The Death of Michael Jackson
Friday, June 26, 2009
The Death of Michael Jackson
1958-2009
There aren't a lot of people you can recognize just by looking at their silhouette. Most of the ones that you can recognize are probably cinema icons, like Indiana Jones with his trademark hat, for example, or the silhouette of C3PO and R2D2 maybe. You know that a character you have created has reached some kind of pedestal, you know. Even if you are not a character, even a real life person could reach that kind of pedestal once they've reached somewhere. It's true that you can't put Justin Timberlake's silhouette somewhere and expect anybody to recognize him straightaway, you just can't. He is in a different league from those that can be recognized, those who don't need to show their faces for you to come up with a name. Michael Jackson is one such individual, one who has defied a basic human need to see a person's face to know who that person is, or a voice for that matter. All you have to do is to see the silhouette of him and you'd know who that is. It is that simple, and it is because of who he is as an entertainer, and what he stands for. It is Michael Jackson, the one and only, and you really need nothing more than a shadow on the wall to feel the bass line of Billie Jean creeping up your bones.
I remember as a child, I used to love the Dangerous album of his, initially for the album art. I mean, there is just so much to look at on the album cover itself, and I remember staring at it intently whenever I sat on the front seat of my mother's car. I remember my mother kept the copy of the album on her car, and she'd play that album once in a while. I loved that album, and my favorite song from that album (at that time) was probably Heal the World. It was probably because it was a familiar song that my primary school used to play every year during Children's Day for some reason. The students would be forced to hold hands, and then we'd try to read the lyrics off the projector screen at the front of the hall. I loved that song, even more than those cheesy national day songs that they'd force down our throats. I remember the year when they stopped playing the song during Children's Day, and they also stopped giving us those little gifts. I used to get stationaries from the school that were pretty neat by the way, whatever happened to those? Anyway, there was this time when I replayed the album so many times that I actually asked my mother if I could stay in the car to listen to the song while she hopped off to buy something. That's how crazy I was about Michael Jackson.
Then there was that time when I was still in high school, and Michael Jackson's latest album at that time, Invincible, was receiving quite a bit of air time on the radio as well as on MTV. I remember the big premier that many stations were promoting of his new music video, and how it featured Chris Tucker and Marlon Brando - yeah, you know you have to watch the Godfather. I remember being really excited about it, and was blown away by the dance sequence in the middle of the music video. For those who has seen the video, you know what I am talking about. In truth, it is probably one of my favorite Michael Jackson songs, and the dance move is just a killer from the beginning to the end, even if some people would argue that it is one of his lesser hits. I love You Rock My World, and I love everything about that song. I mean, it even made Chris Tucker somewhere bearable on screen, and that says a lot about it. At any rate, I remember trying to imitate his dance moves, and I spent many hours in front of the television just practicing. Of course, by the end of it, I still sucked very badly. But to me, to imagine myself dancing with Michael Jackson, that feeling was pretty damn awesome. I was probably too old at that time to have such a childish fantasy. Yet, whenever that song came on the television, I'd rush to the living room and try to follow the moves.
It was last Friday morning when I woke up with two messages on my cellphone. One was from Felicia and the other was from Neptina. Both messages were about the same person and the same event: Michael Jackson died. The first reaction to this, in this day and age, is to doubt it. I mean, I've heard of Michael Jackson dying about three times now, and he has almost always bounced back to life somehow. There has been rumors sometime last year about his skin deteriorating or something like that, and he was dying as a result. But of course, that didn't happen, and he later revealed his plan to have one last shot at touring. I immediately jumped in front of my computer and checked various news websites, and all of them were indeed reporting the same thing. Michael Jackson was indeed dead, and reports were coming up from everywhere regarding his death. I just sat in my chair for a while, stunned by that piece of news, and wished desperately that somebody would reveal to everybody else that it was all a hoax. It happens, you know, people with a bad sense of humor still joke about death of somebody famous every once in a while. But not this time, nobody came out with a crude smile to say that it was all a joke. Nobody came clean this time, and Michael Jackson remained dead and wrapped up in a body bag as he was wheeled out from a helicopter.
I remember thinking to myself the implications of it all, the idea that the world is now missing an important part of history. Yes, I used the word "history", because I believe he has contributed that much, you know. A lot of people are mourning everywhere around the world right now, with little shrines set up to commemorate his greatness in life as an entertainer. Fans around the world are either celebrating his life or mourning for his death, but his name is in all their minds all around the world. I cannot say that I was the biggest of fans, or a fan at any rate. After all, as much as I appreciate his contributions to the music world (or the world), my love for music has always lied elsewhere somehow. Yet, nobody can deny his impact on all musicians out there, and everybody has had some kind of influence from him, one way or another. I remember sitting in the car one day a few months ago with Sarah and Felicia when Billie Jean came up on the radio and we all screamed. We even pulled the car over at one point just so that we could focus on the singing. Even after all these years, that song still makes the younger generation go crazy, and that is the power of his music. My love for his music pretty much ends there, but I still love it for what it is worth.
