Remembering Michael Jackson

What has always moved me the most about Michael Jackson -- what I always found most compelling about him as both an artist and a person -- is his incredibly ambivalent position as a cultural icon. Here is an artist who is at once one of the most universally beloved icons in all of popular music history and one of the strangest and least "normal" public figures ever to capture the world's interests. He managed to move beyond child stardom (a feat in and of itself) to a solo career that began by breaking MTV's color barrier and translating niche genres like disco and funk into something a broad, mainstream audience could get behind and get down to, but he could never seem to find a way to feel comfortable in his own skin -- literally and figuratively. In large part, his ability to remain beloved, despite his quirks and idiosyncrasies and even potential criminality, has everything to do with his incredible, undeniable talent. But I also think that something about his apparent alien-ness, his simultaneous ability to appeal to the whole world and inability to relate to it in a conventional way, made him more human to us. Maybe it's overstating it, but it's like he somehow embodied both everything we thought American popular culture should look like -- and all the weird parts of ourselves we cast away or hide to create that image. That's a lot of pressure to put on one body, and the stress was legible on his strange, ever-mutating body. I don't mean to sound so sad; while I do think there's a lot of sadness in his story, there's also so much joy in so much of his music -- a joy I hope he often experienced himself. My favorite MJ memory is of my sister, who's been learning the "Thriller" dance in her spare time (she envisions all of her siblings learning it and taking over a dance floor one day, but the rest of us are lazy), performing what she knew of it for my 87-year-old grandmother -- who requested it and grinned the whole time.

This is Surreal !!

Top 5 Michael Jackson Moments of all Time

1. March 1988, Jackson purchases Neverland Ranch.

2. January 1993, Jackson performs the halftime show for Super Bowl XXVII. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HbTjFn7KjE)

3. August 1996, Pulp singer Jarvis Crocker invades the stage during Jackson's peformance at the Brit Awards.

4. November 2002, Jackson dangles his son, Prince ("Blanket") Jackson, over the railing of his 4th floor hotel room balcony.

5. July(?) 2007, 1,500+ CPDRC inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center in Cebu, Philippines perform "Thriller." (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMnk7lh9M3o)

Michael Jackson is the first and true American Idol.

After learning that he passed, I tried to think back to the first time I heard Michael Jackson, but I couldn't do it. Some time in 1982, when I was in second grade, he was suddenly ubiquitous. It was like one day half the kids in my class showed up with the Thriller jacket and and claimed to know the secrets of the moon walk. I remember, every Friday, my second grade teacher would bring in her record player, as well as her Prince and Michael Jackson albums, and, for an hour at the end of the day, we'd listen to music and dance. Thriller was the first album I remember owning, and it seemed from that sprung everything else. I grew up in a small town in Louisiana, but I'm sure that most people around my age have similar memories.

In 1982 my brother, who had been a tie-dyed Deadhead up to this point, began wearing the red and black flap-shirts with epaulets and going to an 18+ dance club called Faces with my sister who had been a Deadhead herself not two months before. I remember "Billy Jean" came out and these hippies who made trouble in parking lots turned into well-groomed, neatly dressed Michael Jackson fans almost overnight. I was obsessed with the werewolf transformation in the "Thriller" video myself, not to mention the whole storyline of the "Beat It " video. I was 12 and this skinny dude with the sleeves of his leather jacket rolled up scaring off knife-wielding hoods with his ability to dance-fight made him hands down the coolest person ever to me, even before he turned into a werewolf a few months later when "Thiller" was first aired on MTV. That premier itself was practically a holiday -- my father (who was a Teamster for crying out loud) even watched it -- and stands as one of the few times in my life an event actually lived up to its attendant hype. From there, for me, Michael Jackson's story gets really sad and I have always looked at him (and Elvis Presley) as out and out slaves to an industry and our own weird society despite the fact that they had all this fame and fortune. I don't suppose that is the most original insight but I will always feel there is near endless tragedy in Michael Jackson's whole story. So maybe now he'll have some peace.

