the memorial

so nellie and i were fortunate enough to go to the michael jackson memorial yesterday. nellie got tickets through her verizon connection - mike vega. he's the same guy that got us tickets to the spice girls reunion tour. he also once got us tickets to a clippers/76ers game. needless to say, he hooks us up with all the hot events. two of those were actually pretty hot tickets. the clippers would have been a hot ticket had it been any other team not named the clippers.

anyways, the memorial was rather amazing. i think i might have been picking it apart a little too much when i was talking to my mom about it last night. but nellie said it best when she said, 'he's michael jackson. what were you expecting? as though anything could really live up his legacy.' which is so true. one of the speakers at the memorial said that he was the greatest entertainer of all time. nellie and i thought about that statement for about 2 seconds before we completely agreed. so you have the greatest entertainer of all time that is literally worshiped in many countries around the globe, but yet the last 15-20 years of his life were incredibly shady and all around odd sometimes, and you have to have a memorial for him. plus, given the fact that he's a worldwide celebrity, there has to be some sort of public memorial. im sure it would have been easiest for the family to just have a private burial with family and friends that knew him best. but you cant do that with michael jackson. yet it wasnt a tribute concert. apparently that is coming later and im sure it will be the big stage massive explosion production and will probably be really good. but there had to be music. no music at an mj memorial would be like no one giggling at ricky gervais' funeral. but you cant exactly sing or dance to 'beat it' or 'bad' or 'black or white' at a funeral. just wouldnt be fitting. and because it was a memorial, there were speakers like a normal funeral, only the world was invited to this one. so all things considered and taking into account all of those factors (greatest entertainer; strange, strange ending; incredible musician, but this is a memorial; want it to be somewhat personal and intimate, yet the world is on the guest list) i think they did a good job.


anyways, here are my thoughts on what we saw:

speakers:

kobe bryant and magic johnson:

kobe was fine. short and simple. which was good, since it didnt really make much sense why he was there. maybe he thought it was the other mj - michael jordan-that died? (5 minutes for that one?) i guess he was friends with singer mj and they did speak often, but lots of people did. im sure kobe wouldnt have been there had the memorial not been in his house and were he not the biggest basketball player on the planet at the moment. im sure ac green or vlade divac were both friends with mj back in their laker days, but yet they werent asked to speak. not that it matters, kobe kept it short and simple and did well.

magic was great. he told a great story about going to mj's house and when he got there mj's chef asked what magic would like to eat and he said grilled chicken. first of all, how cool would that be to go to a house that has a live in chef and when they ask if you would like anything to eat, you could say anything in the world and they would whip it up for you? i dont know what i would ask for, but it would be pretty cool. anyways, magic said that he and mj ended up sitting on the floor and talking and eating kfc. kfc! he said he thought it was the coolest thing that mj liked kfc. pretty great story.

smokey robinson and a producer from motown records.

nellie really liked both of these guys. i did too. smokey robinson seems incredibly normal and down to earth. both just talked about knowing young michael and how amazing it was to hear a 10 year old boy sing with such passion, especially when he couldnt relate to the lyrics of the song (leaving a girl, losing your love etc.).

queen latifa was great. she also seems completely normal and down to earth. i dont know what it is about her, but she just seems very 'real.' maybe im off with that, but i enjoyed her remarks.

brooke shields.

she was actually my favorite. nellie didnt like her remarks as much as others. i liked the personal stories she told. it made the memorial touching or made it seem real. i had no idea she and mj were such good and longtime friends. but she shared many personal stories about them hanging out as kids and teenagers. just normal stuff and normal stories that everyone could relate to. granted they were on a different scale. she told a story about how they were up one night before a wedding and just laughing and being mischievous, normal stuff that you do growing up. the only difference was that it was elizabeth taylor's wedding as opposed to your cousin who lives in ogden, utah. but it was cool to hear about how even though we all know him as the larger than life legend, he did have a side that you and i can relate to. i also think i liked her remarks because i feel like its the little random moments in life that live on past death. we all have them with many people and its those moments that are unique and you remember and that make it so hard when the person is gone. you cant really relate with the person speaking on the exact moment per se, but you can relate to having also shared random moments with close friends.

