TO BE OR NOT TO BE

«Credo quia absurdum est.»
Tertullian

Today we are not going to joke about The Jackson clan members’ slip-ups, nor to gloat over the failed forecasts of pseudo-insiders, nor to cover pseudo-events having taken place since our last blog, which — we secretly hoped — would become actually the last one within the hoax. Alas.

(Dramatic pause)

We are not going to joke about it, because there are much funnier things to joke about, many are not in a mood to joke already  these things pale in comparison with the highest rated topic the most burning question of the hoax: “dead or alive?” “the comeback: to be or not to be?”, which became an idee fixe for  many everyone, and one of the main reasons for the split in the believers community, along with ‘what fake mj to worship to’. So we shall focus our psycho-analysis on that hot topic.

While observing the recent events of the hoax, the main eventfulness of which is the unbelievable lack of events (everybody died or what?), and trying to figure out the meaning of meaningless phenomenas, TNZ fell into a coma meditative state.  Where we’ve been for a few months years, trying to grasp the nature of repetitive phenomenon: Expectation of the BAM —> Oooops —> Disillusionment —> And, again, flaring up from nothing as Phoenix, faith in another date of the second coming. And we’ve realized: no one can kill humans’ desire of a happy ending faith in miracles — not even the defector Mr. Jackson. And even if he doesn’t come back another 777 times — the audience won’t cease to wait for him. Like blue and a bit crazy Penelope in front of the computer screen, calculating the fitting dates of Ulysses’s return (on the basis of his love of number 7), and tossing to the sound of every bypasser’s horn.

Yet the amicable community of DaTroot-seekers has split, not having reached the consensus regarding the ending of this saga: ‘He won’t return, because it’s stupid’ VS ‘I believe because it is absurd’ ‘He sure will, otherwise why all this?’. The first ones are clearly more fortunate — they let Mr. Jackson go and expect nothing from him. Obsessive state of the second camp (TNZ included) is alarming. And exactly this became a reason for writing that article.

Like any other participant of this Great Adventure, TNZ were free to choose their own interpretation of events and, as you know, we chose rather the optimistic one. Perhaps, way too optimistic. As part of our OMG-concept, Mr. Jackson — and we are not ashamed to repeat it once again — is a super-hero conquering death, foes and stupidity.  A big and complex artist misunderstood by majority, whose epoch has not gotten from him the biggest goosebumps yet. So, within TNZ’s concept, he just could NOT voluntarily sink into oblivion on June 25 2009, leaving behind him just bizarre image, the trailer of something Nuch Much More, a mocu... documentary and several posthumous albums. Because we’ve read Campbell’s “The Hero’s Journey”: in order to complete the mission, the hero must return into the world! 

For, in our opinion, his creative potential is far from being exhausted. Perhaps tnz have created this myth themselves, but we’re going to support is as long as we can we do believe in this super-heroical Mr. Jackson. Sure, we would prefer to have more realistic picture, not to count on a grand, epic and triumphant finale and humbly let our superhero go — to live his life in peace. I.e. to be like these wise people who lavishly scatter arguments in favor of non-return. The main argument, of course, is: “He doesn’t need it at ll, he will have problems with authorities, with the audience and, after all, now he earns much more money.” TNZ is tired of these boring, pessimistic forecasts and someone else’s speculations about what’s going on in John Malkovich’s Mr. Jackson’s head, so we decided to make our own list of speculations the pros and cons. Let alone ours is much funnier.

Non-return. The Pros

Everything is quite simple with the non-return — just leave it like it is; so let’s begin with it. The main advantages of this scenario are:

+ From now on, any posthumous projects and products, released by MJ The Estate, will be taken by the audiences and critics with propitiousness, which any living, seeking and doubting artist can only dream of.

+ Possibility to receive pretty stable posthumous income even without extra-efforts and — what is not less important in MJ’s case — controllable and limited (by his dead status) spendings. lol

+ Till the end of his days MJ can go shopping absolutely freely, disguised as Miss Doubtfire children’s nanny (as long as they are young), as their bodyguard (when they’ll grow up), or in some other inconspicuous role. Albeit we are not sure whether it makes any sense, considering the previous issue – limited spendings. Maybe we should put this point into the cons-list. And, sure, Mr. Jackson can now live a “normal life”, hiding himself from prying eyes, what, in fact, Mr. Jackson has been doing for  years anyway.

+ Such a long-awaited and passionately desired freedom from media’s attention, who in the pursuit of a fake mechanical hare — the dead Mr. Jackson, have no a slightest chance to find out what’s going on in his real after-life. Yep, because nothing special is going on — home, work, home, work, unless the hoax web-surfing...

