An editorial in today’s Chicago Tribune astutely observes the notion that Michael Jackson’s death and yesterday’s memorial service has divided most people into two distinct groups. To paraphrase, the article said that you either don’t understand what all of the hoopla is about, or you don’t understand how someone couldn’t understand the hoopla. One might further interpret this to say that one camp says “why are we focusing so much praise an attention on this child molesting freak?” while the other is saying “why can you not show your respect to a genius entertainer and great humanitarian?”
I would like to think I’m an intelligent guy. Consequently, I’m well aware of the mess, the conundrum. When Al Sharpton said to Jackson’s three children at the yesterday’s service: “Wasn’t nothing strange about your daddy,” I threw up in my mouth a little bit. What a great thing to say to those kids in an attempt to comfort them. And what a lie!
In my last note, I wrote about how the eccentricities and strange behaviors and mysteries of Michael Jackson were part of what made him so endlessly fascinating and watchable. If you read that and interpreted it as my condoning Jackson’s mistakes and inappropriate behaviors, you did not interpret my words as I had intended them. Tribune columnist John Kass said this morning that people like me are not really mourning the loss of MJ so much as the loss of our childhood. I think he meant this as an insult in the context in which he wrote it, but I am also quite certain that I was up front about the fact that this was such a large part of my personal sadness about Jackson’s death.
I watched the whole memorial service yesterday and cried my eyes out. I’m neither proud nor embarrassed by it. A funeral should render one human, remind us that we are all on this Earth for a short while but for the grace of God. The things that moved me yesterday—I would argue—should move anyone who is in touch with his or her own humanity! There are probably few funerals occurring in this world in which 100% of the attendees hold no anger or shame, disgust or disappointment about the person who has passed on. The dead was a human being, one who by definition falls short of glory. It reminds me of the old adage that if you want to make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs. Such is life.
Remembering the joy given to me as a kid by listening to Michael Jackson and watching his videos and performances does not render me morally unaware or spiritually bereft. Honoring his gifts to the world of entertainment does not mean that I forgive or ignore the man’s inappropriate actions and wayward decisions. Loving and missing Michael Jackson does not make me a member of any particular political party, nor does it make me a sympathizer to any particular race or social class or religion. To put it another way, I am not perfect and nor is my family. But guys like Michael sure make me "more normal"!
The growing hostility over our judgments about MJ as a good or evil force sent me back to the Bible, looking for wisdom on the idea of judgment. “Judge not others, lest you be judged” was sticking in my head, and I was ready to throw that out at all of my friends who were on the MJ attack. But I was smart to dig in a little further, because the Bible also talks about the need to make righteous judgments between what is good and what is evil (John 7:24) and even goes so far as to say that we should remove ourselves from those who “walk disorderly,” which requires us to, essentially, sit in judgment of them (2 Thes 3:6). But then there’s the whole danger of hypocritical judging, and that threat probably scares me more than anything else. And it got me to thinking about Michael Jackson. Should I be concerned that my praise of Michael Jackson’s contributions to entertainment means that I forgive the bad things? So I did a little digging. And here’s what I found. And I’m not even going to go there with the whole “glass houses” saying, because you know it already. They always say that genius and madness walk hand in hand, so dig this:
Some of Michelangelo’s great works as an older gentleman were inspired by his love of boys. Is an appreciation of his art an endorsement of homosexual pedophelia?
Thomas Jefferson, as we all know, was one of the first in a long line of politicians to harbor a mistress. Do you look at the Declaration of Independence differently because of it?
Thomas Edison was a de facto atheist, believing not in God, but “nature.” To boycott all of the stuff he invented in protest would literally leave us, well, in the dark.
Walt Disney was a high school drop out. Not a very good example for kids.
President Obama struggles to refrain from smoking cigarettes. Does supporting him demonstrate the support of cancer-inducing tobacco products?
You get the point. I don’t want to be smug or get ridiculous, so I’ll stop there. Clearly, there are thousands of examples of people who have made great contributions to society, politics and culture who made questionable, even reprehensible choices as human beings.
