Just How Old Was Michael Jackson?

Even moreso than his fellow '58ers Madonna and Prince, Michael Jackson had a long and bizarre relationship with age. He was old enough to be in the public eye for more than four decades, young enough to live in a children's zoo. He recorded his first number-one single just two months after man first walked on the moon, yet sang like a castrato and surrounded himself with tweens. Young enough to have never developed a beer gut, old enough to have a decline phase lasting a full quarter-century. So just how old was Michael Jackson?

Michael Jackson was older than Appalachian wanderluster Mark Sanford, older than beloved Slate columnist Eliot Spitzer, and older than the 44th president of the United States. He was older than silver-haired Congressman Mike Pence, silver-bearded Nespresso pitchman George Clooney, and silver-tongued trial lawyer Erin Brockovich. Remember John Kennedy, Jr., the George magazine publisher who died in a plane crash 10 years ago? He was younger than Michael Jackson. As are Magic Johnson, Tai Babilonia, and Stan Van Gundy. Not only was Michael Jackson older (though perhaps less cryogenically enhanced) than Glenn Reynolds, David Frum and Michael Fumento, he was older than Randi Rhodes, Katrina vanden Heuvel, and even ancient soul Eric Alterman. I don't know if that hurts you, helps you, or makes you reach even quicker for the Demerol.

Speaking of Bruce Springsteen, I presume many in my mourning cohort of Generation Xers who grew up listening to dinosaur rawk presume that it was The Boss who first done funked up "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." As I (alas!) only recently discovered, Michael, who was a musical genius before T-ball age (and before there was T-ball), had Bruce beat by a half-decade at least.