Is it really any surprise at all that the Michael Jackson movie was a financial disappointment in its first week out of the gates? It’s not a surprise to me. The fallout from his death has resulted in some typical bumps in record sales, sure,  but that is consistent across all lines of celebrity musicians deaths. Warren Zevon, for example, sold a bunch of records out of nowhere upon his death. The Michael Jackson thing is strictly about youth. Your youth, if you grew up when I did (call it 1978-1990). The outpouring wasn’t about commerce and getting all his albums you didn’t already have, it was totally emotional. It was about the glory of reflecting back on a time when you didn’t have a mortgage or other various responsibilities to worry about. It was about when you – in the serenity of your own bedroom most of the time – worried about trying to do the moonwalk, break dance or air guitar on Beat It. Some of the more adventurous did it outside their bedroom.

It was before he was weird.

A movie? Come on? Nobody wants to pay to go see a Michael Jackson movie. Not only that, but a movie of freaking rehearsals where a desperate 50 year old man who weighs 100 lbs is trying to redeem himself? No thank you. I think people know what’s going on here – it’s all about the money. Part and parcel to the modern day. Nobody rests until the bones are picked apart and clean. It’s like watching Animal Planet when all the lions rip apart the poor gazelle. The gazelle – a pretty cool looking animal in its own picture, but when the jungle comes calling……..it ain’t pretty.