No, not really

When one of your experts writes something patently nonsensical and it isn't April Fool's Day, you should:

1) Quietly delete it, knowing that your reward awaits in heaven
2) Bring it to the writer's attention, in hope of saving future copy editors the trouble
3) Repeat it in a cutline so all the world can see!

Homer had the “Iliad,” Francis Ford Coppola had “The Godfather,” and Michael Jackson had “Thriller” – which is arguably the most influential album of all time and easily the most popular one in history.

It's nearly impossible to find someone over age 35 who didn't own the album at one time. Since it was released Nov. 30, 1982, more than 50 million copies of “Thriller” have been sold worldwide.

Well ... in a word, no. It isn't very hard at all. If I was home, I could look in the study and find another one,* but I'm not, so I found one in the department office. (Our little corner of communication heaven is less than a mile southeast** of the Motown studio museum,*** if you're scoring along at home.) We missed the Thursday old folks' shuttle to the discount grocery, but I'd hazard a small bet that many or most of the shuttle ladies never owned a copy of "Thriller." No idea how to predict the Harley Night crowd on Wednesdays, but if you want to gather the data, I'll do the numbers.

You can find some video from the gathering on the Boulevard here. From that, and from the tales of people falling in love with the album at age 7, and from a little basic addition and subtraction, you might get the idea that setting age 35 as your split point is the sort of random false authority that makes the paper look deeply clueless. Surely there's some way to capture the spirit of the age without plucking numbers out the air.****

* Born south of 8 Mile and everything.
** It's like Alaska and Russia: We can see it from here, but that doesn't make me Berry Gordy.
*** Click link, turn up volume.
**** I'm trying really, really hard not to bring up the "Iliad" thing again, but -- are you freakin' kidding me?