So. Apparently Michael Jackson is no longer with us. At the age of 50, he died in a hospital in LA.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_obit_michael_jackson

Feels just a tad surreal, doesn't it? Him, Michael Jackson, dying. He's one of those people that you don't think'll die anytime soon. Or at least that's how I feel, and now he's gone. Weird.

Thoughts?

I know it made the generation before us feel old. Farrah Fawcett(sp?) died today too and it seems like it made a lot of people recognize their own mortality. But yeah, Michael's one of the people you figured would be around for a while, and then this, really out of the blue. Kinda strange.

:-( A bit of my childhood gone. (Thriller was my first record, Bad was my first cassette... I blame the king of pop for me becoming a singer in the first place :))

It makes me sort of sad that so many people will remember him as he was in later years. Guy really did have an impact on music that few people now or in the future will likely be able to match. We lost a real icon

Despite what he's done in the later years, no one can deny that he was an extremely talented musician.

And I agree, it does feel a tad surreal. The was he is now, you'd think that he'd just be around forever. I didn't know plastic had a shelf life of under 50 years.

Seriously though. It is quite sad.

Roger Ebert is an incredibly quick and beautiful writer.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.d...EOPLE/906259982

It's a really lovely article.

I almost don't want to believe that it's real. Like it turns out to be some publicity stunt, ya know?

I always have the hardest time feeling the deaths of people I don't know. I've always tried to ponder over the loss of one celebrity or another, but it's generally too distant to get the proper grasp on. Still, Mr. Jefferson's death does seem a little sudden. I always thought I'd see him killed by a crazed parent or something, not a heart attack.

I was shocked to hear about it myself, and I think the better part of my brain still refuses to believe that its happened. I mean, all that surgery, the amount of plastic in him... you'd figure the man would have to be nigh indestructible by now.

Even so, I think there's something wrong with my brain, I just picture zombie Michael Jackson rising from the grave and doing the thriller dance to raise the entire graveyard... who knows, may be the beginning of the apocalypse...

Superbowl '10?

I was pretty surprised too. He's one of those news stories that goes on forever until it's basically white noise. He was something everyone had an opinion about not that it mattered then, but it certainly doesn't matter now. I'm actually optimistic. I think his music and talent with dancing will echo louder in the future than his personal strangeness. People will stop hearing news about him, but his music will continue to be played.

I wonder if there will be Jackson impersonators just like there are Elvis impersonators?

And I think you're right. A lot of radio stations responded to his death by playing marathons of his music. It'll remind people that there was more to Micheal Jackson than bad plastic surgery and weird lawsuits.