He's Out of My Life
I didn't realize how disorienting Michael Jackson's death was to me until Friday night. The shock had first registered only as a major news event, like Hurricane Katrina or 9/11, and I promptly went into CNN-watching mode like the rest of the country, breathlessly awaiting more details about MJ's demise that would make it bigger and more celebrity-worthy. Was it suicide by painkillers? Physician-assisted self-destruction? Foul play? A cleverly staged but bizarre opening act to Michael's summer comeback tour? A back-from-the-dead "Thriller" episode in real time?
Over the hours, the wild possibilities receded into a plain fact: Michael was gone. Alone with that fact by Friday, I felt a sudden, enormous loss. The Jackson 5 were a huge part of my musical orientation that started in childhood with the second-wave r & b sounds that picked up where the doo-woppers of the '50s had left off. Groups like the J5, Temptations and O'Jays were smooth, even sweet, but assertive in a way their predecessors weren't allowed to be. The new day of the '60s found its way into hits like "I Want You Back," with its crashing piano chords and thrumming bass line, and Michael's voice, prefacing it all with "Let me tell ya now, uh huh" that grabbed the attention of lots of girls older than eleven.
But the energy wasn't just sexual; it was personal. As Michael the child adult morphed into Michael the adult child, I stuck with him. I stood by his right to live as a recluse who still wore his heart on his sleeve. He was maybe the first black performer to be so publicly vulnerable; to questions about his face and other controversial matters he had no cryptic lines or canned answers. He lacked the hard emotional shell common, even necessary, to generations of black American artists who assumed that although the world loved their music, it was not interested in their inner lives. In being himself, Michael reversed that equation and broke the color barrier of pop stars whose personal stories, foibles and all, resonated well beyond their music. Elvis might have been the king, but it was his troubled career and stalwart naiveté and that made him legend. The same can now be said of Michael.
It was these thoughts that pushed me out of the house on Friday night, away from the television and into the streets, seeking camaraderie in my sadness just as so many folks were doing all over the world. I went down to Leimert Park, and found a kind of homespun tribute underway: next to a boom box set atop a wooden wagon, people were doing their best Michael Jackson moves to tunes like "PYT" and "Billie Jean." It was joyous and spontaneous, not to mention surreal--the most energetic tribute was given by a man the crowd called Grandpa Flagg, a wiry guy with snow-white hair who dipped, spun, and grabbed his crotch to prolonged whistles and cheers. Next to him was a younger man in a big polo shirt, solemnly performing one of the signature head-swerving moves from the "Thriller" video.
It was all mad, but touching. We wanted to get Michael right. He would have appreciated that.