As much as the disturbing absurdity of Michael Jackson's last years made the announcement of his death difficult to really absorb, I'm brought back to the years where he quite literally was the center of my world. After Thriller, I followed his triumph over pop culture with the singular devotion of an obsessed 8-year old: in a jean jacket covered by buttons of his face, a hawkish eye on the tabloids and a dog-eared copy of Thriller, that I played again, and again. (To really dig the grip that Jackson held on my household, it's important to note that mine was one of THREE Thriller LPs in our house; the other two belonged to my older sister and my brother.) When my great grandmother's black and white television showed his hair on fire during a Pepsi special, I cried. Today, looking at the pictures of Michael Jackson wallpapering CNN -- most of them showing cadaverous images his decline -- I want to only remember the warmth of his greatness and the rapture that accompanied it. In a culture where discussion of music seems too often a din of hyperbole, it's difficult to overstate his importance. Michael Jackson, one and only King of Pop.

As a music industry die hard, I can't help but reflect on how MJ and his music changed the scope of the business. Prior to Michael, a best selling album was measured by millions or fractions thereof, not tens of millions. Promotion for an African-American artist on MTV was rare, if not altogether obsolete; he broke through with regular rotation. A record was considered a hit with a top 10 track; MJ regularly had several #1s and two or three in the top 10 at once. Michael redefined how we as an industry determine what it really means to be a "superstar," and the fact of the matter is that no one has yet to come close to the standards he set.

I feel so lucky to have grown up in the '80s when Michael Jackson truly ruled the world. I remember a week or two in the early '90s when MTV completely devoted their programming to everything MJ. I had always loved his music, but it was at that time that I started to understand what the big deal was. I sneaked in as much MTV as I could and ultimately used up my allowance to get me some very valuable MJ cassettes. Even through all of the controversy and ridicule he had to face, as cliche as it sounds, no one can take away the influence, the power and the absolute brilliance of his music. And in such a sad time, it's hard not to smile at the legacy that he's left us.

Michael Jackson never quite seemed mortal until today. He spent at least 40 of his 50 years trying to escape from his past and his fears and his race and his self, and at least 30 of those 50 years singing about it, and today, he finally found the door out. Michael Freedberg, the great disco critic from the Boston Phoenix, said once that Michael lived Robert Johnson's life in the plain view of everyone on earth, always watching out for hellhounds over his shoulder. And it's true: If you don't believe me, go back and listen again to the paranoia and foreboding in "Heartbreak Hotel," "Billie Jean," "Beat It," "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" ("you're just a buffet, you're a vegetable, they eat off you, you're a vegetable") "Torture," "Smooth Criminal" ("you ran into the bedroom, you were struck down, it was your doom"), "Dirty Diana," "Who Is It," "Give In To Me," and pretty much all of 1997's great, intense, inexplicably ignored Blood On The Dance Floor album, which was almost entirely about being chased, followed, often to the sound of funereal Gothic rock: "Susie got your number/And Susie ain't your friend/Look who took you under/With seven inches in." As somebody approximately Michael Jackson's age (I'll be 49 this year, he was 50), also from the Midwest, with a messed-up and sometimes barely existent childhood of my own, I can relate. And so can Axl Rose, I'm sure, and so can Eminem. And so, in their own way, can the millions if not billions of other people worldwide who loved Michael, and probably plenty of the ones who didn't. If he did anything wrong in his life, and part of me doesn't ever want to know if he did, he certainly also did more good than any of us can ever conceive of. He was easily the greatest dancer of the past three decades, probably the greatest singer, and quite possibly the greatest songwriter. Which adds up the greatest entertainer, period. "I can guarantee you one thing, we will never agree on anything as we agreed on Elvis," Lester Bangs wrote in his obit 32 years ago, only a couple years before Michael Jackson definitively proved him wrong, emerging full-blown into adulthood as the world's most popular musician by presaging generations of young people who would celebrate their adulthood by refusing to grow up. And he emerged, of course, with some of the most celebratory music anybody from those generations will ever hear. But always, in the middle of that celebration, and not always submerged, there was dread. If anybody deserves to finally rest in peace, it's him.

I'm most grateful that I had the chance to listen to the music of Michael Jackson. His music inspired me through the years. I fell in love with Michael when he made the song "I Wonder Who Is Loving You," and then "Billie Jean" later on. I was dating this guy at the time and every time we went to shake a leg people stopped and watched us dance in the ballroom and I was so happy. RESPECTFULLY YOURS.

I think an era of POP music is now ended as MJ is no more with us, I was really thrilled when I heard about his comeback....but GOD had some other Plans..

