Once upon a time, I loved Michael Jackson. I owned Thriller<\/i>. I owned Off the Wall<\/i>. I thought his videos were the coolest things I had ever seen. I grew up in the 80s. He was IT at the time. IT.<\/p>\n
However, I have not loved Michael Jackson for a long long time now. Not because he’s on trial, or because he’s such a FREAK, or weird, or whatever … all of these things are true, but that’s not what made the tide turn. I think the tide began to turn for me around the time when that video came out which was a fascist fantasy. Anyone remember that? The one with Michael in bright red military garb and mirrored Qaddafi-esque sunglasses, marching along the empty avenue in front of robotic troops, and then the unveiling of the 30-story high statue of Michael, with helicopters flying between the statue’s legs. It was Stalinesque, the whole thing was really weird.<\/p>\n
When I saw that (whenever that was) I remember thinking: “Huh. That’s … how you say in English … a bit loony.”<\/p>\n
Huge egos are to be expected in that industry, but … a fascistic fantasy of taking over the world? It’s a bit much, dude. Tone it down.<\/p>\n
And the face-shifting surgery (where was the cute black kid on the Off the Wall<\/i> album cover? Where did he go? I LOVED him!), and then the first scandal with kids sleeping in his bed, and the huge settlement paid out, and then his utterly bizarre stunt against Tommy Mottola a couple years ago, parading through New York holding up signs of Mottola as a devil and suddenly accusing him of racism (huh? Michael. Please. First of all: YOU ARE WHITE NOW. Second of all, you have made millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars for the record company. You have one bad album come out, which is your own fault, and suddenly they’re racists? You’re a lunatic.) Then came the baby-dangling fiasco, and the unbelievably revealing documentary that came out last year …<\/p>\n
I mean, the man is a lunatic.<\/p>\n
And to top it all off … his music sucks now, too. And it has for a long while. It’s over.<\/p>\n
I look now at his inhuman-looking face, the sculpted planes of his strange bones, and I remember the jolly kid with the Afro, wearing a tux, and I mourn it. I mourn the loss of that kid. I really do.<\/p>\n
For those of you who always thought he was a freak, or for those of you who hate his music – you will not get this post at all.<\/p>\n
But I have extremely fond and personal memories tied up with some of his songs. He was a huge part of my life in high school, and my first couple of years of college. Watching him self-destruct has been vaguely upsetting. And enraging, as well.<\/p>\n
Spoke with my friend Mitchell today who told me about Chris Rock’s comments on the issue – something along the lines of: “Dude, we gave you a pass on that first kid. You got a pass. And now you are GOIN’ DOWN.”<\/p>\n
Looks that way.<\/p>\n
But Mitchell and I did have a brief moment of nostalgia for one of our favorite memories in our friendship which has to do with a Michael Jackson song. For one semester in college, Mitchell and I were not speaking to one another, for various reasons. There was a Cold War going on between us, and we now refer to it as “the Bad Time”. We were BEST friends, and yet we did not speak for 4 months. There was this frozen rage between us. (It’s so funny to think of now, but at the time it was deadly serious.)<\/p>\n
We were doing a show, and once, before rehearsal, he and I found ourselves alone in the men’s dressing room, which was a long concrete room, with showers, lockers, and a line of makeup mirrors down the middle. Nobody else was around. Everyone left us alone at this point – the tension so huge you could smell it in the air, like ozone. We were FURIOUS with each other. But really what was going on was that we were so sad, we were so sad that we were in a fight, and that we couldn’t apparently be friends. I cried myself to sleep every night. I MISSED him. But I couldn’t give in. I just couldn’t.<\/p>\n
And so he and I sat there in the now-emptied gray dressing room, tensely, quietly, not knowing what to say. Mitchell, to break the mood, turned on the boom box. We were all very into Michael Jackson’s album “Bad<\/i>” at the time. It was all we listened to. You got that? IT WAS ALL WE LISTENED TO. I am unable to listen to that album now without immediately being transported back in time, specifically to that very time in my life, that one semester in college, when Bad<\/i> was on constant rotation and I was in an awful silent fight with my best friend.<\/p>\n
So Mitchell put on Bad<\/i> and “Man in the Mirror” came on.<\/p>\n
And without discussing it, without a word between us, without a noticeable thawing in the air or anything, Mitchell and I started dancing to that song, separately – not together – We were stridently separate – but we kept dancing, dancing until we were completely lost in it. It was one of those times when you become completely unself-conscious. You completely lose awareness of yourself as a body taking up space. It is like you become your spirit. That was what that 3 minutes was like for us, in the dressing room. We danced separately from one another, he on one side of the line of makeup mirrors, me on the other side. The music was transcendent, that chorus bursting forth at the end, the glimmering line of mirrors, his reflection dancing, mine … I’ll never forget it.<\/p>\n
We were so separated. And yet so together.<\/p>\n
When the song ended, we turned the tape deck off, realizing that we both had kind of “been” somewhere. We were no longer really in the same emotional place.<\/p>\n
The frozen silence between us had broken. There would be no more “bad time”. Somehow, through those weird separate dances, Mitchell and I forgave each other. Without saying a word. We found joy again. Joy in being together. Through the course of the song, all bitterness dissolved. Disappeared into thin air.<\/p>\n
And so. I have a hard time imagining that Michael Jackson is not guilty, at this point. This is true. I also find the accusers to be very sketchy and suspect. I do not know the truth. One thing I do know, though, is that I’m sad. I’m sad that it has come to this, because he was once my favorite.<\/p>\n
And regardless of the outcome of this trial: I am grateful to him for “Man in the Mirror”. It may not be his greatest hit, but it’s my heart’s favorite. I am not blind to the sad irony that the person who really needs to listen to the message of the song is the man who sings it. But that’s the tragedy of it. That’s it.<\/p>\n
I cherish that memory with my friend Mitchell, dancing like whirling dervishes, looking at our reflections in the line of mirrors, forgiving each other. Silently. Joyously.<\/p>\n
Every time I hear that song, I think of that room, the grey walls, the reflections, the makeup lights, and Mitchell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Once upon a time, I loved Michael Jackson. I owned Thriller. I owned Off the Wall. I thought his videos were the coolest things I had ever seen. I grew up in the 80s. He was IT at the time. … Continue reading