The King of Pop

Note: I'll have to put pictures with this later...

I'm writing this for me more than anything else. When I heard Michael Jackson had died yesterday, I have felt strange about it ever since. My name is Michael Jackson, and I always hated being called that because of the laughter that would follow in the classroom. His name during that time was more tied to child molestation charges than anything else. I say this just to point out that Michael Jackson has always occupied a strange place in my brain - on one hand I hated hearing his name, and on the other, I was absolutely mesmerized by him when he would perform. Whenever there is a video of his on tv, I'll stop whatever I'm doing and watch it. If they show that 30-year tribute thing on vh1, I'm hooked for the whole three hours. Even that second rate movie about the Jackson 5 will get me to watch. When it somes to music, there's three levels for me: here and now; transcending genius; and in their own category with no comparison. Michael Jackson is the third one. There is no one as good as he is at performing a song. I can't imagine anyone ever surpassing him.
Because you can read these kinds of things above elsewhere from real writers, I'll just tell some personal stories of Michael Jackson that I think illustrate what he is.

I was a freshman in college and my friends and I had discovered the art of cd making. I was the one in our house who was the best at it, though. I know about how the order you put your compilation in can affect the enjoyment, I have an ear for songs that I'll tire of quickly, etc. Well, we had a pretty opinionated buddy come over and was making an 80's cd. He had all the regulars on there like Bruce Springsteen, Prince, and Poison. He had put Thriller on his cd and was asking for a few more songs to round out the mix. I took a look and said, "How well do you know Michael Jackson?" And he said not really that well. I suggested he put Smooth Criminal on there. He, being opinonated told me that it would probably suck. I then downloaded it off napster and made him listen to it. If you're familiar with the song, you know that it starts strong and then just rises to a level unlike anything else in music right around the first chorus, like a shuttle into orbit, it never comes back down. So the opening beat comes on, and he's snarky and smirking and waiting for this waste of his time to end. Then that part of the song comes, "Annie are you ok? (BOOM) Will you tell us (BOOM) that you're ok?...(BOOM)" I watch his face change. He skips the "this might be alright" and goes right to "Holy Crap, this could be my favorite song of all time!" Keep in mind that this is without watching the video which would have probably left him catatonic it's so good. When the song finished, he asked me to make him a Michael Jackson only cd. And to this day, when I see him (about once a year), he brings this song up to me.

Another one of my favorite MJ stories is from when I was about 13, and the world is all about fitting in and not being discovered by the cool kids as a fraud, I spent an entire weekend in my room listening to Thriller again. I loved it when I was younger, and I just got the urge to hear it like you crave a food or something. Round about Sunday afternoon, my sister comes in my room and wants me to go play basketball with her (that is to say, she wanted someone to beat and knew that I would lose to her...and then probably burst into tears). I said no, I was good. And she said, "Are you still listening to that?" and to convince me to come play ball, she said, "I wonder what your friends at school are going to say about you spending all weekend listening to this." I was flabergasted for a moment and then said, "I don't think I can be friends with anyone who doesn't like this anyway." It's one of the few times at that age that I would've been ok with the "in crowd" being in opposition to one of my tastes. Little did I know that they were opposition with most of my tastes, but not MJ music.

It's not really a story, but my favorite memories of road trips in college with my buddies involve being about a half hour outside of wherever we're trying to get to and just blaring Man in the Mirror and loving it.

There are other stories, but those are the ones that mean something to me. Let's not forget what weird man this was. He was very bizarre. But who made him that way? His abusive father has him rehearsing 14 hours a day, and beats him when he doesn't get it right. His mother is a Jehova's Witness, and all I'm saying about that is that it creates an even wider divide between you and all the rest of the kids in the neighborhood. He was in front of a camera since the age of 5. His father constantly berated him about his nose being too big. I mean, of course he's going to turn into a freak show.
But let me say this, and everyone already kind of knows it: The man had some kind of a switch inside of him that he could flick. Watch an interview with him and you hear a quiet, mild, woman speaking. But when he would walk on a stage and the lights would go up and the beat would start, he turned into an absolute killer. He was so charismatic and dynamic that even the most masculine, hard nosed men would end up sqealing alongside the 12 year old girls.
Do yourself a favor and watch the clip of Michael Jackson walking out of the courthouse in California in 2005. He's almost hobbling to the car. He's drained and getting older. He's a shell of himself now. There's a group of fans there supporting him that start cheering for him as he limps to the car. Then someone (I guess in his entourage) turns on one of his tracks loud so everyone can hear. All of a sudden, he leaps up on top of the car and starts dancing. It was one of the weirdest things I had ever seen, and I thought it was so cool. He'd flipped that switch right before my eyes.
To be honest, I don't even want to know about the private life. He remains the #1 artist I would want to see in concert in their prime. The Beatles, Elvis, Led Z, nope.