I’ll end this note with something I know for sure. I believe that my appreciation for Michael Jackson, even though I’m a Christian, fairly conservative, middle class suburban white guy, is neither hypocritical nor invalidating nor misled. It’s the same thing, I think, as anyone who watches “The Batchelor,” a show that I think makes a mockery of the institution of marriage and turns it into a game show. Or anyone who watches “Jon and Kate Plus 8,” a repulsive exploitation of a fragile family. Or any of three dozen other reality shows on television that lavish misguided attention on the unimpressive and unworthy.
And yet, I can see why some of us watch that stuff. I can see what draws you in. This stuff is life’s gapers’ delay. It’s none of your business but you can't not watch. Why? “Tell ‘em that it’s human nature.”
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
He's asked if I'd seen his childhood and then took mine with him
They always tell you that turning 18 or 21 doesn't make you an adult, but marriage does. And then if that doesn't work, you REALLY become an adult when you have a child of your own. Yet for me, though I'm many years past both of those road markers of life, I have always felt a slight sense of youthful inability and unknowing. The positive spin on this feeling is to say that I have maintained a youthful spirit into my mid-30s, instead of saying that I "haven't grown up," which sounds awfully negative.
But now, I'm an adult. Probably for good. It happened on June 25, 2009. I was with my wife and kids on vacation. We were riding a streetcar in New Orleans when we got the call from my mother-in-law. "How's Keith doing?" she asked my wife over the phone. Of course we hadn't heard yet...Michael Jackson died.
Know this: Michael Jackson is not my favorite performer or recording artist of all-time. He's not even my favorite Jackson. Anyone who knows me knows that I'd take Prince over Michael any day of the week and that I had a major Janet addiction that lasted from high school into early adulthood. But this was never at the expense of loving, appreciating and respecting Michael. And when I found out he was dead, it hit me harder than I expected. Though he hadn't done anything culturally or musically significant for years, he was still...there. And now he's not. And it almost feels like God telling me that I can keep my youthful spirit but I have to be an adult now. And I'm having a hard time with it.
How big of a Michael fan am I? We were talking about it this past weekend at my grandmother's 90th birthday party. I bought "Thriller" with my own allowance money and ran back to Value Village for the "State of Shock" 45 when it came out. I walked to school every day wearing the sequined glove my mom made for me. They were complimented by my own pair of Michael's large, mirrored sunglasses. "You must have been teased on the playground," a relative said. "Hell, no," I replied. "I've been teased for many things, but never that. I was the coolest kid on the playground with that glove. " In the years that followed, I remember watching "Friday Night Videos" on NBC because we didn't have cable yet. I remember the uproar over the "Black or White" video premiere on FOX. New Michael videos were cultural events that transcened even cable ownership or the lack thereof. And whether people are willing to admit it or not, everyone loved Michael Jackson at one time or another. I'm half tempted to believe that a person my age who claims to never have liked him is a flat-out liar.
Now that I'm an adult -- whether that happened years ago or just last week -- I'm supposed to say that his passing is for the best, that he was washed up and didn't have a classic like "Thriller" since the early 90s, and that he was a freak with no sense of reality and no moral compass. Indeed, the saturation of media coverage (which I agree is over the top) is equally split between his accomplishments and his dubious behaviors. Michael was a genius, they say. He was a genius...and a drug addict...and a child molester. But I say -- he was a star. The kind of star we'll never have again.
When I was a kid, a true "star" was a person living life on another plane. Prince decorated everything in purple and changed his name to an unpronouceable symbol. Madonna reinvented herself with every new album. We had Mr. T and Pee Wee Herman and Cyndi Lauper and so many more. And most of them were eccentric to the point of barely being in touch with the average joe. And that's why we loved them. They were in another universe. They were true stars. Michael Jackson was the best of all of them. Did he sleep in an oxygen chamber? Not sure, but we know he had a chimp. Hell, he had his own zoo! He pulled equally from Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" and Elvis Presley. We couldn't really relate to him. We could only watch. And just as his humanity was hard to grasp, so was his talent other-worldly. Cosmically, it seemed to make sense that this freaky plastic surgery addict could do these stupifying dance moves and assemble music videos that made everyone else's look like home movies. Looking back, if Michael had been too normal, we would have all been disappointed!
