How Michael Jackson’s death is ‘a bit personal’

It all gets a bit personal when pop stars your own age simply stop breathing.

I don’t know that I was a great fan of Michael Jackson, maybe because we were contemporaries. It is always kind of nerdy to adore prodigy artists your own age who are rocketing to stardom while you are living your own private angst. He was writing and performing songs …I was writing bad poetry and politely wrangling with the nuns over the ethics of compulsory school uniforms. He was touring the world and earning megabucks, I was getting driving lessons and my first boyfriend.

But inevitably, global popular culture being what it is, I did buy one of his hits. I think I remember singing along to a 45…yes record… of Ben. Embarassingly I still recall most of the lyrics and who could forget the sheer pubescent clarity of his voice.

And then I let him go… to be replaced by a whole weird and wonderful collection of passions from the Beach Boys and Bowie, to Leonard Cohen and Cat Stevens, and local faves like Daddy Cool and Skyhooks. Living in the 70s was eclectic to say the least.

There is a strange shadow though between us related to fame.

While he was struggling with living public on a global scale, I was appearing on a little-known Australian television show. I was 12 when it first aired and 17 when I left the show. It was my tiny glimpse at the horrors of fame. Walking along the street at 14 and having strangers talk to you, or want your autograph or feel that because they had seen you on their screens in their living room last wekend somehow they knew you and could touch you, is actually very creepy. It is made more difficult when you are still only a smidge more than a child.

Going through all the anxieties and challenges of the metamorphisis from little girl to woman is hard enough, but doing that without the wonderful anonymity most of us take for granted is quite tough.

Admiration can seem like distaste, affection like envy, truth like lies, and talent like a bottle of shampoo almost perfect if the packaging is right.

Poor Michael. He is only one of the many star kids whose lives have been permanently jolted out of synch under the glare of the limelight.

The most poignant reminder tonight was to see him as he was - a gorgeous doe-eyed boy on TV singing Ben -juxtaposed with his most recent interviews  - a man appearing much more like an aging 1920s diva of the silver screen than that beautiful Afro-American youth.

Whatever happened along the way - the music, the controversies, the eccentricities - seemed somehow irrelevant. It is just that contrast that will stay with me.