Just give me a copy of HIStory and a pair of heaphones. Here's to the king!

Part III - Movies

We're back with the desert island category of movies.  Most everyone can figure this much out about me:  I love mob movies, I love buddy comedies, and I love great movie speeches.  So, I think what we should do here is break it down by genre and then more specific categories that I deem relevant...afterall, maybe 5 people read this thing anyway, so who am I really leaving out by tailoring it to stuff I like.  Away we go:

Westerns:  This is a good place to start because there's not much of a debate going on in my mind.  There's the pick and then everything else.  Admittedly, I am not a scholar in the old school, John Wayne westerns (I've seen maybe 3), and as much as I love Butch and Sundance, I'm going with William Munny on this one.  Eastwood just tears the cover off the ball with this movie.  It's got everything: struggle against self, great dialogue, and most importantly it's got a climactic scene where the guy walks into the bar to kill the man that shot his buddy down.  Just an awesome movie on so many levels.

The pick:  Unforgiven

Indie Film:  Once again, this one wins in a walk.  Garden State didn't age well in my opinion, but I will say that I like that movie a lot.  Great soundtrack, quotable, etc. Reservoir Dogs was an awesome movie, but it doesn't feel as "indie" to me because it had some established stars in it.  Plus, it seems more the rough draft for Tarantino before Pulp Fiction.  When you think about an indie film, a guy making a movie happen from scratch and bringing his friends along for the ride, launching the star into stardom (albeit years later), it's all about this pick.  Quotable, re-watchable, a few iconic moments.  Plus, when Vince Vaughn is on his game, nothing trumps it.

The pick:  Swingers 

Comedy:  Ok, now we have a debate.  I just need to make picks in subcategories first:

-Made me laugh the hardest scene: dinner scene in The Nutty Professor

-Made me laugh the hardest from start to finish the first time I saw it: Wedding Crashers

-Most quotable:  Dumb and Dumber edges Lebowski by an eyelash

-British comedy: Monty Python and the Holy Grail

-Mockumentary:  Best in Show

But the best mix of everything, the one that stays the freshest over the years, the one that immediately makes you friends with someone when you tell them you love it:

The pick: The Big Lebowski 

Sports Movie:  No debate here.  And the reason is that sports movies are all the same now.  I don't understand how there are so many smart people in the world and no one has figured out how to make a good sports movie anymore.  I think it can all be traced back to the fact that there just aren't many actors that are both athletic and good at acting too.  Kevin Costner cornered the market here for years (and that's the best we can do?!).  Note: I don't really consider Rocky a sports movie because there's only one fight and it is only 5 minutes of the movie.  Note II: I just remembered how good The Natural is, but still...

The pick:  Hoosiers

Musicals:  not really, I'm just kidding.

Action Movie:  It's all about what you like here.  Rather than list all the good and bad, I'll get right to it.  All star cast, great story, great acting, re-watchable, one of the all time great scenes near the end.  And yet some people forget about this movie:

The pick:  Heat

High School Movie:

Lots of people like lots of things.  I'll go with the one that I've seen a million times and could see a million more:

The pick:  Dazed and Confused

Courtroom Drama:

With respect to all the ones that came before and after this one, I like great performances, and Edward Norton was off the charts in

The pick:  Primal Fear  

Thriller:  A lot of good ones in this category, but for brevity's sake I'll get right to it.  This one features the most electrifying 16 minute Oscar winning performance ever.  Also, it is the last movie to win Best Picture, Director, Actor, and Actress.  Strong.

The pick:  The Silence of the Lambs

Drama (ok, let's call it what it is for me)

Mafia movie: This will be its own post one day, I don't feel I can devote the right amount of time to this, but here goes.