Today, a star is a hen-pecked husband seeking a divorce from his bitchy wife who exploits her eight toddlers for money. A star is the air-headed daughter of a hotel billionaire whose one talent is showing up in the right place at the right time. A star is any singer who was ever on the music charts who is willing to allow VH1 to follow them to the grocery store with a camera.
If these are stars, Michael was a supernova. And the universe has to be a little dimmer now that his light has burned out.
I've been taking some crap lately from friends who tease me about the fact that I've basically only listed to Michael for the past two weeks. I will do nothing on the day of his funeral but sit in reverence and watch it. I'm sure I'll need a few hours afterwards to process. Yeah...I know that he made some horrible choices. Did he molest kids? It wasn't proven. But I believe he had to be guilty of doing something inapporpriate that would lead someone to believe worse. But I also believe that, as the greatest star of my lifetime, he was also a constant victim of extortion. Days after his death, a woman from England with the last name of Jackson even claimed to be his secret wife and sent a letter to his estate demanding his body and control of his assets. Who's to say that some of what Michael did wrong wasn't similarly false?
The truth is, we'll never know. And that's how it is with real stars. They always kept some mystery in there. You never knew as much as you wanted to. There aren't many celebrities today that you can say the same about.
Michael Jackson is our Elvis. He might end up bigger than Elvis. And he was weird like Elvis, talented like him, mysterious like him. And I hope that they can return the furniture to Neverland and get a permit to move his grave there. Because Michael deserves his own Graceland. What better way to remember the eccentric King of Pop than to visit his Xanadu? Count me in.
I continue to be flooded with Michael memories. The "Smooth Criminal" video. The confusion over his lightening skin. The difficulty in holding onto my fan-dom when he became too odd for others (a situation I've coincidentally faced with Janet as well). The performance pastiche of b-movie shlock, top-shelf pop, R&B, Broadway balladry and sentiment and universal appeal.
Michael Jackson stood at the crossroads of American culture. He was black and white. In the 80s, it was safe, expected to be a fan. He transcended race and class because he was in a class of his own and, sadly, kind of in a race of his own after a while, too. I am heartbroken by the media reports in recent days that have made Michael into a "black artist" ("He's OURS," said Jamie Foxx," and we just loaned him to everyone."). Bullshit. Michael Jackson was mine just as much as he was yours. And unlike others, I'm not turning my back on him now. I'm not forgetting about him. I'm not forgiving him anything he did wrong, and I want to make that clear. But I'm also not sacrificing what he did right.
I grew up on "Thriller." I graduated junior high school with "Bad." I graduated high school with "Dangerous." I graduated college with "HIStory." I became a father with "Invincible."
And I became an adult for good when Michael Jackson died.
But now, I'm an adult. Probably for good. It happened on June 25, 2009. I was with my wife and kids on vacation. We were riding a streetcar in New Orleans when we got the call from my mother-in-law. "How's Keith doing?" she asked my wife over the phone. Of course we hadn't heard yet...Michael Jackson died.
Know this: Michael Jackson is not my favorite performer or recording artist of all-time. He's not even my favorite Jackson. Anyone who knows me knows that I'd take Prince over Michael any day of the week and that I had a major Janet addiction that lasted from high school into early adulthood. But this was never at the expense of loving, appreciating and respecting Michael. And when I found out he was dead, it hit me harder than I expected. Though he hadn't done anything culturally or musically significant for years, he was still...there. And now he's not. And it almost feels like God telling me that I can keep my youthful spirit but I have to be an adult now. And I'm having a hard time with it.
How big of a Michael fan am I? We were talking about it this past weekend at my grandmother's 90th birthday party. I bought "Thriller" with my own allowance money and ran back to Value Village for the "State of Shock" 45 when it came out. I walked to school every day wearing the sequined glove my mom made for me. They were complimented by my own pair of Michael's large, mirrored sunglasses. "You must have been teased on the playground," a relative said. "Hell, no," I replied. "I've been teased for many things, but never that. I was the coolest kid on the playground with that glove. " In the years that followed, I remember watching "Friday Night Videos" on NBC because we didn't have cable yet. I remember the uproar over the "Black or White" video premiere on FOX. New Michael videos were cultural events that transcened even cable ownership or the lack thereof. And whether people are willing to admit it or not, everyone loved Michael Jackson at one time or another. I'm half tempted to believe that a person my age who claims to never have liked him is a flat-out liar.