others:

rev. al sharpton. its no wonder he has made good money with speaking. he has a gift. lots of flowery language and plenty of goose bump moments. by the end, he had the crowd cheering. really, really impressive. only because in the moment, you are completely sucked in because the speaking was so exciting. granted, flowery, hollow words only get you so far and only leave you on a high for so long. its like the mission conference where you see clips from rudy or top gun and you are all pumped, only to lose that high 5 steps after you leave the conference.

he spoke a lot about michael and his impact on the color barrier (i know. surprising that he spoke about the color barrier of all topics). it made me think about about it more. he clearly demonstrated the ability to break the color barrier by going from black to white (5 more minutes). but the rev. made it sound like michael was the first black musician to come out of motown or be in people's homes. im sure the supremes and the temptations did more for breaking the color barrier than mj. not to downplay any impact mj may have had. those groups never reached a worldwide status as large as mj. but i view mj as more like a tiger woods. not the first african american golfer, so he didnt 'break' the color barrier, but what he has done in his field and his domination of it, has far surpassed what any other african american did. not sure if that analogy works. lets move on to the worst speaker:

some random congresswoman from houston. this lady was terrible. it was clear that although she was giving remarks about michael, she was just there to try and elevate herself. she had no real reason to be up there other than a government representative. she should have acknowledged that and sat down. instead she went off on how 'in this great country, you are innocent until proven guilty!' people then cheered, which was just lame because she doesnt really care about that, she just wanted to be a crowd pleaser. im not saying he's guilty, but our system was made by people and people are imperfect. its not flawless. the remark had nothing to do with anything else she was rambling about. she was just trying to get the crowd to remember her. thanks for your lame self promotion. now go back to texas and work on seceding from the union.

the music:

john mayer and stevie wonder.

both were great. i need to say that upfront. i enjoyed both quite a bit while they were happening. if i could have changed one thing, i think it would have been to have stevie do an all instrumental piece instead of john mayer and have john mayer sing with his song. stevie's song was good, but his intro where he was just playing the piano and not singing was really great. i would have liked for him to just continue playing. and there was nothing wrong with john mayer's solo, but i think he should have added words. again, both were great.

jermaine jackson and usher

do you know what i learned today? jermaine's son is named jermajesty. jermajesty! i only wish i was creative to come up with that name. nellie always complains that i never like any of the boys names she suggests (like skye. yes you read that correctly). well, jermajesty is one that i think we can both agree is a great name for our first son. its the next baby name fad, like brooklyn or cash.

anyways, i liked jermaine's song, didnt really care for him singing it. i felt the same way about usher. but at the same time, i liked that the songs werent polished and were flawed. sure, i probably would have rather seen usher do a 'billie jean' tribute and light up the stage. that boy can dance. but it was nice that the songs were 'real.' they werent pre-recorded like most concerts these days. the singing wasnt flawless. usher cried. im not sure if jermaine sang the right notes. but its ok. it just shows they are human. its nice seeing these people showed their human side at an event that reminds everyone that they too are human and merely mortal.

mariah carey and some dude

i guess mariah carey gave some apology today for her performance. but none was needed. it probably wasnt her best performance ever. but she wasnt performing in front of paying customers. it was just nice hearing someone with her talent sing a michael jackson classic, even if it wasnt perfect.

jennifer hudson

so i have been giving everyone a pass as though they couldnt have pulled off a flawless performance, yet jennifer hudson just crushed it. not sure that she needed the interpretive dancers. i had to go to the bathroom so bad and i was about to get up to go but then i heard the intro to the free willy song. a personal favorite. but man, what a set of pipes. of course if anyone could come through in that type of situation it was her. didnt she sing the national anthem at the super bowl only a couple months after her mom and other family members were shot in their home? isnt she also 8 months pregnant right now? good night this girl is impossible to keep down.

this video doesnt really do it justice. nellie brought up a good point about how things sound so much better live. when its echoing through the arena and the bass is really pumping, it really just blows through you and makes the hair on your back stand up the entire time.



so this is getting rather long. the memorial ended with a producer selling everyone on michael jackson and mourning that his company just lost out on millions. the final two songs were of course mj classics.

overall it was fantastic. when i said i always wanted to go to a michael jackson concert i never envisioned it would be this one. it wasnt a perfect production like i would have expected from an actual michael jackson concert. but he wasnt a perfect person. he was human that lived an extraordinary life. not sure how you memorialize such a person. probably by celebrating his life with some perfect moments, some flawed moments, and leaving with an overall feeling that we were lucky to have him, and even luckier that we got to experience it live.