The Internaut
The boy from Neverland
by Deborah Hill Cone
No wonder Jacko never wanted to grow up.
No doubt you’re sick of the hyperventilation about
Michael Jackson’s demise. TV3, it is not “the day the
music died” – but I do recommend reading this piece in the Telegraph by travel writer Paul Theroux: “My trip to Neverland and the call from Michael Jackson I will never forget.” It is neither hatchet nor puff. Instead, there are insights into the desperate sadness behind the
freak. Who knew heliked to read Somerset Maugham short stories? Or thought he could express himself so vividly upon the perils of fame: “It makes people
do strange things. A lot of our famous luminaries become intoxicated because of it – they can’t handle it. And your adrenalin is at the zenith of the universe
after a concert – you can’t sleep. It’s maybe two in the morning and you’re wide awake. After coming off stage, you’re floating.” What was most poignant was
Jackson’s response to Theroux asking what he would do differently from his own childhood in raising his
own children. “With more fun. More love. Not so isolated.” Hands up who reckons that’s gonna happen now.
The Guardian’s divine Charlie Brooker – hey Charlie, a friend of mine wants to marry you – is a bit of a Peter Pan, too. “When Jacko died, I was at home playing Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars on a Nintendo DSi. I
am 38 years old.” Brooker watched the gratuitious coverage of Jacko’s death with growing exasperation. “The next day he was still dead, but somehow
deader than the day before. The TV had clips of Thriller on heavy rotation, which seemed a tad inappropriate, what with him playing a decomposing corpse in
it.” It all went on a bit long. “The news is not the place to ‘celebrate’ Jackson’s music. The news should report his death, then piss off out of the way, leaving people to
moonwalk and raise a toast in peace.”
Here’s betting “hiking the Appalachian Trail” is going to
become the new euphemism for doing the old
humpty-dumpty – a worthy replacement for Private Eye’s “discussing the Ugandan situation”.
I must be going soft, but I am feeling rather sorry for sad
fool Mark Sanford, the married South Carolina governor caught out having a bonkfest in Buenos Aires when he
said he was off, ahem, “hiking”. Admittedly, the idiot is on record making pious comments about other
politicians’ inf delity, as uncovered by Sam Stein on the Huffington Post. But I’m not sure that justifies local
paper the State publishing all Sanford’s earnest dribbling emails to his Argentine paramour. Jezebel couldn’t resist a snide “textual analysis” of the emails, typos and all. “Presumably the speaker means a ‘whirlwind tour’, and not a tour of the world’s winds.”
In response to the Sanford scandal, the New York Times’ Harvard educated young fogey Ross Douthat
worries middleclass couples obsessed with children
and mortgages have lost the sizzle in their relationships. It’s a class thing. Blue-collar people are still slaves to the
passions but the chattering classes are all work and no play. “Most Americans, particularly those of modest means, would benefit from greater caution and
stability in their romantic entanglements,” pontificates Douthat, sounding every one of his 29 years. Douthat’s own nuptials were recently reported in the NYT; he’s been married 18 months.
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Fathers are the new downtrodden. Grouchy father of four Toby Young says gone are the days when men were authority figures to their offspring. Now, they are overworked assistants.
Young cites support from a new book by Michael Lewis: Home Game. “According to Lewis, the modern father now finds himself in a similar position
to Gorbachev after the fall of the Berlin Wall: ‘Having shocked the world by doing the decent thing and ceding
power without bloodshed for the sake of principle, he is viewed mainly with disdain.’” Young has quite a campaign going. In the Independent he says, “Most
of my male friends are not fathers in any traditional sense at all. They don’t guide their children through the moral quandaries of life; they guide them to their
extracurricular activities from behind the wheel of a Vauxhall Zafi ra.”
