Balls Deep…

When Thriller came out in 1983 I was gestating in my mothers womb. She told me that she would listen to Michael Jackson all the time in the car and on the radio, that he was the first American artist that she could really get into. That means I’ve been a Michael Jackson fan since before I was born.

As a little kid, I never liked MTV or music videos really, but the second a Michael Jackson video would come on, NOTHING ELSE mattered. I would get up and start dancing my little brown ass off, probably looking like a fool trying to emulate his moves, but it didn’t matter because that was the point, we were both just having a great time. No song or video wasn’t worth dancing to! No dance move was not worth trying to mimic.

I remember learning how to moonwalk in high school, and it being one of the great accomplishments of my young life. I also do a mean 3 point kick. Where he does a front kick then bends his leg to the right, and then to the left before putting it down. Yeah, that move is sweet.

In no way is this relationship to his work unique or interesting. EVERYBODY knows these songs and has visceral memories of them. The guy could make ANYONE dance! Even people who hate music and would never be caught dead dancing can’t help but move to Michael Jackson! Little kids, adults, even white people like him!!

He was truly a world musician, performing on a scale unmatched by any artist of his time, or of any other time for that matter. Even in the boondocks of Nepal, in the tiny taverns and village watering holes where single men come to drink and hang out at night, they would play Michael Jackson tunes on the music box. He is everywhere, in a way that no recording artist alive or dead has ever been. He’s a ubiquitous symbol of having fun, one of those artists that only come out every few generations or so, an artist with a divine spark. In the same way that Shakespeare or Michelangelo or Beethoven brought a transcendent, unmatchable beauty to their work, a beauty that only appreciates with time, so too will Michael Jackson’s legacy live on.

Michael Jackson’s death is the most momentous passing of any celebrity in my life time. His fan base is uncomparable, comprised of multiple generations spanning  five decades of music. The vast majority of which is still alive, mourning his passing.

They are talking now of breaking news of his autopsy. It’s no surprise. They will cut him open, extract his chemicals, pick apart his addictions, his tragedies, his sex life- the death of Michael Jackson is far from over. They will keep chewing him up like used gum for a long time.  They’ll sell magazines, they’ll put on specials, they’ll continue to host panels and debate over the sordid mess that became his life.They will keep packaging him in different wrappers.

He will get no rest, no peace. At least not for a while.

Truthfully his autopsy began a long time ago. He’s been treated like a commodity for his entire life. He brought so much to the world, but such talent has a heavy cost.

I remember in English class, learning about Aristotle’s notions of the hero. The hero is a test drive for the human condition. When you test drive a car, you don’t drive gently, you put the car through hell, your foot heavy on the gas. That’s what the hero must do, go through the kinds of things that the rest of us would not be willing or able to tolerate. The hero will fly closer to the sun than anyone dares to go, he will drink hemlock to prove a point, she will get burned at the stake for love. The hero brings fire for the rest of us. Sometimes the hero must succumb to the dark side. The hero’s life is special, dramatic, adventurous, but often wrought with trauma and isolation. But the point of the hero’s journey is to provide a road map for the rest of us to draw courage when we ourselves are facing the brink.

Michael Jackson was pushed beyond the limits of what the rest of us could accomplish. He suffered terribly so we could dance and have a good time. I think now we should show a little gratitude for a man that never really had it easy, no matter how much money he could make or spend. Because the bottom line is he made the world a richer place. He made the world feel a whole lot better than what it really is. I think he would appreciate it if we just shut up and danced.

I really believe that if the human race ever sent out a capsule into space with a catalog of earth’s great treasures, they would have to put the collected work of Michael Jackson in it. Some aliens might come across the capsule one day, and they’d figure out how to play his albums and watch his performances, those from the start of his career to the end. And they would have a hard time believing that this work was done by one guy. But the continuity of his dance moves would erase the doubts. In that way MJ’s career would start all over again. These aliens would watch the entire sum of Jackson’s life concurrently, in the same way the Tranfalmadorians experienced their birth, life, death, and fate all at once. And they would get to know the real Michael Jackson, because unlike other artists, the real Michael Jackson was that guy on stage, dancing his ass off, making millions feel good.

He’s said in countless interviews that he’s most comfortable on the stage, that he would live on stage if he could. It’s sad that he couldn’t find that kind of comfort in the world of the ordinary, but it’s good news for his fans. The real Michael Jackson, the consummate performer, the master singer and dancer, will outlive the cartoon that his life offstage created, the one who put put himself through surgery so downright disfiguring it was as if he was trying to parade the scars of his own fame.  The real Michael Jackson is the one we know best, that lanky guy with a cool hat and ridiculous moves, moonwalking across the stage in the spotlight for millions and millions of people. And he will continue to make us dance in night clubs, on the radio, in the archives, for generations.  And one day, long from now, the real Michael Jackson will be all that we remember him for.

Keep on.

-Dev Das