The Battlestar Galactica, Michael Jackson 4th of July

By Les Visible

Speaking of irony, there’s no small amount of it in the comparison between the stages of change in Michael’s face and the stages of change in the culture in which he thrived over that period of time. The culture now looks like Michael at the end of his journey. It also went under the knife, sculpted into the thing you see in front of you today. It’s no small surprise that Howdy Doody is now the president of the United States and can make war on three different nations (hoping for four) and talk about how Iran and Russia ought to show more respect for the democratic ideals of all the captive people yearning to be free. There’s got to be another word besides Irony that covers this. This is too big and too grand a thing for what Irony defines. Meanwhile, the caged criminals in Palestine continue in their obstinate refusal to die or depart.

I suppose that Irony would also have to apply to this year’s celebration of the 4th of July. All across the land of excess, thousands of venues are filled with drunken, red-faced Schmoos in a corpulent, teary eyed ecstasy, celebrating something that has turned into it’s opposite. John Philip Schoomsa is marching out of the speakers and… and what?

It’s Battlestar Galactica on bad acid and the real possibility of Michael rising from the dead. You broke it, you bought it. I’m going to go celebrate the, sooner or later, end of the perpetuating embarrassment we’ve turned every finer possibility into. It’s the thing that gives me hope… sooner or later this will all be gone. Meanwhile, let’s see how far they push it. I’m curious about the possible, physical limits to the physics of the absurd.

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