Let me say this to begin with, I know you're not a mob movie fan if you tell me that your favorite is Scarface.  That's crap.  As far as this genre goes, that one plays like a music video.  I'll tell you what it's like...it's like a Will Ferrell movie is now.  One guy carrying it as far as he can and by the end, he's given out.  You have to have a good team to make a movie and this one had a crappy job on everything except the starring role.

People forget about Donny Brasco, but it is WAY better than this movie, and it has Johnny Depp rocking the Fed role.  

Now...

As good as Goodfellas is, it suffers in these ways for me (for you): 

1.  It doesn't have Marlon Brando or Al Pacino

2. The ending seems a little abrupt to me.  In fact once he sells out, I can turn it off usually.  You shouldn't ever feel that way about a desert island pick, you should be captivated til the last second.

Goodfellas is great, just not the top spot(s).  I actually find Casino to be more re-watchable.  The Departed is not aging as well as I'd hoped, but it's still great.

So the question is, Godfather I or II.  It's tough, but it comes down to this: one has the greatest actor ever, and the other doesn't.  Marlon Brando is simply the best to ever stand in front of a camera.  Al Pacino was better in the second one, but he's still awesome in part I.  If you threw out all these subcategories and just said I could only take one movie, it would be...

the pick:  The Godfather part I

  

I'm drained I can't go any further.  I left out War movie - Saving Private Ryan, Love Story - Jerry Maguire, 80s movie - Top Gun, gotta stop, movie without a category - Fight Club, I've done too many categories...This is my albatross!

Part II - TV

In the last post, we talked about the concept of taking just one of something to the desert island.  In that case, it was music.  Since I alluded to TV series' though, let's go ahead and address that as the next category:

Drama:  This is tough.  We've got The Sopranos with the longest run and the subject matter that I gravitate to the most - the mob.  We've got The Wire that has been so good that I accost people at parties that say they haven't watched it and don't plan to (and I would highly recommend Mad Men Season 1).  But I have to go with the series that I was captivated by from the beginning, and that has still not finished.  From a re-watchability standpoint, it is so deep that it can't be ignored.  It also fits with the Desert Island idea quite nicely.  

The pick:  Lost

Comedy:  Not as tough.  If I was going for nostalgia, it would be The Andy Griffith Show in a walk.  But seeing as how I can remember each of those episodes frame by frame anyway, I'll leave it behind.  I love The Office, but it has had some weak spots and not nearly the re-watchable powerhouse that Seinfeld is.  Also Michael Scott is no George Costanza.

The Pick: Seinfeld (although it should be said that I've not watched much of Arrested Development or 30 Rock yet and people are swearing by it).

Teen Soap:  For me (for you), this category is 90210 vs The OC (this very subject is one of the more memorable mailbags from Bill Simmons).  I don't watch the current stuff that Dana likes (and if we can get her to post, she'll have a more educated opinion on this).  Between those two, I would rather watch The OC - blasphemy I know, but I'm honest if nothing else.

But I'm going to gerrymander (appropriate if you watch the pick in this category) this category to fit my tastes and say...

The Pick: Friday Night Lights (Season 3 finale was strong.  Very strong.  It got a little dusty in the Jackson's den yesterday)

In honor of Conan's debut tonight...

Late Night Talk Show:  This will be a classic case of my personal preference winning out because there is no defense of this pick other than I just like it the best.  To impress people, you'd say that there is no one better than David Letterman (we're too young for Carson), but that you prefer Jon Stewart (I'd take Conan).  The power of 5 questions and Yambo will always bring me back to...

The Pick: Craig Kilborn (cue the bass line of "Play That Funky Music")

Miniseries:  I've actually watched a few really good ones this year in John Adams and Band of Brothers.  To bait Dana into replying to this, I will say that nothing compares to this...not even some Canada-based little girl story.

The Pick:  Lonesome Dove  (and I'd be interested to hear Ashley's take on this one)

Reality TV:  Ugh.  I can't help but watch it because every station has it on.  Right now, I'm really enjoying 4th and Long on SpikeTV.  Also, a random recommendation would be a show called Three Sheets.  But for this category and the obvious help it would give, I'll go with...

The Pick: Man vs. Wild