Break Time

Welp I’m not delivering news that no one else has heard, Michael Jackson died yesterday at the age of fifty. Everyone has blogged about this, the news is all over the place on this, but well…  I figured I’d go ahead and blog about it as well.

The news is fairly confusing, as it usually is in cases like this. First a heart attack, then the possibility of ‘drug overdose’ (though a shot of demerol that he gets once a day wouldn’t count to me as a grand overdose like most rock stars die from). So what did he die of? We won’t know until the autopsy is done, and speculating till then seems kind of pointless.

He’s an uncomfortable man to talk about, to be honest. I know I’m not alone in feeling confusion about loving the contributions he made to music, and to the world in general through charitable acts… and then how I should feel about the accustations of child molestation, abuse, etc. etc. , as well as the growing bizareness of his appearance. By the end of his career I had stopped watching videos of him because I just couldn’t stand watching his face sort of.. melt away.

I never got the jokes made about him. It always seemed to me that he was a man with some deep inner struggles, and outer when it came to his health, and that’s not something you poke fun of. I think that’s why his music touched so many people, because it was light and ‘pop’ and fantastic, full of colors and wonderful dancing. But when you really listened to what he had to say, it was filled with an anger, and a raw sort of pain. His words spoke to a lot of people, and struck a chord for all of us. That venear of glitter and smiles, flashy dancing and smooth moves only covered the less pleasant things in the words. And that’s how a lot of us live, with a flash of glitter and a smile to cover when we’re hurting or confused. That’s why I think we moved as a people to LOVE his music and embrace it.

Bad? Bad was damn near our theme song growing up, all of us kids, saying we were tough and no one could stand against us. We could do what we wanted because we were ‘bad’. I was one of those kids growing up who got picked on like crazy. I was NOT one of hte bookworms that would get kicked and pushed and would just take it though, I was one of those kids who fought back, often resulting in injuries,and trips to the principal’s office. Why did bad speak to me? Because I was a good kid, just trying to survive and do what I wanted, but went ‘bad’ out of self defense.

But along with the gritty beneath the glitz was a sweet sort of.. love and harmony as well.

Remember the time was another song that always got to me. I was a teenager then, in high school and had my first boyfriend. He was HOT, big ol’ kickboxer. That song was on the radio a lot, I remember us hanging out at my house watching the video and shyly kissing when we thought my dad wouldn’t be around. (*cough* sorry dad) So yeah, do you remember the time? I do, that was my first love, and I remember it sweetly, and always set to that song.

There was fun as well, when Thriller came out, I actually *remember* the video. I was only five, but I watched it. My dad watched it, it was something I cherish growing up, that fun scary time when I could cling to my father and know he’d protect me from the scary things in the movies, and then giggle and try to learn how to do the zombie dance.

And now that I’m older, Man in the mirror is the song that speaks to me the most. Because I know that the only way anything’s going to change is by starting with myself, looking at myself and changing it. Considering his habit of speaking out on things that seemed to be bothering him through his music (leave me alone being a rather obvious example), I’d like to think he felt the same way.

So here I am, staring at my posts and still trying to reconcile my desire to honor a man who influenced my generation with my revulsion of the negative side of the musician, trying to figure out a good healthy balance about him. I don’t have an easy answer. But I do know that without his music, there’s a lot of memories I wouldn’t have, and that regardless of the bad things, he had a GOOD influence in my life, as well as the lives of many of my friends. Music moves me, helps me to create. I don’t paint without music playing and his songs were often in my playlists. So in many ways he had a hand in the things i created.

I think I started this post with the intention of going over his life, his contributions, and giving a clinical rundown of what all happened with him. But I’m not a news reporter, and I don’t know all the facts.. . so I’m leaving this blog as it is. A memory of the impact that he had on me, personally. I AM honored to have had the experience of growing up and personally witnessing each time he came out with a new incredible hit, each time a new video came out, and a new wave of dances and styles hit us. When I look at my kids, it makes me sad to know that they aren’t getting to see this, to see a star who moves the entire WORLD the way that Michael Jackson did. Will there be another star like that? Of that magnitude? I don’t know. I honestly don’t.  But I hope there is. Even if we’re not the flame that everyone flies to, there’s something to be said for having watched the fire burn.