MISS YOU MJ

Nitin

Chuck

Agree with you about Blood on the Dancefloor, and the general, almost classically mad paranoia that is a concentrated centre of his work.

Why do you think it didn't do well?
ase

Growing Up in NYC I at one time worked for a record Distributer. We could'nt keep enough of Michael Jacksons album Thriller in stock,( I believe it was Columbia 38295), it would sell so fast!! He was truly Iconic from his early days with the Jackson 5, (My favorite Jackson 5 Club record was Hum Along and Dance) to Off the Wall and Thriller. It was a musical ride of a life time that I still enjoy to this day and will continue to enjoy the rest of my life!! I will pass on his music to my children!! Thanks Michael for what you gave us. Heaven was looking for some choreography!! Rest Well!!

Much like millions of Americans my age, I'm sure, the Thriller video premiere remains my most deeply ingrained memory of Michael Jackson. I was 11 years old in 1982; cable had only recently come to our household, but MTV had been all but barred by my parents, who didn't suffer frivolity lightly. Still, they realized the socializing importance of pop culture and capitulated to my pleas to watch what seemed likely to be the televisual event of the decade. (Until the falling of the Berlin wall, it probably remained so.) The show, as I remember it, started late; the longer I remained glued to the assorted ads, previews and music videos that preceded the mini-film, the stronger and more frequent became their suggestions that there must be something, anything, that might better occupy my time. And then, finally, the programming gods shined upon me. I wish I could remember with any specificity my reaction at the time, but the force of culture has been stronger than my own memory. (I do remember attempting, futilely, to moonwalk; I also coveted that red jacket with a passion.)

But that's an I-was-there moment. And really, what does it matter if I sat plopped in front of the TV for Thriller, or if you actually went to Woodstock, or if someone else learned of JFK's death from a black-and-white television in a smoky teacher's lounge in the Midwest? Events like these aren't bound by particularities. Indeed, we invoke our own humdrum details as a means of getting a fix on the universal, like sticking a pin in a map.

More interesting, I think, is another memory. In 1996, while I was traveling by bus through Chile and Peru, I spent four or five days in the Chilean border city of Arica, a strange, hazy place tucked on a desert plateau between the ocean and the Andes. There on a central shopping plaza, a man (or boy?) would turn up in the afternoons: slim, clad in skinny black pants, loafers and a zippered leather jacket, with long curly hair snaking out his black fedora. He seemed to materialize out of nowhere; I don't recall ever seeing him arrive. He'd hit "play" on a boombox, and heads would turn to see this figure morph into an almost uncanny embodiment of the American pop singer. He had all the movements down pat -- moon-walking, dancing on tiptoe, twirling, pirhouetting. He had the Jheri Curled ringlets just right, and given his Mestizo coloring, when he cocked his hat at a certain angle and skulked just so, it was possible to imagine, at least for an instant, that this was the real thing. He must have done well for himself, because he came every single day. I wouldn't be surprised if he's still working the same beat today, 13 years later -- assuming his knees haven't given out.

I've since seen other Michael Jackson impersonators in other cities in the world, though I can't recall where -- Greece? Turkey? (Oddly, in my three years in Barcelona, I never saw a Michael Jackson amidst the characters and "human statues" of the Ramblas, but I'm sure there will be one there soon.) If the busker singing Bob Marley songs is a staple of city plazas around the world, I suspect that the Michael Jackson impersonator is as well.

Most mega-stars have a touch of the unreal about them. The more they're filmed and photographed, and the more their private lives are turned inside out for our consumption, the more they seem to be figments of our own imagination. (Just think of The Truman Show or, more disturbingly, South Park's Britney Spears episode.) With Michael Jackson, that sense of unreality was exponential, and not just for his fans. Jackson's surgeries, his eccentricities, his scandals and his retreat into Neverland suggested that even he didn't believe he was real any more. He died before he was forced to prove just that with a grueling, almost unthinkable 50-show run in London, which was to begin this summer. (I can't imagine how, in the end, that episode would not have somehow, irreparably, diminished him.) No matter. Legions of Michael Jackson impersonators around the world are stepping up from the understudy's role. His transformation is complete: finally more than real, he's become universal, ashes to ashes and dust to a dust of pollen: long live the King of Pop.

MJ made me move!!!!

