I've created a monster

My K has been a Michael Jackson fan ever since he first came to our house at age 3. He immediately found and loved the movie Free Willy, previously forgotten in our collection of VHS tapes. You could read a lot into that because of the story about the kid in foster care and everything, and maybe it's all true, I don't know for sure. But the thing he loved most was the MJ video at the beginning. Heaven forbid you should fail to rewind the thing all the way and miss that video.

He doesn't watch it so much now. Which is fine. But we did introduce the kids to the long-form "Thriller" on Halloween. K wants to watch it every few days. So I showed him how to find a collection of MJ videos on our Blu-Ray player. (We love that thing and its streaming Netflix. Joy.)

Since then, it's almost nonstop. The kids find MJ weird and fascinating, just like all of us. Especially the changes in his appearance. But they love the long-form videos for "Bad" and "Black or White" with their simple, didactic stories. A keeps trying to imitate the dance moves, which is certainly something to see.

I have to say, I wasn't a huge MJ fan in my youth. Never owned a cassette, even. Mostly I was too young when he was really huge - fourth grade when "Thriller" was everywhere. But that's it; it was everywhere. I remember a kid playing it on a boom box in the school bus on the way to my rural Oklahoma elementary. It was part of what I marinated in during my childhood. And now it's part of me, and I do think the guy was kind of a genius with the infectious beats and the feel-good messages

So I pass it on to my kids. That's all right, isn't it?