Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009)

This is my obligatory goodbye/thank you post to the late Michael Jackson. I curiously note that my small essay becomes lost in the many thousands of posthumous accolades the world has suddenly decided to dole out onto MJ. This same world that has virtually despised Michael Jackson for the last fifteen years has now realized what a treasure we have lost. I suppose this is a “better late than never” situation but I cannot help but wonder where all of these fans were when MJ was infamously accused (and acquitted) of child molestation, exploited again and again by the media, navigating financial ruin, or making one of his most vulnerable (yet commercially unsuccessful and largely ignored) records to date (Invincible…seriously check it out). The world never really got over Michael Jackson’s strangeness and while I think I can sympathize with that it also disappoints and saddens me.

I never knew the MJ of my parent’s generation. They practically grew up with him, sharing in the mnemonic benefits of “ABC” as well as the touching, child-like faithfulness of “I’ll Be There.” The boy Michael was an absolute star, a status typically reserved for white adults. In that way the anomaly of Michael Jackson transformed every child in America into an extension of his stardom. Children, who have little fear of the unknown, must be taught racism and therefore had little trouble cross culturally identifying with him. This racial transcendence stuck profoundly with Jackson as evident through his controversial skin color change in the late eighties/early nineties and remains a pleasantly remarkable accomplishment to me.

In 1979 the twenty year old MJ released Off the Wall. My parents were in college most likely discovering sex, drugs and comparatively liberal education for the first time while capitalizing on the death rattle of disco to songs like “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough” and “Rock with You.” Off The Wall was really MJ’s first foray into sexual innuendo. For my parents and their generation this was hardly cause for concern. They were all discovering their own latent sexuality and who better to explore those things with than Michael Jackson? The Jackson 5 always represented strong moral and family values (which was a joke as it turns out). It was refreshing to see that MJ had a libido too. To rub against the outside of that moral center had to have been exciting. Even if I’m dead wrong about all of that, Off the Wall is a badass record, and more importantly, a snapshot of a time when the world was still in MJ’s corner.

I was born in 1983 which means that the song “Billie Jean” was probably playing in about 1,000,000 homes as I was pulled into the world, coughing and screaming, cold and astounded, eager to begin my postnatal existence. My earliest musical memory is being five or six years old, sitting in my toy closet and staring at the Thriller vinyl for hours. I can’t recall where I got this but it was my first vinyl. My grandfather had given me a small record player and I would sit in the closet and listen to it over and over and over. The album sleeve contains a picture of MJ with a baby tiger which I found both fun(ny) and horrifying. MJ was just absolutely mythological to me. In my more cerebral moments (as cerebral as you can be at age five) I used to think about what the mythology of Thriller meant to me with my life outstretched before me. That is legitimately how magical that record was for me. It made me believe in things I had no proof of yet. In less serious moments I would dance for hours (my first memories of dancing, actually) to “Billie Jean” and I was utterly convinced that “Beat It” was one of the most badass rock and roll songs ever recorded (turns out I was pretty much dead on). Thriller is currently the highest selling record of all time and I am happy and thankful to have understood why (even subconsciously) at such a young age.


In the eighties (ages 0-7) my television watching experience was exclusive to MTV, the Disney Channel (favs were: Adventures in Wonderland, Fraggle Rock, Under the Umbrella Tree), and horror movies. This is important because the visual element of Michael Jackson is a case study of its own. I’m going to try and avoid the cultural significance of MJ’s music videos (they were fucking revolutionary to the art form) and instead just try and focus on my personal feelings about them. First of all there was the video for “Thriller.” As a music lover and an avid fan of horror this was (and is) perhaps the greatest video of my life. In this video an exceedingly charming MJ both consoles and teases his love interest when she get’s freaked out by a werewolph movie (interestingly this movie is about how MJ is a werewolph). She’s playing along, kind of digging it (who wouldn’t?) until suddenly a bunch of zombies climb out of their graves. As if this situation couldn’t get any worse, it turns out that Michael is also a badass, dancing zombie. The girl runs into a house and up the stairs (one of the top five things NEVER to do in a horror movie scenario) and before she is ravaged by these brain-eaters she awakes to find it was just a dream, which truthfully kind of disappointed me. But the cherry on top of this whole deal is when MJ looks back at the camera and has zombie eyes. I mean, wow. Can you imagine a six year old clintboy taking all of this in?? Sheesh. Joy overload.

Then there was Bad and it’s amazing collection of videos. This era marks the first real controversy about the changes in MJ’s appearance. It’s interesting to look back at that time and remember not thinking anything of the fact that this iconoclast had gone from looking like a black man to a white man. I mean, I NEVER even questioned it. This (in conjunction with pictures of MJ sleeping in an oxygen tank, a $1 million request for Elephant Man’s bones, and the acquisition of a pet monkey) is when my parents quit referring to MJ as the King of Pop and started using the cruel term, Wacko Jacko. These things hurt my feelings and like most kids my age I felt as though it was my duty to stand up for MJ. All I knew was that “Bad” was indeed extremely badass. I FELT badass just listening to it. The titular song and video contained messages of finding your own identity and resisting peer pressure. When MJ wasn’t
encouraging kids to think for themselves he was doing really crazy things like gravity suspending dances as a magical crime boss, moonwalking through zoot suit saloons, and morphing into random objects (at the end of the "Smooth Criminal" video Michael Jackson transforms into a fucking spaceship!) I must have logged about 1000 hours playing the game Moonwalker on my second hand Sega Genesis (24-bit, bitches). In 1990 I was eight years old and going to sleep with a poster of Bad attached to my ceiling looking down on me. All things being equal, I was sleeping in a bed with Michael Jackson, too. At that age it didn’t seem strange at all. In fact, it seemed like an absolutely magical endeavor. (This is a picture of my comic book collection box from 3rd or 4th grade. It lists my favorite bands of the time: Pearl Jam, Guns 'N Roses, Michael Jackson, Dr. Dre, and interestingly, the entire genre of "rap." This picture proves that I am an original gangsta MJ fan.)