+ A unique opportunity to learn what people who think you are dead talk behind your back. Public opinion The truth, no matter how frustrating it is, is, sure, something to die for! Though, honestly, TNZ would never die only to make sure people talk shit about us behind our back. Way too troublesome. lol

+ An excellent association with another great king, Mr. Presley, with whom Mr. Jackson’s name will be tied up forever — by over-hoaxed believers comparing circumstances of their lives and deaths and future comebacks. What could be better for the king, than comparison with other kings? Nothing.

+ Possibility to congeal, like a fly in amber, in the contemporaries’ memory — in perfect amplua of a fragile, misunderstood, unfairly aggrieved genius, i.e. a victim.

+ No more enemies, litigations and claims. No one will ever say that Mr. Jackson’s star waned. That his voice or dance movements are not pitch-perfect anymore. Eternal posthumous love and adoration. In death Mr. Jackson becomes truly Invincible, for it’s really difficult to get someone who is already on the other side.

Non-return. The cons

— The first minus that comes to our creative minds, is some difficulties with creative self-realization, especially in a field of contemporary arts. Now, no matter what happens in cultural space of XXI century, Mr. Jackson will have to remain mostly a passive observer and a consumer. And for the person creatively restless, this may be a torture. All the products of MJ’s posthumous creativity, will have to be released anonymously or disguised, attributed to the Estate or collaborators. Well, MJ’s has never been really ambitious, so why not? Books, movies, music — if he wants to release them, they will have to be subjected to ‘chronological treatment’ and deprived of all signs of the present, in order not to look too modern. Mr. Jackson who always was ahead of his time, now has to be mothballed in the past. Well, nothing like a retro style. Mr. Jackson is the King of the last century, isn’t he? lol

—  The hype around MJ’s life and death will sooner or later begin to fade away and Mr. Jackson will have to accept the fact that the world is gradually forgetting him. Don’t know whether he is ready for this or not — on the other hand, if not to read newspapers and not to use the internet, it may be ok.

— Every June and late August Mr. Jackson probably will be tantalized by phantom pains of his old identity. Annual tears of RIPpers, tons of flowers on his tomb and a silent reproach in the eyes of believers, who have not seen (again) neither “what they ain’t seen yet”, nor how ‘truth prevailed’, nor proverbial Bamsday. The conscience will haunt and torment Mr. Jackson till the end of his days. On the other hand, Elvis lives with it somehow… On the other other hand, Elvis didn’t try so hard to keep people convinced he is alive. On the other other other hand, Mr. Jackson is cooler that Elvis, so… get prepared. lol

Sure, we can only imagine what problems ghosts and angels living among humans face in their ghostly life. From Wim Wenders’s movies we know that you can be invisible in the crowd, you can know what’s going on, staying unnoticed, but a number of things remain inaccessible to you. You can not hug, you can not say what you feel and so on… just silent presence and small poltergeist-ish pranks — this is the basic range of ghosts’ possibilities. We don’t rule out that quiet, unobtrusive life of a ghost is something that kings people tired of life publicity really need. But, in our opinion, something doesn’t up here. In a few years preceding his death Mr. Jackson had the opportunity not just to rest from the attention to his person, but also to get tired of resting from the attention to his person. And, being a marketing genius, he couldn’t NOT understand — it’s not about the amount of attention, but about its quality. He might get tired of the small amount of the attention or of low-quality attention; well, to change a quality — is it a problem to a marketing genius? lol Don’t think so.

Return. The cons

“It’s great to live by the spirit, to testify day by day for eternity,
only what’s spiritual in people’s minds. But sometimes I’m fed up
with my spiritual existence. Instead of forever hovering above
I’d like to feel a weight grow in me to end the infinity and to tie me
to earth. I’d like, at each step, each gust of wind, to be able to say
“Now.” Now and now” and no longer “forever” and “for eternity.”
Wings of Desire, Wim Wenders

And now the most favorite topic of opponents of the comeback theory. We analyzed it carefully & throughly.

— Resurrection from the dead is another huge and guaranteed stress. Frankly, we do not know how the man who fabricated his death, organized own memorial and staged own funeral, can survive another stress like this. The only consolation is that rising from the dead is a much bigger fun and joy, than dying. But we are still not sure if he can bear it. 

— After ressurection Mr. Jackson will have to part with the image of a fragile victim and to appear in the eyes of the world kinda “a wolf in sheep’s clothing”, who’s cynically deceived everybody. TNZ is afraid that after such a repositioning, a bunch of parasitic personalities and pests would be afraid to communicate with Mr. Joker Jackson and that the big guys from big showbiz will find MJ very bad… Too BAD to mess with. Well, there’s a little hope, though. The convincing justification/explanation of the hoax, which — we have no doubt — Mr. Jackson has up his sleeve, probably will allow him to save his attractive (in the eyes of teenage girls) image of a victim.

