Michael Jackson has passed away.
Michael was part of my childhood... I grew up with the music, I watch the phenomenon unfold, grow and sadly, fall. Or, did it fall? Based on the reaction to yesterday's news... maybe not.
They've compared the scale of this to the passing of Elvis and of JFK. And I believe that to be true. I was 13 years from existing when Kennedy was shot, and I was 10 months old and not yet walking, probably barely talking, when Elvis passed, so I have no personal frame of reference, but I do know that not a person alive at those times doesn't recall where they were and what they were doing when they heard it. This is another of those rare deaths that just shock to the core.
I was at my desk, at work, and I clicked onto a website I read daily. There was a discussion thread titled "Michael Jackson ***CARDIAC ARREST** " - with "cardiac arrest" in all caps like that. I even remember noticing that the starter of the topic put three asteriks in front and only two at the end, just the way I've shown it. It's weird, the things that stick out at moments of surprise like that.
I thought what probably many people thought at the mention of Michael in the later years of his life... "Oh lord, NOW what?" I read what was going on, and there was a link to the TMZ website, who seemed to be the only people with any kind of reasonable assertation of what was going on. The major news outlets had not arrived to UCLA and most were breaking the news and citing TMZ as their source rather than putting up their own reports.
This was a little bit after 4:00 in the afternoon for me. By 4:45 pm, TMZ changed the headline on their main page to say that Michael Jackson had died. I stared at the screen for a moment, thinking of nothing but being a 7 year old kid sitting in front of the television, playing with Legos and Dolly Pops (remember those, girls?), watching my Michael Jackson videos on channel 66.
I searched google news for confirmation and found nothing but reports of the trip to the hospital. But for some reason, I knew that what TMZ had reported was true. It would not be until approximately 5:30, midway through my evening commute, that Fox News and CNN began to report the same. I stopped for gas at the Thornton's on York Rd. and Devon Ave. When I got out of the car, there was a red sports car at the same pump on the opposite side, with it's window open.
"Wanna Be Startin' Something" sounded loudly from that red car. Again, the childhood memories came back.
Now, we all know that the last 10-15 years were a total downward spiral for him - no one about to forget that.
He's been called many things. In the 70s he was an R&B phenomenon, leading the Jackson 5 to superstardom. In the 80s he was a megastar, a teen idol, a pop sensation, breaking records with his records, and by the 1990's he had been declared the King of Pop.
He's also been called odd, a freak, Wacko Jacko and a child molester. Personally, I never believed the first allegations in 1993. That situation screamed of extortion. And as we all know, the allegations returned 5 years ago. What, if anything, was behind them, I don't know. At the time, I believed it because, let's just face it, the evidence as it was reported was highly damning.
It was stated by a psychiatrist who evaluated Michael that he did not fit the profile of a pedophile, but rather the profile of a person looking to compensate for something missing, in Michael's case, his childhood, by surrounding himself with what he lacked as a child - mostly, friends his age.
Was he just a man in the wrong mental frame, unaware that his actions were perceived to be criminal, or was he actually a criminal? The answer is that I don't know. Stories of all sorts came from every angle... yes he did those things, no he didn't, these people are lying, those people are telling the truth... the bottom line is *I* don't know.
And Michael is now busy answering to whichever higher power he chose to believe in, and that's the way this story ends. And overall, his life and death make for a pretty sad story, especially the last decade. Sad for Michael, sad for his family, sad for those affected by him in whatever way they were affected during his time on Earth.
But before all of the questionable things happened, back in the day when the oddnes was limited to having exotic pets, being shy and quiet, and having just one nose job, there was a lot of music that I enjoyed very much. I played Thriller over and over when I was 7 and 8 years old. I sat in front of the TV watching the music video channel, playing with my Legos, waiting for "We Are the World" to play (because it was on 16 times a day)... and I waited for the shots of Michael (and I also very specifically recall wishing they would show the 'Oh Sherrie' guy more than just once because "he's so cute!" as well as wishing Bruce Springsteen would knock off the constipated singing and just belt it out like we all know he can do )... it was part of my childhood so it's a good memory for me.
I had some posters on my wall.
I used to kiss one of them (lay off, I was only 7)... it was this one:
This was a little bit after 4:00 in the afternoon for me. By 4:45 pm, TMZ changed the headline on their main page to say that Michael Jackson had died. I stared at the screen for a moment, thinking of nothing but being a 7 year old kid sitting in front of the television, playing with Legos and Dolly Pops (remember those, girls?), watching my Michael Jackson videos on channel 66.
I searched google news for confirmation and found nothing but reports of the trip to the hospital. But for some reason, I knew that what TMZ had reported was true. It would not be until approximately 5:30, midway through my evening commute, that Fox News and CNN began to report the same. I stopped for gas at the Thornton's on York Rd. and Devon Ave. When I got out of the car, there was a red sports car at the same pump on the opposite side, with it's window open.
"Wanna Be Startin' Something" sounded loudly from that red car. Again, the childhood memories came back.
Now, we all know that the last 10-15 years were a total downward spiral for him - no one about to forget that.
He's been called many things. In the 70s he was an R&B phenomenon, leading the Jackson 5 to superstardom. In the 80s he was a megastar, a teen idol, a pop sensation, breaking records with his records, and by the 1990's he had been declared the King of Pop.
He's also been called odd, a freak, Wacko Jacko and a child molester. Personally, I never believed the first allegations in 1993. That situation screamed of extortion. And as we all know, the allegations returned 5 years ago. What, if anything, was behind them, I don't know. At the time, I believed it because, let's just face it, the evidence as it was reported was highly damning.
It was stated by a psychiatrist who evaluated Michael that he did not fit the profile of a pedophile, but rather the profile of a person looking to compensate for something missing, in Michael's case, his childhood, by surrounding himself with what he lacked as a child - mostly, friends his age.
Was he just a man in the wrong mental frame, unaware that his actions were perceived to be criminal, or was he actually a criminal? The answer is that I don't know. Stories of all sorts came from every angle... yes he did those things, no he didn't, these people are lying, those people are telling the truth... the bottom line is *I* don't know.
And Michael is now busy answering to whichever higher power he chose to believe in, and that's the way this story ends. And overall, his life and death make for a pretty sad story, especially the last decade. Sad for Michael, sad for his family, sad for those affected by him in whatever way they were affected during his time on Earth.
But before all of the questionable things happened, back in the day when the oddnes was limited to having exotic pets, being shy and quiet, and having just one nose job, there was a lot of music that I enjoyed very much. I played Thriller over and over when I was 7 and 8 years old. I sat in front of the TV watching the music video channel, playing with my Legos, waiting for "We Are the World" to play (because it was on 16 times a day)... and I waited for the shots of Michael (and I also very specifically recall wishing they would show the 'Oh Sherrie' guy more than just once because "he's so cute!" as well as wishing Bruce Springsteen would knock off the constipated singing and just belt it out like we all know he can do )... it was part of my childhood so it's a good memory for me.
I had some posters on my wall.
I used to kiss one of them (lay off, I was only 7)... it was this one:
As I said in my Facebook status this morning, "I'm choosing to remember how much I enjoyed Mike way back when, because that was a good childhood memory for me, instead of the drama of recent years."
And that's why I played Thriller in the car this morning, and will play it again on the way home.
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