It was in 1992, at the age of nine that I received my first compact disc as a gift from my good friend, Aaron Shaffer. And what was my first ever compact disc? You guessed it: Michael Jackson’s Dangerous. I used to stare, hypnotized, at the artwork (pictured to the right) for this record. It was so bizarre and intriguing. My family only had one CD player and it was about the size of

a pizza box. So, in order to transport this glorious recording to school and to my friends’ hous

es I convinced my mom to let me buy the cassette as well. For this I will always be thankful to my mom for constantly accommodating me when it came to music. One of my most fond childhood and musical memories is of walking the streets of my suburban Birmingham neighborhood with my best friend, Aaron. We both had our walkman tape players, headphones, and the Dangerous cassette. We would count to three and press play at the same time so that we could both jam together. It makes me smile to think of two nine year olds walking down the street singing (we took turns on lead vocals) “Black and White”, attempting the moonwalk, and falling into a fit of laughter, celebrating life to the soundtrack of Dangerous. I grew up in a divorced home and my family was split between Birmingham and Montgomery which meant long drives back and forth twice a month. In the early nineties the three tapes that accompanied me on those confusing commutes were Ten (Pearl Jam), Use Your Illusion II (Guns 'N Roses) and Dangerous. I can't help but psycho-analyze that those three enigmatic frontmen (EdVed, Axl Rose, and MJ) helped build a character framework for dealing with those long drives, helping me navigate feelings of alienation, loneliness, and uncertainty. It is a sweet memory.

One more story before I wrap all of this up. In 1995 MJ released HIStory which was half greatest hits and half new material. The first single was a song called "Scream" that was hands down my favorite song and music video of that year. I was thirteen and played baseball. At a day practice that summer I brought a boombox and attempted to play the entire HIStory record while we hit and threw baseballs. About 45 seconds into "Scream" (track one) I was ridiculed and forced to stop the record...which was actually pretty horrifying at the time. Because I wasn't playing it as a novelty. I was playing it because I LOVED it. It was also an interesting video to experience puberty with (thank you, Janet Jackson). It's nice to look back on that moment and realize that my love for that song has far out-stood my love for baseballs.

It doesn't take a psychology degree to deduce that MJ never really dealt with his childhood. Confronted with such an intense amount of public adulation in direct contrast to the personal abuse and neglect he suffered in his home suggests that he never really experienced any kind of childhood, much less a normal one. He even called his home the Neverland Ranch, obviously symbolizing a place where you never grow up. That's why kids have always loved him and that is why he always made so much room in his life for children. He was a regressive child. That's not to say that he was never clever or calculating. Almost every weird thing you have heard about him and oxygen tanks and bone collecting were purposefully leaked to the media and carry little real truth. He never bleached his skin. He suffered from vitiligo. Already suffering intense self-image issues he went through puberty (complete with complexion issues...which I also dealt with extensively) in the limelight. His frequent rhinoplasty surgeries left him borderline unrecognizable. It is difficult to think of the mental state he was in to allow all of those things to transpire. The last fifteen years of scandal surrounding MJ have pulled at the same heartstrings in me that felt the need to defend him at age seven. There is a kid inside of me that still pulls for Michael Jackson because I guess I believe he always would have pulled for me. Maybe that sounds lame. I don't really care.

What's remarkable is that through all of this adversity MJ managed to become one of the most iconic artists in history. He has sold over 750 million records, annihilated racial barriers in the music industry, revolutionized the music video, created entire sub-genres of dancing, has the highest selling record of all time (Thriller), and holds the world record for most charities supported by a pop star. There is a lot of polarization about Michael Jackson. I've been really surprised by the cynicism on both sides of the reaction to his death. A woman I work with casually remarked that she hoped he was burning in hell. I don't know what to say to that. As far as I'm concerned he is a Beatle. An Elvis. A fucking Mohandis Ghandi. And the world is less rich without Michael Jackson.

I know this was long. It was mostly for me and for that reason I am not sorry. But if you did make it this far, thanks for reading. I wanted to make this interactive so let me know what your favorites are or if you have any similar childhood MJ stories. Several years ago I wanted to buy my younger brother three records that I felt like defined me when I was his age (he was 13 at the time). The three records I picked were The Beatles' Abbey Road, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours and MJ's Bad. At what age would an MJ record have made your top three list?

Top Three Records:
1. Bad
2. Dangerous
3. Thriller

Top Three Songs:
1. The Way You Make Me Feel
2. Man in the Mirror
3. Thriller

Top Three Videos:
1. Thriller
2. Smooth Criminal
3. Leave Me Alone

I hope that wherever MJ is, he is resting peacefully and never growing up.