Michael Jackson, age fifty, died yesterday. All over the news, of course. Well, not of course. More attention than I would have projected. Still, what I remember most of the man was listening for the first time to Billy Jean when it was released in the early eighties. I was heading home from the winery listening to the radio as I drove through Napa in the darkness. I didn't know all that many people in Napa who were into music then, not in the numbers I'd known living in San Francisco, but I realized I was hearing something very unique, very special, coming from somewhere I had no idea even existed and that other friends, wherever they were, were having the same reaction.

Odd to be driving along, thinking, shit, this came out of Michael Jackson? Yes, Michael Jackson, the little kid of the Jackson Five, the talent on top of talent even then with a long and successful career. No question there, but Billy Jean, for some reason, was one of those steps beyond, one of those few things you hear or read or see that makes you say, yes, I (sort of) understand what they mean when someone uses the term “genius”. There aren't that many and they don't come along all that often. Whatever it's called it's like a voice from another planet, a place Mr. Jackson quite clearly seemed to be trying to inhabit in his later years, if you can call them “later years” ended at age fifty.

Later. The afternoon, hot and bright, a bus ride downtown, some sixteen of us for lunch at PCB, catching a ride back home from Mr. M, the day now well into the afternoon. A walk to the bank to deposit a check and mail a dentist's payment. Forgot to mention I no longer had dental insurance on my last visit. I really did forget, having mentioned it and paying at the prior session, but this last time it just left my mind. What's left of my mind. High, ho. One generally does want to escape a dentist's office. Doesn't really matter much, unless I discover one of these coming days, all my teeth have gone rotten.

Maybe take it easy tomorrow. I have the Gay Pride Parade to shoot Sunday morning, let that be the adventure for the weekend, spend some more time with this webcam I haven't been able to get working. Something about updating the firmware on the router. I can't complain, I know what they're talking about, but I see how much a hassle this could be for someone without a techie background.