— An unprecedented newsmaker, which rare man (Mr. Jesus Christ doesn’t count) can boast of, will certainly make a splash and Kaboom in the media. The worst thing is: after that bombshell many media would be buried under the rubbles. Horrible! But even after that, with the undermined credit, some media-survivors will persecute Mr. Jackson, providing coverage of his every (PR)move; because (now especially) he will be their main breadwinner and provider of sensations. This is definitely a huge con, (i.e. minus, not that you have thought), because he must be terribly tired of mj-related news he unwillingly caused by his accidental death. Excessive media attention is absolutely unnecessary, especially for his future projects.

— Mr. Jackson might have to lose some part of his old audience, tho’ the most cold-hearted one. Insensitive to the official plaintive explanation of the Hoax, they may not forgive him tears they shed over him and artifacts they bought after his death at inflated prices. Again, we do not know how a person who had lost a half of his fanbase in 2005 will survive the loss of 5% of remarkably insensitive people? We hope that this loss would be compensated by millions of new people, who joined MJ Fam after his death. And that they would be generous and openminded enough to realize they’ve witnessed the event of the century. And forgive him everything. :)

— “MJ is worth more dead than alive…” Well, no doubt. Sony and other majors who thoughtlessly have helped the Estate to capitalize “MJ” the brand and signed long-term contracts with it, would be disappointed to know that they — again! — have to deal not with the Estate (clear & stable), but with MJ himself. Who is soooo unpredictable and unreliable that can die and revive at any moment. And sure, they will break all the deals with him… Prices of old artifacts, auction lots, t-shirts and other merchandize will decrease too — who need t-shirts if he is alive? — so the flow of incomes will dry out… Terrible, yes, but we believe Mr. Jackson has already earned enough money to survive the coming times of hardship. lol

— Also Mr. Jackson will have to accept the fact that his fans — unlike of Elvis’s fans — will not investigate the conspiracy around his life & death 30 years later. He won’t be able to be proud of them and think that they are more crazy & desperate faithful, loyal than Elvis’s fans. Moreover, he will cease to be associated with Elvis and Tupac, who allegedly also staged their deaths. He will have to be content with the modest title of The Guy Who Had The Audacity To Return From The Dead.

……..

By this ironic essay TNZ meant to say that taking decision about the return, MJ’s unlikely being guided by these ridiculous points. They don’t stand up to scrutiny. So no, we still don’t think that Mr. Jackson would love to remain a ghost because he’s tired of life with its daily troubles. People who are really tired of life choose a real and ‘easy’ death — not a time-consuming and complicated death hoax. This was rather a creative act and the way to transform his life, than an escape from it. So TNZ supposes that if there are reasons “not to be”, they are absolutely not what we think of them.

In the end we would like to say to all the participants of this epic, ‘slightly’ protracted adventure: It’s been hard for both of us — for the jaded audience and for the director, being pressured by the spectators’ expectations, loneliness and secrets he carries all alone. And all of us — each on their own level — answer this eternal and sometimes backbreaking Shakespearean question — ‘to be or not to be?’

Having stepped once on a risky path of “believing”, you said “to be” to the unknown and uncertainties. Those who had believed in MJ’s death and cried their eyes out in 2009, now sleep better than we do, and questions “alive or dead, will return or not?” do not bother them at all. Mr. Jackson, having put himself in the ambiguous position of partly alive and partly dead a cat, probably also made his life incomparably more tangled and difficult than it was before. And it is possible, that at times he doesn’t know himself whether he is more alive or more dead. And it’s possible that while we are suffering from the unbearable suspense this extremely procrastinated drama is full of, waiting at least for ANY end, he probably is also weighing the pros and cons…

Oh, we’ve almost forgotten about the comeback’s pros.

There are not much of them... The only one, significant, we’d love to mention is:

+ a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
to prove once and forever
to the world and to yourself,
that miracles exist,
that everything is possible,
that love is stronger than death.

We dare you. : )

…….

* NB: the draft of this text is dated by July 17, 2010. So TNZ were young, stupid and funny when wrote this. The text is kinda rough — tnz have neither time nor inspiration to remake it, so it’s almost like it was. So some of you will probably say: it’s been a good idea not to post it in 2010. And not so good one to post it now… Well, consider it a Halloween treat. trick. gift!

** Pictures used in the article are from Vim Venders’s film Wings of Desire.