Can't seem to shake the sadness

Actually, that was true on Wednesday. My thoughts were so scrambled up that all I could do was find the video on the bottom of this entry. Now, I have words.

I can't describe the ebb that has occurred in my mood over the last few days. Yes, MJ's death threw me for a loop and likely, I would've bounced back from it sooner.

But Joe Jackson happened.

Joe Jackson at the BET Awards red carpet. Joe Jackson at the actual BET Awards ceremony. Joe Jackson at the impromptu news conference held on Monday. The level of ignorance and self-interest was just too much to take. I was in a nice comfortable place, following Father's Day. It was nice searching for videos displaying the varying complexities of fatherhood. And yes, the Bear for Punishment and Married with Children showed the darker, seamier side of how fatherhood is perceived. But at least these aspects of humor were presented with humor. There was nothing about Joe Jackson's behavior that was funny, genuine, or authentic. And while some would put it to 'his grief', I honestly don't think so. He is 80 fcuking years old; he survived a stroke. Anyone else would be wounded by the thought of one of his youngest children being dead. At 50. Leaving three motherless grandchildren behind. But no... just plug, plug, plug a record company with an 80 year old, incompetent, and clearly disengaged man at the helm. This explains why MJ tied himself into such knots and mutiliated himself in the most expensive and public ways.

I had to regroup. I needed to cultivate that warm place in my heart that I have for my late father and the ways I try to pay tribute to that bond on this blog and in my everyday life. The prescription? MOVIE THERAPY! Finding positive father/daughter moments were easy, but grappling with the complicated dynamics of father/son relationships were the whole reason for my funk. As I have said before, I may be a feminist, but I know that men are sometimes up against it worse, especially if they aren't allowed to express what is really going on within themselves. So I watched Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill Jr.; Buster Keaton's face always seem to make me happy. And the storyline was a counteractent to Joe Jackson's bull$h*t; an absent father reunited with a son he barely knows. He's frustrated with his son because there is no evidence of himself within his son. And yet, there was tenderness and an instinctive need to protect the very child he saw as a disappointment. A concentrated shot of what fatherhood could be and this film was made back in 1928.

Then, I was going to use The Curious Case of Benjamin Button as a chaser, since one of the film's themes was the evolution of how fathers saw their children. Clearly, Thomas thought of Benjamin (before he was born) as the groundskeeper/tender to Thomas' successes; when Benjamin was born and Thomas came face to face with the prospect that Benjamin couldn't fulfill that role, Thomas abandoned him. Fortunately, Thomas' world view wasn't fixed; therefore, he was able to forge a different and possibly a more progressive type of relationship with Benjamin. In turn, Benjamin, as of a result of his relationships with Tizzy, Captain Mike, and Thomas, figured out that his child will not be the groundskeeper to his legacy. Instead, Benjamin sold everything associated with his family legacy/wealth and gambled it on his daughter's future. Today, this is a fairly accepted concept, but there are dinosaurs, like Joe Jackson, who believe that their children's purpose/reason for existence is to serve them.

Michael was clearly of the new school of thinking, which explained why Joe was cut out of Michael's will entirely. Instead of being proud of him, Joe will likely parlay this into another bid for sympathy/promoting his record company.

Here's a clip from Good Times. Another example of a father, James Evans, who had the reputation of being tough on his children, and yet, had just as much, if not more, love for them and optimism for their futures.

Norman Lear was a total jack@$ for letting John Amos go.