I heard of Michael Jackson's death while on vacation in the Swiss Alps. The fact that the news was shocking, but not surprising, added to my sadness. Such talent, so broken.

I'm told MJ had been the King of Pop. "The king of what?" I wondered.

Considering the nature of pop - "Pop Culture: the mainstream of a given culture, pursues populism and ratings, heavily dependent on and influenced by mass media, changes constantly, seeks to shock and amaze, focuses on basic instincts, trivia, the glitzy and the superficial" - it makes you wonder who'd want to be the king of that? (and then keep a safe distance). Michael may well have ended up the King of Pop, anointed by the very pop media he at times despised, but I doubt this is what he really lived for or in his heart desired. Muhammad Ali wanted to be the greatest and proclaimed it loud and clear. I've never heard Michael Jackson make a single claim for the King of Pop title - it simply never was his goal. In the end he appears as much a victim of pop culture, than it's king. It appears the true kingdom he had been pursuing all along was the kingdom of love for himself and his life.

PS. How will pop culture's next king or queen fare? Who will it be? Given the uphill battle, I wish him or her well. The determining factor as always will be how much the person shapes pop culture, or how much pop culture shapes the person. But there will always be one winner, guaranteed - mass media - greedy, cruel, insatiable, dependent 24/7 on fresh news from inside the kingdom of pop.

Without any planning on my part, following a series of events that had come together mysteriously like pieces of a puzzle that had found together during the night, I completed Atlanta’s Peachtree Road Race this year. Have got a T-shirt to show for it, too. My friend Linda (Wilson) was the organizer, complete with starting numbers and all, out of the blue. All I had to do was show up, and run - actually, run some, walk some, run some - you get the drift, something I felt I could handle.

The most memorable moments took place before the race even started. I got up in the middle of night for the purpose of meeting on a dark parking lot so we could carpool and get parking ahead of the 50,000 other loonies equally happy to rise early to form lines at 5:30 in the morning. Parking was easy. However, I have never seen so many people lining up in front of so many portapotties. We have sure come a long way since Woodstock, or in my case, the Isle of Wight.

Most surprising, given all we did was wait to go to the toilet, was the deafening noise of half a dozen news 'copters overhead. Sums up the news on teevee today rather nicely, doesn't it?