My earliest Michael Jackson memories include the Thriller video, him being on the cover “Weekly Reader” when I was in second grade and answering my friend’s question, “Why does he only wear one white glove”. (I think the answer I gave was, “Because that’s what he wears in the “video” which were pretty new back then). If you can imagine, in the early 80’s not everyone had cable television and access to MTV (nor were there things like remote controls). Anyway, Jackson was the first super-star that I came to know. He would be followed by Hulk Hogan, Mr. T, Sylvester Stallone, & Optimus Prime.
Yeah, the pet tigers were weird and so was that glass oxygen chamber he supposedly slept in but that didn’t stop me from putting quarters into the “Smooth Criminal” arcade game (still my favorite Jackson song). It wasn’t until he released the Black or White album, that I started getting bored with him. It wasn’t that Black or White was that bad, but there was Pearl Jam and Nirvana (in that order) that were much cooler and more interesting. But even grunge and flannel couldn’t compare to the eye-candy video of “Black or White”. (It was one the one with everybody morphing into each other and it was the same technology used in Terminator 2). Besides, whose against racial reconciliation?
There were two other (admittedly minor) things that annoyed me about Michael Jackson. One was that I was a bigger Michael Jordan fan and I acknowledged him as the true “Michael” or “MJ”. Second was the extremely long video of “Remember the Time”. It was a video of him and his love running around ancient Egypt. Being Egyptian, I got annoyed by the cheesiness of the video (but I do like that Bangles, “Walk Like an Egyptian”).
Jackson grew weirder and while I had grown up (a little), it seemed he never did. I know growing up with Joe Jackson as your father probably didn’t help nor did being a child super star help your adolescence. As he grew older, there were the weird marriages, the continued skin lightening, the nose jobs, the scandals, and there wasn’t any amazing music to justify the weird and perverse behavior. In the world of Rock’n Roll, that means you’re finished.
But finished only to people like me because a significant part of the rest of the world was still in love with him. During our mission trip to Estonia in 2004, we were asked over and over how Michael could be accused of such terrible crimes. I remember speaking to a young adult there and she was absolutely crushed when I told her that many of us in the West see him as deranged. 40 year old men don’t share beds with 12 year olds. It was a losing argument for me.
Fast forward to last week. I read the twitter updates that said he was being rushed to the hospital due to a cardiac arrest, I went to the gym, came home and Susan told me that he died.
All week all the FM stations played his music. You could start “Billy Jean” on one station and finish it on another. On my way to school last week, I was rudely cut off by a BMW 750 owner. Normally I would have pulled out my bazooka and sent him into oblivion but I was listening to “Man in the Mirror” and thought, “If I want to make the world a better place, take a look at myself and make a … change.”
I’m really trying to say something redemptive here but it fails. Though I literally own zero Jackson cd’s (I did own all his cassettes from Thriller to Black & White however), I admit, I was a bit saddened. There was a part of me that always justified the extremely odd behavior brought upon my numerous reasons like being a world-famous celebrity and being called, “The King of Pop”. But there was also a part of me that always wanted him to redeem himself. A lot can be said right here but it’s already been a long post. Still, it seems fair to say that this is yet another story that does not end the way we thought it would.
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