Really... REALLY

All the early articles about Michael Jackson's death this week included this quote:

“No joke. King of Pop is no more. Wow,” Michael Harris, 36, read from a text message a friend had sent him. “It’s like when Kennedy was assassinated. I will always remember being in Times Square when Michael Jackson died.”

Really -- A disturbed and likely criminal musician (however talented) as important to our collective consciousness as a visionary politician?

This Michael Harris is just a year or two older than I am and you know what I remember: I remember being at home watching cartoons when Ronald Reagan got shot; I remember being in math class, watching the launch out the window, when the Challenger exploded; I remember the high school halls being atwitter when the Berlin Wall collapsed; I remember a friend knocking on my dorm room door, ash faced, to tell me the federal building in Oklahoma City had been bombed; I remember studying for Comps with the Today show on in the background on September 11; I remember being in a hotel room in Georgia on election night 2008.

I'm pretty sure Michael Jackson, as tragic as he was, in life and death, isn't gonna be on my "remember when" list. And yes, I was a fan. He was formative to my musical youth. Thriller was the birthday present of choice my third grade year. My friends and I copied his choreography in our bedrooms and watched hour after hour of MTV waiting for his videos. But REALLY!

It saddens me, the heights to which our society elevates it's superstars, really.