I know I am behind on posting about this. It has been everywhere for the last 5 days and some people are probably sick of hearing about it. And to be honest I have been going back and forth on whether I was going to blog about it. But as I sit here and watch again the special on dateline from a few years back I decided I wanted to write even if nobody reads it.
On Thursday when I heard the news I really was in shock, like many. It just didn’t seem real. It still doesn’t. It’s hard to understand why a celebrities death would affect someone when they had never met them and didn’t really know them. But with Michael Jackson I think it was different. What has been reported by millions of news outlets can definitely be seen to be true. Michael’s music is one that connected people no matter what age, color, or social status they were.
There are many people who can’t get past the negative controversy that came to Michael in his later life. I am not going to sit here and try to deny or defend anything because no one really knows and we will never know. But what I have done is looked past all of that negativeness and focused on what he gave us…the music…the soundtrack to our lives. If we think about it, when someone dies, most of the time people talk about the good things that happened in that persons life. They don’t sit there and discuss every mistake that person made. So, that’s what I’ve decided to do.
Growing up I was introduced to Michael’s music at a young age. My mom loved it. We had an old record player and I remember we had the Thriller and Bad records. Where those are now, I have no idea. I also remember having an Off the Wall tape. It’s so crazy to think back about how far music has come along where you can now have all your music in a little iPod.
One of my favorite memories, and my sister can remember and attest to this, is watching the music video Thriller. I know everyone loves it, but as young kid it was my all time favorite. For a lot of people it scared them when they were little. But not me. My sister was one of those kids though. One time it came on when our family was playing monopoly and my mom had to take my sister to her room while I watched it. I still like to tease her about her playing with window stickers instead of watching it.
Something I loved more than Thriller though, was Moonwalker. There was so much cool stuff in this movie: animation, dancing, transformations etc. One thing everyone remembers is the “lean” during Smooth Criminal (which is my sisters song…Annie are you OK, are you OK Annie?). The only thing I could have done without is the spiders, lol. And they had to be all over the little teddy bear. GROSS. I am just waiting now for them to release this on DVD in the U.S.
I am a big Disney fan. Disneyland has made some great additions, but one thing that I have always missed is the Captain Eo attraction. This was the 3-D movie that MJ did. I remember loving it. The one thing that stands out is when the bad guy sticks his long nails out at the audience. Classic for 3-D, but so scary as kid. And I of course I thought it was the coolest. The best thing Disney could do, is take out that stupid Honey I Shrunk the Audience and put Captain Eo in again. I would be on a plane in a second to go see that and I would wait in the longest line for it.
On facebook, there was an application going around and it asked for your top 5 Michael Jackson songs. I actually had this discussion with a group friends and we all picked what are top 5 were. It really is hard for me to choose, but here are my top 5: 1. PYT (Pretty Young Thing) 2. Human Nature 3. She’s Out of My Life 4. Man in the Mirror 5. Smooth Criminal.
I have made an MJ playlist with 35 songs, and I have kept it on repeat since Thursday. I don’t know why, but I just can’t stop. And I am of course listening to it while I type this.
Last night I watched the BET Awards (thank God we recorded them cause they basically sucked) and got to see Janet make her statement to the public. It was so hard to watch. Anyone watching just had to feel for her. I couldn’t imagine how it would feel to lose a sibling, but then to have to be in the public and the media going through that loss is even harder. Especially when your brother has been in the limelight their whole lives and everyone has their own opinions about him that they are not afraid to vocalize even in a difficult time. And my heart goes out to his kids. I know how it feels to lose a father as a child and it is a tough thing, no matter who your dad is.
So if you have any MJ stories/memories or want to share what your favorite MJ song is I would love to hear about it. And if you don’t like what I wrote or hate MJ than please don’t use my comment box to voice yourself. Get your own blog and do it there. I’ll just delete your comments. I’m sendin’ out the positivity vibes 🙂
Hope you all have a wonderful night and here is an MJ performance that is so moving to me and it happens to be one of my top 5 :). Until next time…PEACE OUT!
The One... 