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!