The King & I

It's been sometime since I have actually written anything and this was something that I had never in my wildest dreams thought that I would ever do, but here it is.

There isn't much that I can write about the King of Pop that you could not think for yourself or read somewhere else. There isn't anything more that I could or even develop into something even slightly interesting that hasn't already said. For the last couple of days I’ve been thinking of Michael knowing that my life will not change one iota because of his death but realizing that my life has in a small way already been changed or at least been affected by him being alive.

I remember the first time I saw the Jackson 5 back in '69 on the old black and white. Some people with more significant lives will tell you about chasing or running from the VC in 'Nam, but I will tell you about looking up at a boy not much older than myself and wondering why I couldn't be as magnificent as he seemed to be. The Jackson 5 were and Michael was magic and they knew it and they knew I knew it too.

I think I’ve said in this blog before that both Michael Jackson and I share the same birthday. It’s a line that I use to show how I really hip and cool I am and I want people to remember me by stating something that’s different from whatever else they may have heard. Of course using a phrase like “hip and cool” only shows how much I really am not but I have always tried to ride MJ’s coat tails by showing people the similarities between us. Although undoubtedly we have a few differences.

I am or was just a few years younger than Mr. Jackson so that was one difference and another minor one would be the talent thing. I know that I have no talent because some years ago for some strange reason I was watching with my mother, Barbara Walters or somebody interview Michael Jackson. My mother said to herself something like “such talent.” Then she turned towards me and said the word “if”, lowered her eyes and let the smile fall from her face. I swore to myself then, perhaps not with words but at least pictures, I would hate Michael Jackson and everything that he stood for, for the rest of my life and maybe a little more beyond it.

It goes without saying that I never could hate Michael anymore that I could hate my left shoulder when it clicks and hurts me when I raise my arm. Like my shoulder he has been part of my life for as long as I can remember.

I remember when I started to grow an afro because he had one. I remember the choice of clothes and the platforms that I wore were because of him. I remember posting the bedroom walls with pictures of him and his brothers that I tore out of the teeny bopper magazines. In fact the only thing that I did before he did was to catch my hair on fire, and at least I did it without getting third degree burns. I supported him when he did his Thriller album when early on, black people were thinking that MJ’s music was too pop, which is a euphemism for being too white, but I was there. I never bought the album of course; there was no need to go over the top. I was there in spirit.

I was also there in spirit during the cosmetic surgeries that made him look like another version of the Joker. I was there during the Martin Bashir interview and I realized my idol from yesteryear had either gone berserk or had never developed an adult thinking brain and my heart and my stomach fell. But I was there. I think I will be there when he is finally laid to rest. Not the memorial/spectacle "Joe Jackson somehow it’ll make money" money scheme they intend to put on in Los Angeles for him, but the one where everyone realizes that it’s all over, and then like the line that keeps going on and on in my head,

“I'll be there, I'll be there,
just call my name, I'll be there....”

One Verse One Chorus

Oh my God, get the room ready at the Home because I think I’m ready for it. Why? Because I think I am getting too old and I’m doing things that I used to laugh at when other people did it.

It was Saturday night, which meant that it was fun times at my house if you are into being alone staring at the TV and wondering why is life passing you by, when between channels I noticed Tony Orlando from Tony Orlando and Dawn pitching 70’s songs for Time-Life. Now I’m not going to say I hadn’t seen these types of paid 30 minute commercials before, but I had never been able to relate to most 60’s songs let alone early rock and roll and or Glen Miller. Did they ever find him? But 10 minutes into this Romancing the 70’s, the remote must have gotten stuck, I started to notice that not only did I recognize most of the songs but I had started to sing along with them.

You know I was one of those people who said that Rap would never last, but 30 years ago if you had told me I would have been singing “You Needed Me” with Anne Murray at 12 midnight I would have said that you and whoever brought you into the world were crazy. But there I was belting out tunes at the top of my voice searching for the right note to go with the Captain and Tennille and Melissa Manchester and people and groups whose names I had forgotten so long ago.

Speaking of forgetting, I had forgotten how bald Elton John was before he got his knighthood and how close he was to getting totally blind every other week according to the magazines. However Tony and crew didn’t show Sir Elton doing b’b’b’ ”Benny and the Jets”, which would have sent me screaming off the wall and dialing that toll free number. I would have been so loud they would have called the cops on me. They do that in this neighborhood you know. I know because I’ve done it at least twice myself.

So there I was last night being nostalgic and remembering how I used to sing some of these songs on my bike at the crack of dawn delivering newspapers when I realized that I could write something and relate it to this old video I found. Well I didn’t really find it and it’s not that old since it was finished today, but I was feeling almost sorry for myself this week and this was one of the ”woe is me” songs that I sometimes cling to.

So here is one verse and one chorus of it.