Wow what a loss!!! I have a fond memory of the late 70s when I was about seven or eight years old, I was visiting my sister after being released from the hospital after having surgery on my legs. My sister was playing the Off The Wall album and I couldn't dance because of my surgery, but let me tell you, when the Off The Wall single came on I was shaking and bobbing my head and I couldn't take it any more and I threw those crutches down and did a MJ spin and grooved to that song. My sister was hysterical and told me to sit down before I hurt myself, man I just kept on grooving. MJ's music has and will always have that effect on the world now and forever.

RIP MJ.

Michael Jackson touched my soul so deeply with his songs. A person who can do that to me is beautiful. I love him, respect his talent and feel the pain of his being misunderstood, for trying to find himself and discovering who is his apart from the musician he is. He gave us all a gift of beautiful music and the heart of himself.

Around the time of John Lennon's assassination, I remember reading a rock magazine in the supermarket while my mother shopped. The writer said that people weren’t really mourning Lennon’s death, they were mourning the death of their youth. I thought that was bunk for Lennon at the time but I actually feel that way about Michael Jackson’s passing. I never remember a time when the Jackson 5’s ABC LP wasn’t a part of our house or when little Michael Jackson wasn’t the most talented kid on TV. He was 10 years older than me but we felt like we were the same age. As an irrepressible kid, he sang like a gruff grownup and looked like he was having a ball when he performed. He was my generation’s Shirley Temple mixed with Sammy Davis Jr. (who also a child star who didn’t have a normal childhood). There was even a Jackson 5 cartoon!

Later, I always remember the Jackson 5’s fantastic single “Shake Your Body” (Down To The Ground)” as being on Off The Wall, which not only remains his finest album but actually proved that disco wasn’t dead – the songs on that album thrived throughout the ‘80s and sound even better today (thank you, Quincy Jones). Michael’s voice was different – he now sang really HIGH (when the wretched Wiz movie came out, the once fun-loving Michael Jackson seemed completely devoid of all charisma).

With Off The Wall, Jackson wanted to make a great record, with Thriller, he wanted to rule the pop world. Nothing on the record topped “Billie Jean,” which may just be the defining single of the 1980s. The Thriller album has a little of everything except new wave -- R&B rock, ballads, rap (Vincent Price, we miss you too), even World music. It also had plenty of Old World showbiz hokum, which rock people slammed him for at the time. But it was exactly this Classic Hollywood style razzle-dazzle that was sorely missing from his post-Thriller work. He was still a vital performer but a different one – as a kid, the joy on his face as he performed was his meal-ticket. During the Thriller era, his amazing dance moves became his hallmark – he was sometimes lit so you couldn’t really see his face. His body replaced his rapidly morphing face.

The amount of hidden, backstage work he put into being a star must have been extraordinary. I can’t think of another rock era performer who pulled off those choreographed dance moves – they were closer to Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire or (one more time) Sammy Davis Jr. But Sammy loved an audience and kept performing even when he was clearly not making too much money from it – he had to do it. Maybe Jackson got so big he couldn’t perform. Maybe as he aged he couldn’t keep up anymore. Maybe he was so rich and so famous he lost sight of the need to have a career. His sister, Janet, successfully used his playbook in the 1990s, but she added sensuality and the (broken?) promise that she wasn’t anywhere near as weird as Michael was.

After he got to the top all the joy went out of his work – even if it was manufactured showbiz joy. Bad has some good songs on it but if you are old enough to remember it coming out, you probably remember being hugely disappointed by it. Jackson was already tabloid fodder by this time but it quickly came to define all that he was. What did Michael Jackson think, feel, like? Who knows, but I miss the time when his life was defined by making other people happy. “Billie Jean,” a heap of Jackson 5 songs, like “Never Can Say Goodbye,” and the Off The Wall album still make me happy. I’d prefer not to think about the rest.