Despite all the negative publicity he has had over the past couple of years, I've always held on to the idea that he is a kickass performer. A lot of people are saying that it is disgusting for some to praise Michael Jackson and his music, when the same group of people would have condemned everything that he stood for in life only a few months ago. I agree, and I do feel that it is disgusting and pretentious of this people to change their views all of a sudden at the death of somebody. Death changes everything, even the perception of somebody no matter how deeply rooted these false accusations are in his or her veins. Personally, I have always acknowledged his strange antics and oddities in the media, with everything from the baby tangling incident to his masks. You cannot deny that in life and off the stage, Michael Jackson has not only been a very private and secretive person, he has also been a very strange individual. Nonetheless, while I recognized that for a fact, I still enjoyed his music, his talents, and his contributions to the world. I love everything about his songs, and I love trying to dance to it even though people mistake me for a tree when I attempt to do so. It isn't about moral judgments here, and we are not trying to say whether he really commit the crimes that he was accused of. The truth is this: on stage, he had no peers.
His death has triggered a great many things on the internet alone. His songs and albums are topping charts everywhere, even on pirated websites. Twitter was down for a while because there were so many people flooding onto the website to post about his death. Even at death, he was still able to create such an impact over the world. I suppose it becomes very hard to comprehend the idea that he is gone, someone who has always been on a different pedestal from all of us, dying from such a human reason. It saddens me because he died with a trail of somewhat bad reputation. Whether or not the accusations were true, it is impossible to separate his legacy from those scandals. People are still going to associate him with the scandals no matter if they were true or not. That is how human beings are anyway, because the negative stuff are always more fun to talk about, right? Anyway, people are going to remember him that way, at least for some, while others will literally dance on the streets to remember his music. I love that, you know, to have so many strangers gather together and to celebrate his music in a manner that they deem fit. I love that kind of commemoration, one without tears and depression, but a kind of joy and celebration.
At any rate, deep inside, everybody knows that a major part of our cultural DNA is now gone, or at least the music industry anyway. There will come a time when celebrities would die, and nobody would care too much about it. Think about all the bands and all the artistes on today's bestselling charts, and how many of those people are actually going to make it to the level of where Michael Jackson was. It is difficult to imagine any of them to have the same kind of impact, in life or in death. It is a part of the degradation of music that saddens me, and this shiny beacon that is Michael Jackson is now gone. The same person who revolutionized the industry and blew the door open for other artistes to come through isn't around any longer, and it just sucks that we have to settle with monkeys like the Jonas Brothers and some reality television show winner. It disgusts me, even, to put them in the same sentence, but that is just to show the contrast anywhere. There isn't going to be anybody like him, no matter how hard you try. If you search around deep enough, you are going to find a video of Michael Jackson and Usher dancing together. Sure, Usher is a really good dancer, no questions about that. But next to Michael Jackson, he looked like a school boy trying desperate to imitate. Even at forty, Michael Jackson kicked a lot of ass.
I don't want to pretend that I am terribly affected by his death - I am not. I felt more when George Carlin died, though that was somewhat expected to a certain degree. He has been battling heart problems for years, and it's not like he died at a ripe age to begin with. Michael Jackson's death was more of a shock to me, a sudden jolt to the senses, and the sense of loss that came afterwards overwhelmed me for a while. The truth is that there will no longer be a man to blow the world away by moonwalking on the stage, nor will there a man who can make a silly dance move look so brilliant. Nobody can grab their own crotches with a straight face and look cool anymore, and nobody can pretend to comb their hair on stage without looking somewhat tacky. There was only one Michael Jackson, and there will only be one Michael Jackson. He transcended many boundaries in life, and more than just his music, he transcended the musical boundaries. He was no longer black, or white, an American or whatever. Like many great people in history, Michael Jackson is just Michael Jackson, as simple as that. I think John Mayer put it really well in a short article he wrote for TIME magazine, and I shall share it with you guys here in order to end this very long entry of mine.
People don't get upset when they talk about Michael Jackson dying, they get upset when they talk about how much a part of their life it was. I mean, what are the 80's? A Rubik's Cube, 3D glasses and Michael Jackson. And that's the giant cornerstone that's gone. He's one of the few crossover artists that would make even the most radical white supremacists say, "Well he's not black — he's Michael Jackson." He's not black, he's Barack Obama. He's not black, he's Jimi Hendrix. He's not black, he's Tiger Woods.
As a musician, the man was one of the purest substances ever in music. But it's frustrating, and somewhat pointless, to ever try and figure out how Michael Jackson arrived at an album like Thriller and how you could arrive at something like it. It's impossible. I mean it's one of those things you actually don't want to bring up to musicians because they don't want to remember that that kind of greatness is achievable, because it skews the entire bell curve completely.
Michael Jackson proves, in a really sort of perverse way, that maybe we're not as offended by your behavior as we are entranced by your music. And think about that. Think about what level of quality you must have to attain to have somebody say, "I know that you're accused of having molested children, but I can't hate you for that as much as I love you for your music." I'm not saying that's right or wrong. But I'm saying that its fascinating. That somebody could be that great. That somebody could have that much of a marriage with your emotions just through music.
There's just one Michael Jackson now. We don't have to reconcile the Michael Jackson we love with another Michael Jackson. In a way, he has returned to pristine condition in death. We can be free now for the rest of our lives to love the Michael Jackson we used to love.John Mayer
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on Friday, June 26, 2009 at 2:23 PM.
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