Back when the Soviet Union was crashing around our ears, Michael Jackson was cool. I distinctly remember when, as a pre-schooler, I enraged my parents by refusing to get out of the car mid-song. It didn’t matter if we had arrived at our destination, I had to finish whatever Michael song was presently playing on our car stereo. To simply shut off the tape was a kind of violation, an act of profound disrespect to the music. My parents still bring up my rabid devotion when they want to poke fun at me at parties. And could you really blame me, or any of the other millions of people who grew up on his music and consider Justing Timberlake’s riffing on the man to be a sad reminder of the days that were?
Today, in a taxi in Amman, I idly wondered if a comeback was possible as a Michael Jackson billboard loomed on the roadside. I noticed that the billboard did not feature a picture, just a dark silhouette frozen in the act of performing the moonwalk. A real-life image of Jackson was not featured to promote his scheduled concerts in London, and it was painfully obvious why this was the case.