I grew up in the '80s and '90s in Southern California -- Disneyland country. So for me, my biggest, fondest, funniest, warmest etc. memory of MJ was the premiere of Captain EO, which I waited a good six hours in line to see on the weekend of its release. It's possible not all of you remember Captain EO -- it was pulled from the theme parks around the mid-'90s and there was no accompanying soundtrack (though its two original songs, "Another Part of Me" and "We Are Hear to Change the World," found their way onto subsequent Jackson releases, Bad and Ultimate Collection, respectively). Directed by Francis Ford Coppola and filmed in 3-D, the sub-30 minute flick starred Jackson as the titular space captain, on a mission to a rotted out netherworld to deliver a package to an evil "Supreme Leader," played by Angelica Houston. Joined by a crew of alternately furry, frumpy and robotic misfits ("Hooter!"), EO touches down on the junkyard planet, finds his way to the queen's lair, and drops the bomb on her -- his song. Overcome by the goodness of his music, the Queen is transformed from a cackling H.R. Giger-like witch into a beautiful empress as Capt. EO and his cohorts rock out on instruments seemingly picked up at the Mos Eisley Guitar Center. The rest of the planet and its inhabitants follow suit, morphing from Stormtroopers into Carebears, mechanized detritus into vibrant flowers, etc. The moral of the story is pretty straightforward: Michael Jackson's music can transform a planet made of crap into a magical wonderland of color and light. Now who could argue with that?

Wow, guys, I am really moved by all of your memories and impressed with the depth of the marks he left on you.

I knew and enjoyed his music from the earliest Jackson 5 thru Thriller, watched the Saturday morning cartoon, etc, etc. I fielded hundreds - if not thousands - of request calls for songs from Thriller in '83, and I'm sure my friends and I watched the premiere of the Thriller video.

But, as omnipresent as he was for the first 15 yrs of my "music-life" (which started in the very early '70's), I never really connected with him or his music. Thus, when his weirdness started to come to the surface (and then especially when the criminal allegations hit the fan(s)), it was not hard for me to put him out of my consciousness.

That said, it was shocking to hear that he died suddenly. (I must admit, I first heard the news that he had been rushed to the hospital, and I first flashed back to when he got sick during his trial.)

And, watching the coverage reminds me that there was a sincere person there behind the headlines and the public persona. And, it is possible that he really didn't intend to hurt any children but was just trying to live some of the childhood innocence that he had apparently missed.

I wish him peace, I send comforting thoughts to his family, friends and those who miss him. (I also fervently hope that the coming months/years DON'T end up resembling those following Anna Nicole Smith's untimely death.)

Yesterday, as the events of Michael Jackson's death were unfolding, a friend fought through the deluge of microblogging nonsense that clogged the internet to post this on Facebook: "by the way, while all you nostalgic nerds are wafflestomping about MJ, real people are still dying in Iran."

As a person who has made a life of playing, listening to and writing about music, and also someone who has recently decided to take leave of the same profession, the comment struck a powerful chord. At the heart of it, the problem of conscience that should accompany mourning Michael Jackson is the persistent stuff floating below the fold of the New York Times wall-to-wall coverage of his death -- stories dealing with the oppression and death of people every bit as real and troubled as MJ, who are uncelebrated and likely unable to imagine the tiniest cog in the the monstrous mechanism that served as Jackson's grotesque, exploitative life-support system.

Walking to lunch today though, Garrett pointed out something that brought the issue into focus a bit more, when he was remarking on the comments of Rhapsody's staff: in their comments nearly every writer mentions their own age in their eulogy.

Sam writes: "Some time in 1982, when I was in second grade..." Nick writes: "He was 10 years older than me but we felt like we were the same age." Philip writes: "I was 11 years old in 1982..." Chuck: "As somebody approximately Michael Jackson's age (I'll be 49 this year, he was 50)..." Steph: "I feel so lucky to have grown up in the '80s when Michael Jackson truly ruled the world." Mike: "I was 12 and this skinny dude with the sleeves of his leather jacket rolled up scaring off knife-wielding hoods with his ability to dance-fight made him hands down the coolest person ever to me..." Garrett: "I grew up in the '80s and '90s in Southern California -- Disneyland country." I did it, too: "I followed his triumph over pop culture with the singular devotion of an obsessed 8-year old..."

In these comments seems to lie something more potent and more interesting that the unsightly spectacle of celebrity death (the first press release about a tribute album snaked into my inbox this morning), something that cuts through the faux urgency of Wolf Blitzer's prattle and the bloodless hindsight of his impact on the horrible music industry. It's this: when a person known by the entire world dies, it can jar us for a moment into considering into our own mortality, to reconsider our place in history, and, possibly, the human things which connect us -- wafflestomping nerds and all.

