long live the king

so my friend lindsey wrote me today and said she was looking forward to my michael jackson tribute post. she, as well as most close friends and family should know, i am a big fan. i recently wrote that i would pay more money to see him live and would like to see him over any other group or performer. but, im not quite sure what to say about his passing. so much has been said or will be said. people will just throw out their thoughts and opinions all weekend long. i have had many wandering thoughts. bill simmons, a sportswriter for espn said it well in an email exchange he had with his friend that "Before he went off the deep end, Jackson was definitely one of those rare, "I specifically remember moments of my life that he was involved in" celebrities." and its so true. i had one of those moments.

for me it was the spring/summer of 1999. i had just finished my freshman year of college. i was still living in provo and just working and taking some classes while waiting to go on the mission. i was living with my older brother, but he was in the process of rekindling a relationship with the girl that he would eventually marry. they had dated once before and were starting to hang out again. in typical fashion though they were pulling the, 'we arent dating again we just hang out 12 hours a day together and disappear without telling anyone where we are.' not that they need to tell anyone. they were adults. but we all have had friends like that or been in that situation and done it ourselves.

'hey, where's matt?'

'not sure, he was just here. did he leave?'

'i dont know. i didnt hear him say he was going anywhere, nor did i hear him leave, but i cant find him.'

12 hours later: 'oh, hey matt, welcome back from where ever it was you just were for the past day.'

back to michael. so i was dating a girl named sharman (yes, that was her name and she was from utah). she was a huge michael jackson fan. she was a cougarette and a dancer and could pop and lock like michael unlike anyone ive ever seen. she was actually working on a cruise ship for the summer, but i knew that she really liked michael jackson so i decided to make a mix tape for her. but not a mix tape like cassette tape, like a vhs mix tape. this was before the days of youtube and easy internet video access. so i went out and rented michael jackson music videos and did what any good mormon, boy scout would do. i hooked up a couple of vcr's at my sister lark's house and started pirating copies of my favorite music videos. i had pretty much set up a residence at lark's house. she and her roommates were michael fans. one roommate, jill, was actually reading a biography about him. lark was a dance major and a full-fledged fan of michael and his music. it was just the cosmos coming together. a long time fan. a budding dance major that liked his music and really appreciated his dancing. and myself, the recent convert just starting to learn of the brilliance that is michael jackson - especially when on stage.

but i remember in particular one afternoon, i was at lark's place, i dont think anyone was there but me. i was just hanging out, doing my thing - illegally pirating some michael jackson videos. i remember just sitting there on the edge of the coffee table just a couple feet in front of the tv and staring and watching smooth criminal and just being in awe of literally how smooth and effortlessly michael waltzed across a floor (jump to 6:35 in the video below). im as stiff as a board on the dance floor. i try and i enjoy dancing. but if there is anything i am not when im dancing, its smooth and fluid. and for whatever reason i clearly remember that moment and will always remember the summer of 99 as the michael jackson conversion summer. nothing necessarily amazing or special. but i had ive been a fan ever since and really had an appreciation for his music and especially dancing.



so that summer was probably my michael jackson moment, besides of course captain EO moments once a year at disneyland growing up. i always thought the guy was weird and sort of a creep until i got to know the michael jackson i missed in the 80s, and i was hooked ever since. not that he wasnt weird or didnt have issues, but unfortunately i heard more about the strange michael before i ever really got to know the better michael.

so unfortunately there was that other side. i am looking forward to when books are released about michael. im sure a lot will pour out right away, but hopefully at some point someone will write one that tells his story and the author isnt just in it for the money. the man clearly was a piece of work. i wasnt going to talk about it because its not fun to dwell on the other half of his life. but i do have some thoughts on it. nellie said yesterday that in a way she was glad he died. because he seemed so troubled and lonely that now he gets to escape all of those problems. and i think its so true. he was about to do his tour and i know that i, and i think everyone hoped that somehow it would be a resurrection of that old michael jackson that completely blew you away at some point in your life. but i think that was extremely wishful thinking. who knows, maybe he would have made a grand comeback and reverted back to being the greatest thing ever. but i dont think that was possible. he probably could have performed. heaven knows he could perform. and im sure it was something he could never lose no matter how much of his brain he had lost. but we are all so much of a product of our life experiences. look, i hardly know anything about his life. but he was 5 when he was started lead singing for the jackson 5. 5 years old! at 5 years old he became an entertainer. at 11 they had a number 1 hit. again, at 11 years old he had already been a performer for 6 years and was lead singing for a hit group. 11! then of course there are all sorts of stories of family abuse and other nasty stuff. those problems alone mess people up for life. couple it with being the biggest thing the world has ever known and you will for sure end up a head case. its funny how i, and probably many other people, dream sometimes of being famous (like a famous football star for real madrid), but i wonder how much other people, like michael jackson, maybe just dreamed of being normal. he was never really a part of society. at 5 he started performing and he was soon thereafter a superstar. so the only part of his life that you and i would call normal or could relate to are his first 5 years. if that. i wonder if he would have given it all up for a simple life with a working dad and a stay at home mom and some brothers and sisters that never went on to become famous.

so not to get too religious in the post. but again, these are my wandering thoughts during this whole thing. one of the coolest things about being religious and believing in something beyond this life, is the belief that there is something better beyond this life and that you can leave things here. at some point you can be relieved of everything and it will get sorted out later. and maybe not always in a good way. it wont be chocolate chip cookies and milk for everyone. i pirated movies in my day (i have since gone out and bought michael jackson music video dvd's so that sort of makes up for it, right? plus vhs, was about 2 years shy of becoming completely obsolete and worthless so that should factor into it as well - its those types of sound arguments that im sure will help me one day in court). but there is great power and comfort in that hope of something better and things getting sorted out. so did michael jackson molest children? theres a really good chance. nothing technically proven in court, but lots of bad evidence that makes it seem like he did. was he himself molested? not sure. abused? definitely. does that justify any of his wrongdoings? absolutely not. does it some how factor in to everything? i would think, but i dont know. but i dont have to sort it out. but i know michael was clearly troubled and had a lot of demons and that he doesnt have to deal with everything while someone sorts everything out.

i'm sad he died. i really wished to see him perform live. it really was a life dream of mine. i hoped that it was possible. but ill admit, sometimes it was hard being a fan. he would just do so many strange things that i wanted to overlook, but just couldnt. he would do things and people would ask if i really liked that weirdo. id have to try and explain that i did, but he was strange, but he was so great back in the day. so as bummed that i am that he's gone, i think the glory years were long gone and never coming back anyways. if there is anything good from this, its that whatever demons and crazy issues he was dealing with and carrying he no longer has to deal with. it also means that we no longer have to deal with remembering him that way. his troubled side will linger for awhile, but eventually we will just remember the great, and let someone else deal with the bad. which is sort of how it should be with everyone. but especially someone that was immortalized by the world over, unlike anything we will probably ever see again. long live the king, of pop.