But it’s classic, just trust me. “And now here’s the third shooter.” [gunshot] “YES!”)