I HAVE BEEN THINKING ALOT SINCE THE NEWS OF MICHAEL. HE WAS A SAD PERSON WITH A TERRIBLE CHILDHOOD THAT WAS SHOWN OF LITTLE LOVE AND ALOT OF HARSH THINGS. HE JUST WANTED TO GIVE LOVE AND TRY TO GET HIS CHILDHOOD BACK BY BEING FRIENDLY TO ALL CHILDREN. HE WAS ALWAYS TAKEN THE WRONG WAY, AND I PRAY THAT HE IS IN HEAVEN LIVING THAT CHILDHOOD DREAM HE SO MUCH MISSED. MAY GOD TAKE YOU AT HIS SIDE AND MAY HE USE YOU AS A ANGEL WITH THAT BEAUTIFUL VOICE TO SING TO ALL UP THERE.......SEE YOU IN HEAVEN MICHAEL....I LOVE YOU

i remember the first time i heard the jackson five , i was 6 years old and the spanish station played hi song abc, i didn't know a word of english i'm hispanic, and every btime they played this song i cranked it up, and in the backround i woukd hear my parents say," every time that song comes she cranks up the volume i love you michael and the brothers god bless you all and i sympathize for your loss this is a great loss to me

We are praying for the Jackson family. We love you and the Jackson 5 and Micheal Jackson. Your memories will truly live on.

Grandison family, Los Angeles

I remember where I lived as a young girl when the Jackson 5 first appeared on tv. I couldn't get enough of them. Michael was stunning. Now i'm so very, very sad. I can't stop watching everything they are showing on tv about him. It's so unreal and I don't want to believe that he is gone. I am sad for his children also because I know they had a great father. I'm not worried so much about what is going to happen with them, because I know Mrs. Jackson is going to see to it that they are taken care of. His siblings will also. It's just a huge pain in my heart for their loss. It's just such a huge shock to everyone. I keep thinking something isn't right. Now I want to buy every song he ever recorded. RIP Michael.

I was five years old in 1971 when I first heard of The Jackson 5 featuring Michael Joseph Jackson, an icon of four decades. I will always remember his unigue style of song and dance. He's one of our greatest entertainers of all time with a Diamond status career. He's a class act and one of a kind. He cannot be duplicated. I will miss him.

Candice Woodson

I say for alot of us, that grow up with micheal Jackson. There has been moment in your life, where his songs was part of it. Alot of his songs had meaning in them and alot of momory. We can listen to them now and go through alot of momories. Micheal, you gave alot of people momories and we all thank you. God be with you.

As I read through these eulogies to Micheal Jackson, I too was caught up in the memories of the music. My personal favorite being "The Lady in My Life". For most of us, all the peoples of the world, it was about the music, then the performance, and, sadly, lastly, about the Man.

Michael Jackson the Man: Brilliant Artist, Top Notch Businessman (has there been a smarter business move made by a musician than buying the Beatles Catalog?), extremely involved African American father, Really Weird Wacko Jacko, etc ....

But what I think people are forgetting is the overwhelming philanthropy of the Man as well. When people think of philanthropy historically, they think of Carnegie and Rockefeller. When they think of philanthropy now, they think of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. And those are wonderful things to think of, those people and their charities have done much good in our world. But what I am saying is let not forget Micheal Jackson's philanthropy, I don't believe that there has ever been a single individual artist who has given so much of his own personal money, time and energies to humanitarian causes. In the 40 years of professional artistry, he supported 39 different charities or charitable causes ranging from HIV/AIDS to Malnutrition/Starvation in Africa.

I will never forget that. No One else in the world should either.

That is the true measure of his humanity to me, that he tried his best to give, to help, to fix, what else was wrong in the world so that other humans could live better.

Now, through his memory and his music, we all do live a little better.

No one deserves more to Rest In Peace.

This seems so unreal. I was at work when I heard the news that Michael had passed on. It truly didn't sink in until later in the evening when I heard his music. I never thought I would feel the sadness for someone of no relation, the same sadness I feel when a close relative passes on. Michael Jackson will truly be missed!!!

There was always something about Michael Jackson that reminded of the General of the Universe, the central character from Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s hallucinatory, stream-of-consciousness epic, Autumn of the Patriarch. The general is the dictator of an unnamed Caribbean Country who was born to a bird woman and with a grossly enlarged testicle that hums the general songs. He lives to be between 107 and 232 years old, sires 5,000 children, orders time altered (after all, aside from the General of the Universe, he is also the undoer of dawn, the commander of time and repository of light), and sells of the Caribbean Sea to the United States (who then transplant the sea, along with “the reflection of our cities, our timid drowned people, our demented dragons," to barren Arizona).

