Archive for June, 2009

The Impact… (R.I.P. Michael Jackson)

And now…a completely honest note from LJ concerning the news from today…

If MIKE can have a baby lion/tiger/whatever and be cool, I can have a teddy bear on my bed. END of DISCUSSION.

There’s always those people that we silently root for. Regardless of all of their life issues and their problems, there’s always a few people that we just want to see do well. Maybe it’s because we see what they once were. Maybe it’s because we see their promise, or what they can become. Or maybe we can just see what they were to others…and because of their importance to other people in our life, they became important to us. Either way, there was SOMETHING about THAT PERSON that drew us to them in all of their tribulations and made you silently (or vehemently) wish for their success, against the odds.

If anyone in their life had odds, it was Michael Jackson. Whether they were self-inflicted odds as far as making bad, life-haunting decisions concerning kids, or just trials that came out of nowhere (such as the Pepsi fire or the Vitiligo of the Neverland Ranch or Bankruptcy) , there were things that derailed what could have been a more graceful transition for him.

So why do I care?

As far as the person, I thought Mike was a little crazy. I thought he never had a childhood so he wanted to recreate it, even when it wasn’t good for him to. I thought the moonwalk was overrated. And for the longest time, I made jokes about him.

Not mean-spirited jokes, but jokes. I joke on everybody. EVERYBODY. To put this in context, I told a friend something smelled like three-day-old Anna Nicole… A DAY AFTER SHE DIED.

…Look, the timing was there, and it lifted the mood, so that’s an L I’d take again.

And I wasn’t the only one…as evidenced by this Twitter OVERDOSE by one of my homies (completely unedited, by the way). I asked If anyone cared about Michael not being Billie Jean’s lover, and this was the response (posted in June 6th):

• “Probably just about as much as they care if he’s Black or White, that he thinks he’s Bad, that he used to be a Thriller,…that he Remembers the Time that he was a Smooth Criminal in his Childhood. maybe he should just Beat It and go Jam with a Liberian Girl and Chris Tucker. I wonder if he got vitiligo from Dirty Diana…I wonder when he looks died he see the Man in the Mirror that we see…you know he probably could Heal the World…with all his Money, but he’s so Off the Wall that he’s saying Leave Me Alone, but the media Don’t Stop Till They Get Enough…I probably shouldn’t roast him like that because he probably deserves One More Chance, but it’s his History that makes him…less than Invincible. I don’t Wanna Be Startin’ Something but all this Monkey Business he’s been involved in makes me wanna…Ease on Down the Road because he’s no longer The Greatest Show on Earth. It makes me want to write a letter saying…Dear Michael, stop messing With a Child’s Heart and try to remember your Girlfriend…if you ever really had one. maybe you should have claimed Billie Jean as you lover because then maybe we wouldn’t be wondering about all The Lost Children…it renders me Speechless to think about all this but for your sake I hope Heaven Can Wait for you to get back to your ABC’s…and figure out that your legacy is On The Line. You should be Working Day and Night because even your legacy isn’t Unbreakable…All of us used to Rock With You, so Whatever Happens from now on, remember Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool. So Get On The Floor…and be the Dancimg Machine you’ve always been. But This Time Around don’t give the Tabloid Junkies something to Smile about, ok?”

If you’re a Michael Jackson fan, you can appreciate how EPIC that response is. And how ironically dead-on it is concerning his career… But enough context…back to my point…

So today, I was at work when my phone rang and it was my friend Nolan. I told him I was at work, and I couldn’t talk. He hung up and instantly sent me this:

“Michael Freakin Jackson Just Died!”

My initial response in my head: “BULLS***.” (My thoughts are unrestrained in my head at times, remember?)

But I did my research, and as my phone began to blow up and I began to get messages from people I hadn’t heard from in over a YEAR concerning this man dying… I realized that he might be right.

And for a minute, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t exactly know how it affected me. I loved his music, felt sorry for him concerning his childhood being gone, and due to his antics lately I had to separate the MAN from the MUSIC in order for me to love it, but as far as going deeper than that, I had no emotion whatsoever, even though I played it up a little when my friends called and texted me.

Then I got a phone call from my sister who was close to crying on the phone. And as she talked, I swear all of it began to make sense. And I began to realize how important this man was. Well, not necessarily what HE was, but what HE DID was…especially for me.

I remember when there were times me and my sister would get into HUGE arguments and all but fight each other (and we sometimes did that too). One particular argument we had was maybe the most intense we’ve ever had, and we were riding in the vehicle. I had just got a copy of the Thriller 25th Anniversary album, and as we listened to it, suddenly somehow we reverted back into kids and began doing the dances and singing along and by the time P.Y.T. came on, I had forgot what the argument was about.

By the way. P.Y.T. is MY JAM.

2nd is Thriller (the last minute of this song gets me vibin’ like CRAZY every time… )

Yes, MJ was accepted by all races. Yes, MJ made quality songs that everyone could sing, but no one could feel alienated. Yes, maybe the Vitiligo might’ve had more to do with the cross-over appeal than most people want to EVER admit (just being honest). But MJ was one of the few that has EVER successfully become “THE HUMAN BRIDGE” for races.

…And music genres. MJ has single-handedly affected Pop, R&B, and Dance cultures…just by using the talent that God gave him. Every Ciara, Chris Brown, and other 25-cent dance craze that’s out now should be sobbing because their father is dead. He started all of that. Dancing was an underground thing before MJ got a hold to it.

Even some rock. Remember this? (Guitar solo at 2:30 is still dope… I love how they did that… WHOO!!!! lol)

The more I sit and think about the impact that Michael Jackson had on…well, everything… the more I realize that timeless is a word that best describes his work. The effect from what he’s done is going to reverberate with people for a long time. And for the sake of clarity, I LOVE his music, but his music isn’t what I’m going to remember him for.

I’m going to remember him for what he was to the people around me. I’m going to remember him for the ways his talent has helped out OTHERS in their times of need. I’m going to remember him for the times where his music was the language that everyone spoke.

And then I’m going to pray to figure out a way for me to impact at least ONE person’s life in the way that he’s impacted millions. Because lately that’s been the thing I’ve been crying about, and that’s been the thing I’ve been asking everyone lately: if I left, how would you remember me?

……And in another completely, unrelated sidenote… I was going to say something about how kids around the world are sad right now, but I feel like people would think I was being sarcastic and referring to his past issues…and deep down inside, I wouldn’t be able to deny that fact. So I won’t. I’ll just say that I only wish he could’ve exited the stage more gracefully than he did.

But everything happens for a reason.

Rest In Peace MJ. You will be missed.

Later.

K1ng Eljay

(check out another well-done MJ Blog HERE)