Standing next to me in this lonely crowd,
Is a man who swears he's not to blame.
All day long I hear him shout so loud,
Crying out that he was framed.
To paraphrase the American author, Henry Miller, "fame is a fickle thing."I couldn't agree more. Despite having written an entire novel revolving around the ravenous impact fame has on the famous, I still don't a clue what it's like to walk in their shoes.
But I have spent a lot of time thinking about it.
In the wake of last Thursday's shocking death of pop sensation, Michael Jackson, I imagine we’re all going to have an opportunity to give some thought to the fickle mistress that is fame. And here's a place to start—
It seems that when our cultural icons are taken from us unexpectedly as Jackson was last Thursday, our impulse is instinctual: elevate them to a pedestal while simultaneously delving into the dark crevices of their seemingly perfectly sculptured lives.I surmise with Michael Jackson
it will be different. Bar a surprise discovery of John Merrick’s petrified body (whose bones Jackson attempted to purchase in 1987) stashed away somewhere on MJ's 2,600 acre ranch, in all likelihood there are few, if any, skeletons left in Jacko’s closet. After all, a large part of the Jackson mystique wasn’t so much what he withheld from us as it was what he dared to show us.Unapologetic and undaunted, Michael Jackson was remarkably candid about his personal life. He didn’t give many interviews, but when he did he was always revealing.
Of course, we didn’t always like what he revealed. The 2003 admission that he slept with young boys because “they need love, too,” is hardly an endearing quality, no matter how quaintly it’s couched.
And while Michael Jackson’s personal demons ultimately unraveled both his life and his art, in the end, it was his demons that gave him that transformative, angelic quality that made him so captivating.Like a modern-day Dorian Gray, Jackson truly was ‘the man in the mirror’—self-reflective
and ever-changing. But unlike the troubled nobleman at the center of Oscar Wilde's classic 1890 novel who surreptitiously sells his soul to preserve enduring beauty and an epicurean fulfillment of the senses, there were never any shades of a dark, festering Faustian bargain with Jackson.
Truth be told, the Faust in this forlorn story is Joe Jackson, who saw not just in Michael, but in all of his sons, the deal of a lifetime and cashed in unabashedly on their vibrancy and youth.
But it would be wrong to call Jackson’s life simply ‘tragic.’ Sad, perhaps, but not tragic. Jackson lacked the fundamental quality that turns talent into tragedy—hubris. Of all the self-destructive qualities Jackson exhibited, an overweening, self-effusive sense of pride was not one of them.
Upon hearing the news of Jackson’s death, I imagine the response for most of us was closer to a knee jerk reaction than anything remotely resembling the smooth, effortless sleekness so imbued in the “Gloved One’s” now-famous moonwalk.And therein lies the real tragedy in the passing of Michael Jackson. It was so sudden, so unexpected, so abrupt. Yet after the shock subsided, the only emotion left was an overriding sense of acceptance…as if it just had to end this way.
Like any great artist, Michael Jackson dedicated his life giving himself to
others. He could have hoarded his vast talent like some chastened child. Instead, he shared that talent with the world. But in doing so, he became trapped, inexplicably linked to all the people whose lives his music touched.Jackson lived in a literal Neverland, spending the last have of his life trying to take back a
childhood he never had. But after a lifetime in the limelight, the self-professed King of Pop’s palace probably came to more closely resemble a prison.But we can take solace that those shackles he spent a lifetime trying to release himself from have been lifted once and for all. And he is now finally free…
I see my light come shiningFrom the west unto the east.
Any day now, any day now,
I shall be released.
Unlike Bob Dylan’s 1974 wistful song of an ill-fated love affair gone awry, America’s affair with the automobile is far from over. But as of last week, 
GM, who for years was without doubt the most popular girl at the party, is about to find out what it means to be alone on Saturday night.
have seen an increase in sales as a result of GM’s announcement that the once adored automaker has entered Chapter 11. America has always has a wondering eye when it comes to our insatiable consumption for consumer goods. 
But if the trend toward foreign femme fatales continues, our homegrown dance card is going to start to resemble something closer to a well-traveled passport.
relationship with America is no exception. Since 1908, the Flint, Michigan, automaker has sparked the imagination of America for over a century. So much so that the old adage, “as goes General Motors, so goes the nation,” wasn’t just some trite expression. It was an enduring term of endearment.
For years, we were obsessed with her stylish, shapely body; her lean, aerodynamic curves; her tight, taut lines. But as time went by, we grew bored and she grew complacent. 
As recent as December 2005, 
jobs, GM stock essentially worthless, and close to 4,000 dealerships on the chopping block, it turns out that in the end Wagoner only hurt the ones he loved.
those back pages we look upon with misplaced affinity and affection, maybe in the end the attraction really was only physical. Perhaps in hindsight it’s best that GM and America take a break. Who knows? Maybe the time apart will do both of us some good.
There’s always a tinge of shame associated with a failed relationship. GM, however, doesn’t have anything to be ashamed of. Admittedly, the federal government's decision to put the brakes on our relationship with GM has resulted in the fourth largest U.S. bankruptcy on record. 
But GM can take solace in the fact that three of the biggest bankruptcies in our nation's history—GM, the failure of Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual—have all occurred in the last nine months.
l estate market in disrepair, a workforce weakened by the highest unemployment levels in a generation. History comes in ebbs and flows. GM, it seems, just got caught on the wrong side of a financial tidal shift.
But even that wasn't enough to keep the nation's largest automaker in the black. Now the government is on the verge of putting another $30 billion into GM 
It doesn’t. Not directly anyway. Bob Dylan has always been more of a train guy. But despite the relative absence of automobiles in his 500+ song repertoire, Dylan is hardly immune to America’s infatuation with cars.
If you need proof that the mystique has a hold on him, too, look no further than the 2007 ad promoting the launch of GM’s Cadillac Escalade. Dylan offers not only his endorsement, but utters the closing line, “What’s life without the occasional detour?”
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