Towards the end of his life, he becomes overtaken by illusions, unable to tell reality from fiction. He becomes unduly paranoid, and never appears in public anymore, preferring instead to deploy an army of body doubles. When one of the body doubles is killed, the General doesn’t clarify, and instead orchestrates his public resurrection three days later. When his own death finally comes, the countrymen find him in a dilapidated mansion, a "rotting grandeur" of corpses. No one can process that the dead man lying before them, infected with parasites from the deepest depths of the sea, is the General of the Universe.

Of course, MJ never killed 2,000 children and dumped them in the sea, as the General does, but he seemed touched by a similar sort of madness and magic. He built his own private Disneyland. He defied physics with the moonwalk. He married Elvis’ daughter. He bought the Beatles. He planned to live to be 150. He cavorted with Ronald Reagan. When he visited Africa, he was greeted by 100,000 people. He performed for over a half million people in just seven nights in London. He sold a 100 million copies of Thriller. He erected giant statue of himself that floated down the river Thames. For years, he dressed like a cross between Liberace, a Martian general and an Egyptian Pharaoh. He made a complete mesh of race, gender and sexuality. He befriended a pet chimpanzee called Bubbles, who shared his toilet and cleaned his bathroom. And these are just the confirmed facts – never mind the rumors and accusations.

All of which made it difficult for me to truly believe that he was dead. I spent Sunday halfway expecting that he would pop up on CNN, with a twisted angelic smile, and in a fey voice announce that he had conquered death. But it’s Monday. He’s still gone and the reality of his death is beginning to set in.

I grew up on the music of MJ and this is a horrible loss. I wanted to share a DJ set I did this past weekend in tribute. 80 minutes of music mixed together. I hope you will enjoy. You can listen or d/l here http://www.zshare.net/audio/619901536f44ac78/ if you want a tracklist it's on my site www.djmoody.com

RIP TO THE KING - best to ever do it!

RIP MJ...I can't believe he's gone..

I guess we'll never really know what happened to him in his final hours...I just hope the autopsy gives clarity and closure to the Jackson family..

http://www.iheartradio.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=104668&article=5669925&cmp=cait_finalhours

Michael was a wonderful performer, and he brought great enjoyment to our family through his entertainment. We loved his music, singing and, of course, his dancing. It was entertainment at its best! We will truly miss him. The world has lost one of the very best entertainers ever.

Now Michael is in our memory, may the God of undeserved kindness remember Michael and comfort his family.

In 1982 when I was 6 or 7 the thriller video came out, at that time it was funny because I was scared of it. Then about a year or so later I was like how dumb, I was to be scared of something so cool. My first album on tape I owned was thriller and wish I had it still. A line that makes me think of M.J. is " He who fly's with his wings and dances to heaven in the stars." However may he rest in peace you will be missed but your music will live on and on.

Many of us remember the very first time we heard Michael Jackson on the radio, It was an instantaneous love affair with a voice that until now, never seemed to fade. He will always be to me the voice of a people, a family and a struggle, eternally. I hope that as he moves toward his final resting place he is not confused by the brilliance of his own light and mistake it for the god light we all see when we pass away, because you see, that light is LOVE. Michael You were brilliant in more than just one way. We will eternally miss you and love you forever. Peace Out!

amo michael jackson,palavra pra isso...perfeito
sempre vai ser lembrado.

I remember the first time I heard the "Jackson 5" on the radio in my hometown of ST. Louis, I lived just upstairs in our duplex to my aunt and (4)cousins. We would always play the radio downstairs on the front porch and that particular day when we heard either "ABC" or "Stop the Love you save may be your own" (can't remember which) everyone went wild, the electricity that filled the air was incredible and everyone started dancing and trying to sing the chorus because we didn't know the words to the song yet. I must have been about six or seven years old but I believed that everyone recognized simultaneously that a star had been born and not just some regular grown up star but a kid who was the same age as we were. The tumultuous following that built for Michael from that moment in time until now will always be very special for the people in my age bracket. We actually grew up listening to Michael Jackson and his brothers. However, Michael being the truest star of the bunch just kept on rising until he became the meteoric phenomenon of the day, to which no one else can compare. I am still struggling with the fact that Michael is gone from our world but somehow he will live on fondly in our memories. Yes, his voice has been here as long as I've been alive and now for the moment it has been silenced but the legend and voice that is Michael Joseph Jackson will live on forever. I Thank God that he was here for as long as he was.

