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Today two people passed away, two very different people and yet in their own ways they came to epitomize their generations.

I speak of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett. The former a singer and the latter an actress. I was never old enough to really appreciate Mrs Fawcett, enough pictures of her have adorned the walls of many boys in the seventies and she and a handful of other ladies set the standards for beauty.

Michael Jackson on the other hand, I was very much of an age to appreciate his music and his effect on my generation. In all honesty I would have to say that as an artist, he was ever present, yet he was never a favourite.

What he was, was part of a musical mosaic that formed the sound track of my burgeoning teen life. Just recently I was reading the top 100 songs of the eighties, the song I was looking for was I have been to me, by Charlene, just because a lyric had gotten lose from the attic of my history and I had to track down the artist.

It dawned on me that when looking through all those tracks, a snippet of the music started playing in my mind, be it Africa by toto, Axel F, Our House, Dont you want me, human league, funky cold medina, an many more. It was a trip through space and time, and I was the cliched pimply guy that worked in McDonalds.

Just out of curiosity, I went through the same top 100′s of the nineties an the aughts, it was a downwards spiral, yes some of the songs I recognized by that little snippet, and others by just the name and no more. It was not my music.

People will write about MJ and their thoughts on his life, I can’t. The man simply ceased to exist as a factor in my life once I grew up to be a man, and he was relegated to VH1.

But like Freddie Mercury, give the man his due. He lead and others followed. As in life, shall be in death, he just went first.

Tux