Recent events only meant that I chose a fine time to get out of town. I’m also reminded that it was pretty smart to turn down that offer to send my resume to TMZ when the site was launching a few years ago. We’re long past the hipster salad days of the mid ’90s, and I would’ve been the pathetic old guy trying to get anyone to care about Sky Saxon while journalistic resources were focused on a self-proclaimed King of Pop who hadn’t truly mattered to pop culture in over a decade. Maybe I could’ve been of some use by pulling a still shot of Farrah Fawcett in bed with Raquel Welch in Myra Breckinridge.

There would’ve also been the shame of helping to distract the public from Washington’s recent idiotic dabblings with the environment and the economy. There’s been one good thing to come out of Michael Jackson’s death for me, but I’ll put off writing that up for a while. Otherwise, the big recent pop culture moment for me—and this was actually right before leaving on vacation—was “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “Craigslist.”

The song might seem like a lame idea, since Yankovic has already goofed on eBay. Still, there’s something brilliant about the noted parodist deciding that our nation is in need of a deadly accurate goof on The Doors. The dueling banality of the subject matter is even accompanied by original Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek, who’s merely continuing his career of cheapening his band’s heritage.

Anyway, here’s hoping that Yankovic has taken some phone calls asking him to comment about Jackson’s death, and he’s been able to plug his latest video that way.  This is where I’d make a joke about having Weird Al’s box set and nothing from Michael Jackson’s solo career, but I was already planning to buy this—and Off the Wall is certainly an important album.

And while I’ve linked to a respectful Sky Saxon obituary, don’t forget that he was my favorite kind of burnt-out ’60s icon. Specifically, Saxon started out as a cynical punk with a menacing pose, and then barbequed his brain until he turned into the kind of hippie casualty that he set out to profit from. Saxon never mellowed, though. Follow the links from that obituary, and you’ll find people talking about how Saxon was a real icon of peace and love right up to the day he died. Why do grown people have to convince themselves of such crap?

 

What did you think of this article?

Liked
Disliked
No Opinion