I'm glad that Michael Jackson is dead. That's the only way he could have escaped the news-hungry paparazzi and pain that hounded him. It's a shame. In recent years, no one, including me, acknowledged his presence -- most making fun of his eccentricities, failed last album, and lawsuits -- but now that he's gone, I'm glad that he's getting the kind of attention he deserves. He is, after all, the only pop star to have been loved by all races in all countries, and he undoubtedly is the greatest dancer in pop history. The fact that everyone -- including people who don't even listen to western music -- knows him tells so much about his impact. Long live the king of pop!

I am a fan and braisleira i'love you 5 years since the ...
You were my first love ...
You are a star ...
The brightest star and that is beautiful and the sky is my favorite ...
I love you and always love you ...
Because the agent never forget the first love ...
You will always be the boy I love ...
Alana

I grew up in a small town of Oklahoma in the 80's. My friends and I all were huge MJ fans. In '82 when Thriller hit the seen, I was 7 years old. I can still remember like it was yesterday, my friends and I would take turns piling up at each others houses, huddled up around MTV just waiting for "Beat It" to come on. We had to do this because our parents did not like MTV, so when we got ran out of one house we would go to the next.

I can remember all of us nagging our folks until all of us were sporting red leather jackets and gloves, we could not have been any cooler than we were in that moment!

As the years went by, and MJ started to change his appearance, and the media turned there once MJ loving backs on him, and we went into JR/High school, it was no longer cool to be a Michael Jackson fan, and regrettably I too jumped on the MJ bashing bandwagon. I lost that enjoyment that his music gave me. Dont get me wrong, when I was by myself in my room or car, away from possible ridicule, I cranked it up and sang my heart out.

I am now a father of 8 children, 4 boys and 4 girls. None of which really new MJ or his music until this tragic turn of events. Since the day of his death, we have played his music non stop along with TV and Radio. My kids love him, just like i did, and still do! I will never worry about the thoughts of others anymore, and my children and I will forever enjoy the greatest music in the world! Michael I know that you are moonwalking on streets of gold, in front of an audiance like no other. I can not what to see you again. Rest in Peace.....

I am so very upset that MJ has passed away . Also disturb that you have so many people portraying that they have inside scoop on the way he lived ,they are making him out to be heroin user . I loved MJ music he was icon ,no matter how you feel about him personally you have to give him his props . I do not know any entertainer that have reached all generations and diverse cultural of people . He loved to entertain ,when he was on the stage he was in his own world (comfort zone ) . When you were in the audience you felt his passion and love for the music . Thank you MJ for all you have contributed to the world .

ta muito dificil a cordar e sempre tercerteza que michael se foi. toda a minha vida foi tendo michael como inspiracao. se eu tivesse fazendo algo e ouvisse sua musica, logo me data vontade dançar e superar tudo. michael foi muito injustiçado nunca acreditei naguelas mentiras de abuso sexual. ay love you michael,para sempre

i am from iraq.irab muslim female i was born on 1981
my childhood full with micheal jackson songs and lovely memories
I am sad for you .you left us
I am really sad I feel I lost important person in my life who affect directly on me
But I am sure you are now in better place better than our world which always accused you because you are kind honest and had merciful heart
I am sure you now rest in peace and free from pain and suffering
We always love you and never forget you M.J .. you are always the angel of kids and inspirer of youth

Was hoping to attend his return concert and take the opportunity to capture some compelling photography. It's sad news - a fellow singaporean photographer.

A thoughtful photographer Tom Suarez has posted online the images of the entire Michael Jackson Memorial booklet from yesterday. They are available to download in full size (with no watermark) to be printed out. Enjoy!

Please help spread the link: http://tomsuarez.zenfolio.com/p334439575

In fact post a message any where you feel like to let people know they can download it for free.

Michael Jackson passed away. A great loss for the world of music.

Can't wait for the second season of Misfits. Easily the best new show of 2009 can't wait to see how the cliffhanger is resolved.

micheal is so ugly now did u see that dotor is out of her mine wwwwwoooooooooowwwwwwwwww:)

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