HIS Story

I was woken up by a teary phone call early in the a.m.

'Michael Jackson is dead!'

Sleepy as I was, that line jolted me to 100% wakefulness. I ran into the living room and turned on the television. So the teary phone call was not drunken gibberish, it was true. The man really was dead.

And I don't know why, but I felt a stab of loss and sorrow wrench my heart. Quite understandable, I suppose, the man was a legend, a prodigious musical talent. And unlike the other pop monsters, he really lived up to his title, 'King of Pop'.

His music was a huge part of my childhood, without me even knowing it. I've never owned a tape or cd of his, yet I know all his tunes, and the lyrics to some of his songs. And I've always thought him to be the greatest stage performer that ever lived. Madonna, who calls herself the Pop Princess really doesn't even begin to compare. To me, she will always be the Queen of Gimmicks, a true expert on reinventing and selling oneself to the world. But MJ was just pure raw talent all the way.

As a musician, his death is affecting me in ways I never expected it to. And this sort of thing has happened to me once before, when a theatre director whom I'd worked with passed away very suddenly. I didn't cry that much at the funerals of family members. And the truth is, I wasn't mourning the loss of a person, but of their work and the tremendous effect that body of work had on me. Same goes for MJ.

I'm sure I'm not alone in this. When I walked into the kitchen this morning and announced it to my mom, even my maid seemed shocked and saddened by it. Like her, most of the world is going to mourn the loss of his phenomenal musical contribution.

But now, for the ugly part, the child-molestation scandal. How many of you have NOT heard an MJ joke on the matter? Sure, he was acquitted, and the media finally stopped torturing him, but the man never recovered from that episode. Now that he's no more, the same media is praising him, his contribution, mentioning how, even at the trial, he was enough of a performer to get up on a car and dance for his fans. Well well, the winds have certainly changed direction.

I suppose even the common man tends to eulogize when the occasion is death. But why do we feel the need to condemn the living? Take MJ for instance, now I'm not here to judge whether or not he was guilty of the charges made against him. And quite honestly, I don't care. I know a lot of people who've done worse, and have never had to pay the price for it. I've seen the footage of his ranch, 'Neverland', it really reminds me of one of his songs, 'Childhood'. It's the price most child artists pay for their privileged lives. And then, somehow, it makes sense, his whole connection with children.

His life was unconventional to say the least, bizzarre at times, amazing most of the times, and good or bad, we shall all miss him.

May his soul rest in peace. Amen.