Michael Jackson, RIP
9 a.m.:In the Michael Jackson memorial warm-up show on MSNBC, broadcasters blather over a screen split between Forest Lawn, where a private funeral service is happening, and Staples Center, where nothing is happening at all. Somebody comments on how nice and sunny it is downtown, how typically L.A. that is, which annoys me - it's still overcast in my neck of the woods, miles from the beach. Where's a split screen when you really need one?
To fill the void (which winds up being longer than anticipated), anchors and talking heads test the limits of respectability on this day of international mourning. They free-associate a eulogy of their own. Yes, MJ was a great artist, they say carefully, but how about those child molestation accusations? No, he wasn't found guilty, but...where do we put that in his legacy? Victim's rights attorney Gloria Allred is more measured than I expect. "I don't think the people gathered here are thinking about that," she says. True. She sums up by saying that while MJ was a creative genius, he was not a guy whose personal behavior anybody should emulate. Also true, though I'm hard-pressed to think of any celebrity under the age of 60 who died in the last decade whose private behavior was worthy of emulation: Rick James, James Brown (he was 70, but a lifelong exception to the rules of age) Anna Nicole Smith, Heath Ledger, David Foster Wallace, Hunter Thompson....you get the idea.
I realize watching TV that L.A. is truly the center of global attention today in a way it hasn't been since Robert Kennedy was assassinated at the Ambassador forty years ago. A seminal figure much more impactful than Kennedy has died here and is being laid to rest here, and we're hosting the gathering. I'm used to the attention, but not the crowds. L.A. is a city noted mostly by camera; it's viewed from a distance, not up close. Not today.
10:10: Mariah Carey's version of "I'll Be There" is full of the histrionics that feel inappropriate, and unfaithful to Michael's original that was charming because it was so straightforward. Weird to see young Michael's original image of unadulterated blackness up behind Mariah, a racially coy figure who sings black, sells black, and has made her fortune with that titillating contrast. Kind of the inverse of MJ.
Maya Angelou's epitaph/poem, read by classy Queen Latifah, balances it out somewhat. "Beloved, now we know that we know nothing" is a line for the ages.
11:15: It dawns on me watching Jennifer Hudson singing Michael's gospel-tinged "Hold Me" that this is a black funeral. It's on a bigger scale than usual, but still - the invocations of God and good works, the music, the speakers themselves, the homey testimonies, the acknowledgement by Kobe and Magic of MJ's importance in black history, the blue-carpted dais...it's Staples as megachurch today. Can we get a witness? We got millions.
11:50: Jermaine's rendition of "Smile" is lovely, and his trembling tenor voice sounds startlingly like his departed brother's. This comes after Brooke Shields' tribute that cracks the shield of solemnity in the service thus far and gets personal. Michael was sweet, funny, caring, guileless and loved to laugh. Michael's image looming over it all, arm outstretched, is like a figure of Jesus. Did he die for our sins, or for his own?
12:45: Now begins the eulogy of the eulogy by the media who have sat by in rare silence as this memorial took place. Did I say black funeral? Indeed, down to the procession of preachers and the presentation of a framed plaque by a government official, in this case Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee. Whatever the status of the person who spoke, this service was as family as it gets. Despite the size of the Staples Center and the scope of the event, the event itself was small, warm and specific. Despite MJ's unprecedented fame and reach, his public goodbye reflected that side of him that only wanted friendship and reconciliation, something that didn't happen enough in his life.
I was on my feet for the reprise of "We Are the World" and "Heal the World." If those songs were naive when they came out in the '80s, they're absolutely hoary today, in a post-9/11, post-information, tech-besotted world that's all but given up trying to distinguish between truth and lies, good intentions and bad, war and peace. But that didn't matter today. The naivete resonated simply and powerfully among folks who stood and held hands around the world, from L.A. to Harlem to London. Love is what we need, don't have enough of, can't stop getting enough of. That's truly MJ's legacy, belief in the goodness of things in the face of all evidence to the contrary. He believed it at his peril sometimes, believed it stupidly at his darkest moments. But belief and showing your heart, no matter what, is what he was about and what the world will remember "forever and ever and ever," aS Smokey Robinson said. May he rest in peace, and may the rest of us make peace to live in while we're still here.