Now that I'm an adult -- whether that happened years ago or just last week -- I'm supposed to say that his passing is for the best, that he was washed up and didn't have a classic like "Thriller" since the early 90s, and that he was a freak with no sense of reality and no moral compass. Indeed, the saturation of media coverage (which I agree is over the top) is equally split between his accomplishments and his dubious behaviors. Michael was a genius, they say. He was a genius...and a drug addict...and a child molester. But I say -- he was a star. The kind of star we'll never have again.
When I was a kid, a true "star" was a person living life on another plane. Prince decorated everything in purple and changed his name to an unpronouceable symbol. Madonna reinvented herself with every new album. We had Mr. T and Pee Wee Herman and Cyndi Lauper and so many more. And most of them were eccentric to the point of barely being in touch with the average joe. And that's why we loved them. They were in another universe. They were true stars. Michael Jackson was the best of all of them. Did he sleep in an oxygen chamber? Not sure, but we know he had a chimp. Hell, he had his own zoo! He pulled equally from Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" and Elvis Presley. We couldn't really relate to him. We could only watch. And just as his humanity was hard to grasp, so was his talent other-worldly. Cosmically, it seemed to make sense that this freaky plastic surgery addict could do these stupifying dance moves and assemble music videos that made everyone else's look like home movies. Looking back, if Michael had been too normal, we would have all been disappointed!
Today, a star is a hen-pecked husband seeking a divorce from his bitchy wife who exploits her eight toddlers for money. A star is the air-headed daughter of a hotel billionaire whose one talent is showing up in the right place at the right time. A star is any singer who was ever on the music charts who is willing to allow VH1 to follow them to the grocery store with a camera.
If these are stars, Michael was a supernova. And the universe has to be a little dimmer now that his light has burned out.
I've been taking some crap lately from friends who tease me about the fact that I've basically only listed to Michael for the past two weeks. I will do nothing on the day of his funeral but sit in reverence and watch it. I'm sure I'll need a few hours afterwards to process. Yeah...I know that he made some horrible choices. Did he molest kids? It wasn't proven. But I believe he had to be guilty of doing something inapporpriate that would lead someone to believe worse. But I also believe that, as the greatest star of my lifetime, he was also a constant victim of extortion. Days after his death, a woman from England with the last name of Jackson even claimed to be his secret wife and sent a letter to his estate demanding his body and control of his assets. Who's to say that some of what Michael did wrong wasn't similarly false?
The truth is, we'll never know. And that's how it is with real stars. They always kept some mystery in there. You never knew as much as you wanted to. There aren't many celebrities today that you can say the same about.
Michael Jackson is our Elvis. He might end up bigger than Elvis. And he was weird like Elvis, talented like him, mysterious like him. And I hope that they can return the furniture to Neverland and get a permit to move his grave there. Because Michael deserves his own Graceland. What better way to remember the eccentric King of Pop than to visit his Xanadu? Count me in.
I continue to be flooded with Michael memories. The "Smooth Criminal" video. The confusion over his lightening skin. The difficulty in holding onto my fan-dom when he became too odd for others (a situation I've coincidentally faced with Janet as well). The performance pastiche of b-movie shlock, top-shelf pop, R&B, Broadway balladry and sentiment and universal appeal.
Michael Jackson stood at the crossroads of American culture. He was black and white. In the 80s, it was safe, expected to be a fan. He transcended race and class because he was in a class of his own and, sadly, kind of in a race of his own after a while, too. I am heartbroken by the media reports in recent days that have made Michael into a "black artist" ("He's OURS," said Jamie Foxx," and we just loaned him to everyone."). Bullshit. Michael Jackson was mine just as much as he was yours. And unlike others, I'm not turning my back on him now. I'm not forgetting about him. I'm not forgiving him anything he did wrong, and I want to make that clear. But I'm also not sacrificing what he did right.
I grew up on "Thriller." I graduated junior high school with "Bad." I graduated high school with "Dangerous." I graduated college with "HIStory." I became a father with "Invincible."
And I became an adult for good when Michael Jackson died.
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