Michael Jackson Is Dead

I thought he was great and wondrous and it's a shame to see him go but it's for the best.

He was mawkish in extremis at the end.

All the newspapers announcing his death are running the reanimated mummy look he had over these past 10 or so years. It was a cardiac arrest that killed him.

The period I feel in love with Michael Jackson and his music was Off The Wall. I found it on a copied cassette tape in the street and played it over and over. I even bought the songbook to practise the songs on keyboard.

He was utterly funky, wild and sensual then.

His voice was as raw as James Brown when he was 10 or 11. He could wail like no one and his falsetto stretched into the heavens. Girls loved Off The Wall in the way they love Stevie Wonder records.

Poor Mikey - he was a sauvant of a gospel-like spirit. He was as innocent as he seemed.