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June 26, 2009 Many, many words have been and will be spoken in tribute to Michael Jackson. I too have words of my own to remember this very talented and very flawed man. I was not a Jackson fan being of a different generation but my children certainly were. I recall my daughter who is three years younger than Michael hanging posters of him and Donny Osmond in her room and I probably heard every single one of his songs over and over again blaring from her room. I mostly recall the sounds of The Jackson Five since that's when my daughter was a teenager and later, the sounds of Michael himself as he grew and became a solo artist. I have no desire to speak ill of the dead or to demean his talent but I must also remember the accusations that were made against him in regard to his inappropriate behavior toward young boys for over a decade. I also felt and still feel that the huge pay off that he made to one boy in the early 90's was extremely telling and altered my feelings about him forever. Why pay off someone if you are an innocent person? The constant and ever-changing physical appearance of Michael added to my doubts about his mental health and odd behavior. Let's face it, Michael turned himself into an other worldly freak and that aspect of his life can not be over-looked. Many African Americans have claimed that Michael broke racial barriers long before President Obama and others of color and that may be true in the fact that Michael was born a black man. He certainly didn't stay that way and it seems as if his desire was to become whiter and whiter as time went on. I'm not sure why that fact has been over-looked by the black community but I certainly noticed that every time I saw pictures of Michael he looked more and more like a physically altered being trying very hard to look anything but black. Although Michael Jackson will be remembered for his personal trials and tribulations including the accusations of child molestation and financial malfeasance, he must also be remembered for the talent that he possessed. This was a talent so unique that it can never be over-looked by even his most vigorous critics. I was more affected by the death of Elvis than I was by the death of Michael because he changed my generation and was a phenomenon in his own right. Elvis abused drugs which later tarnished his reputation but this is true of so many talented and famous people. Along with the fame comes the failure and the flaws. People are beginning to speak about where they were when they heard about Michael's death just like we all did when Elvis died and Princess Diana and in my case, the death of John F. Kennedy. I suppose that the very fact that this stored memory of what a person was doing when the announcement came is a tribute in itself to the outstanding contributions of the person in question and the level of his fame and notoriety. Many questions will linger about Michael...would his come-back tour have been a success? Would that come-back have really happened? I have my doubts because Michael was not only a perfectionist who insisted on topping his greatest success ("Thriller"), but a man who held himself to the highest professional standards. I do not believe that the weak, frail and obviously ill Michael Jackson who died yesterday would have come even close to his former self and that upon realizing this he would never have gone on stage to perform in the condition that he was most likely in recent years. The only shock that I experienced upon hearing that Michael had died was that it took so long. I expected this to happen a long time ago and although I feel badly for his children I am not surprised that he is gone. Michael inhabited a world that many of us can or ever will understand and with the good and the bad, the fame and the failure, Michael Jackson lived a unique life that is barely comprehensible to the average person. I thank him for the genius that he shared with the world and the pleasure that he brought to my then teenage daughter. I thank him for giving performances unequaled by any other artist of his time and I hope that there is a Neverland waiting for him so that he can finally rest in peace without the pain that he suffered both physically and emotionally.
Goodbye Michael......thanks for the memories. In truth, you will never die.
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