Michael's music and me

‘I wanna rock with you — all night. Dance you into day...sunlight...And when the groove is dead and gone, you know that LOVE survives. So we can rock forever on...’ –– ‘Rock with You’ by Michael Jackson

I am embarrassed to admit it. I have been staying up until 3 a.m. daily, searching everything Michael Jackson. I prefer going back, way back to his family’s humble beginnings in Indiana — a two-bedroom home for nine children. I want to know what he thought, how he dreamt it all up in his tiny little genius of a head, when he ever found the time to be “normal.” Every discovery about him drives home a pain I couldn’t explain. I am inconsolably sad. How could beautiful beginnings end in shocking tragedy?

MJ was put on a pedestal — no, on an altar, as some pop culture demigod. For decades it seemed he was a given: superstar for all times. We grew up with him. He was always around to do another epic music video, another dance step the whole world would mimic, another song to dance to or sing with, another message of hope, love and unity. And then the succeeding images were altogether disconcerting. Handcuffed on charges of child molestation, wearing masks in public, getting whiter and unrecognizable, the semi-reclusive Wacko Jacko was not the beloved singer of “Ben.” But we believed he would go away and bring back the Michael Jackson we wishfully knew was always going to be around. And just as the real MJ was about to reclaim it all, with everyone cheering him on, he is gone. The world’s mouth has stayed open with shock.

My own confusion, sorrow, grief, panic rival other very real losses in my life and threaten to overwhelm me. On a leisure trip to Hong Kong I couldn’t tell my fiancé, Mar, that I had to make that trip to HMV and get whatever music or videos on MJ I could get my hands on. The news reports are true. Three copies of MJ’s Bucharest concert were on the shelves one literal minute, gone the next. I got myself a copy of The One, a self-produced special on his best moments in performance. Watching in the hotel room I refused to believe it. The gnawing feeling led to tears, finally.

What is it about MJ’s unexpected death, departure from us that is so poignant? These times, I imagine, are not so different from the time Elvis Presley died of a heart attack in 1977. His legions of followers from the ‘50s to the ‘70s mourned him like their hope for salvation was no more. Elvis wasn’t supposed to die. Not at 42 anyway. To this day fanatics want to believe he is alive.

And then, again, with Beatles brains John Lennon. Someone crazy gunned him down in 1980. By then, Lennon had become a cult figure, a symbol of peace in a time of literal and figurative war all over the world. And the world then, as I recall, was similarly inconsolable from his untimely and, ironically, violent demise.

I can’t quite relate to the grief about Elvis and John Lennon. I was too young. But to those whose lives awakened and grew to the long career of number one songs of these two giants — on their memory and the personal memories attached to the songs of those times — I am certain, they hurt still.

To the youth of the ‘80s and ‘90s I am right as I guessed that their feeling of loss is as real as mine. My classmates assured me it isn’t just the hormones. They are also inexplicably sad and so are their husbands. The grief is not imagined. I am not the only one scrambling for what’s in the Net or on the shelves. If only the reprints come to the store soon enough. A friend of mine had to bid for his Moonwalker biography on EBay for $300. Original price was $15. MJ’s London concerts were a chance to prove to ourselves the magic of that time is alive and will now be rejuvenated. And, now, we mourn our youth. We are scrambling for our memories. We are panicking to preserve moments of romance, fun, carefree days, and a brand of joy that we regret may never come again. We can’t bring ourselves back to those days but Michael’s music preserved it all for us to go back to.

We will always remember “Music and Me.” As children we mimicked “Ben.” I used to sing it in front of class when I was eight. We sang along with “Ebony and Ivory” and “I’ll Be There,” a certified classic. Everyone had their own version of “We Are the World.” My personal national anthem is “Rock With You.” It was a particularly trying time in high school when the family business was shaky and my parents, for a while, could hardly make ends meet. It was sad for the family that I had to stay with my grandmother, who lived near St. Theresa’s where I studied, to cut down on gasoline expense. I walked blocks to school every day. It was a difficult time. But after classes, my classmates and I would meet at the watering hole, then Mona Estrella’s house on Atok St. where you could hear the music playing from outside the gate. “Rock With You” was often the song that welcomed us in — the signal for another magical night of laughter and dance lessons (the swing was the dance du jour). So, like for many of us from this magical era of his music, Michael Jackson saw me through hard times.

Today, when I hear the song, my heart still kind of skips a beat. And I have to stop and listen, and I smile.

From syrup and mellow to grit and grandeur, it was during this transition that my girlfriends and I couldn’t stay on any longer and dance to “Thriller” or “Beat It” without looking pathetic. But this cusp marked MJ’s ownership of, by then, more than one generation of followers. Older than us, his music transcended to younger, much younger. Think Gary Valenciano to Billy Joe Crawford. While we all rocked to other rockers, Boy George, Cyndi Lauper, Rick Astley, it was MJ who ruled and ruled the longest. And, much more, he was one of us. He lived his life right before our eyes and chose to be who he became, wore his heart on his sleeve to our entertainment. When the concerts and music videos stopped coming in, we tore him apart. We were angry. This generation’s source of salvation was letting us down. We all made those mean comments. We think we buy his records — and he is ours. I’m feeling very guilty about allowing his changed appearance and the unproven allegations against him overshadow his solid contributions to my life and to humanity.

Here’s the thing. He wrote the songs, performed like no one else I know. He gave and gave and we shot him down. What Michael Jackson gave to me I took and could never give away or give back. I guess that makes every artist’s performance so generous, so selfless. What is given and taken is intangible, immeasurable, priceless. Certainly no concert ticket cost could ever cover for such generosity. 

MJ is you and me. He dreamt. He gave up a lot, many times, without choice. He struggled. He thought he gave all he could — and he did. Still, as life would have its way with most of us, too, it wasn’t enough. And as death always has its way, we have no choice — and now it leaves us remembering not much of the bad but, mostly, the good of more than three decades of songs of love, romance, friendship. Weeks after his death we ponder on the meaning of Michael. When life takes over, this meaning might have, again, been lost on us. But, without a doubt, his words, his voice, his music, his image is irreplaceable. Certainly, the part he played in my life, no one can ever take over — like a friend who had been there with you when no one else was and never asked for anything in return. In behalf of my classmates, and all those who cry for the loss of their icon, I thank you, MJ — to be sorely missed and never to be forgotten.