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.
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