One year ago, I was sitting quietly in my office when a Skype window popped up:

“HOLY SHIT. MICHAEL JACKSON IS DEAD.”

That came from my friend Marty, who probably should’ve been doing more business-y things than cruising TMZ, but I was enjoying a YouTube video of kittens at the time, so I wasn’t in a position to point fingers.

Naturally, I did some due diligence and scoped out other news sites to verify the MJ story, but TMZ was so far ahead of the game that CNN and NYTimes hadn’t even touched it. It took several more hours before everyone came onboard and reached the conclusion that Jackson had died, and possibly ODed.

Earlier this week, Awkward Boners opted to pay tribute to the erstwhile King of Pop on the first anniversary of his death. And since I’m not much of a Jackson fan (apart from maybe “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough”, a title that would probably read “don stop til u git enuf” if it were written today), I figured it’s as fitting as any: