Bloated Elvis, Michael Jackson and Jim Morrison

Well, the Michael Jackson Memorial was a few days ago, and I’m saddened. Not because Jackson is dead, I can live with that, although he can’t.

No. My sadness is because my prediction for the memorial service didn’t come to fruition. I had hoped that, mid-service, fireworks would go off, Jackson would jump out of his casket in full zombie costume and break off a rendition of “Thriller.”

I had hoped this would happen not because I longed for a Jackson comeback or I was still in denial about his death. Instead, I would have liked to see this happen because it would have been a ploy that would have made more people look like idiots than Sacha Baron Cohen could shake a jar of gypsy tears at.

I can’t imagine how stupid Magic Johnson would feel after proclaiming that Jackson made him a better basketball player, only to see a group of dancing zombies behind him led by Jackson himself. Although, I hope Magic feels stupid for saying this anyway.

The degree of celebrity worship in the Western World is astounding. Jackson was a freak, and yet, when he died millions cried and proclaimed how much he meant to them. Jackson’s biggest mistake was dying now. He was about 20 years too late. Can you imagine the public reaction if he had died in the late 80s, before he was ever accused of diddling kids?

Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain had the right idea. If you’re famous, particularly as a musician, the best strategy is to die young and in your prime. Morrison was a talented guy and a great songwriter, but upon his early demise, he was labeled a God, and that legacy has carried on more than 30 years after his death. Try walking into a college dormitory and not finding a Jim Morrison poster on some “cool” college kid’s wall.

The best thing to happen to Morrison’s legacy was that he died before he had a chance to really fuck it up. Had he lived, his albums might have grown into over-ambitious, over-indulgent average-at-best pieces.

The guy was an incredible narcissist and that would have continued, probably leading to the break-up of The Doors and a myriad of disappointments afterward. If Axl Rose had died just before the release of Use your Illusions I & II, he would have gone down as one of the greatest front men in music history. The album would have been considered his last masterpiece. Instead, he lived, and the double album was viewed for what it was: too long and only okay. And then the bastard made us wait almost two decades for the next album, without the real Guns n’ Roses lineup, which was average as well.

Dying young is the way to secure your legacy as an entertainer. There are few exceptions to this rule. Mick Jagger comes to mind, and I’m pretty sure Keith Richards can’t die. Bono should be able to avoid the pitfalls of living as well.

Millions around the world sank into a depression when Elvis died, just as they recently did with Jacko. The two kings of the music world. Now imagine how great it could have been if we had never seen bloated Vegas Elvis or child-molesting, baby dangling, mannequinesque Jackson. The “what could have been” comments would have never ended. The public is much better at making up their own ending to a celebrity’s life than dealing with watching them falter.

I guess the lesson I take from all this is that celebrity worship is a fruitless effort. They will only disappoint by either dying or living. At least if they die, you can spend the rest of your own life pretending like they would have really changed the world like all the flannel-wearing Cobain fans still think.