(Sorry to further overload you with this topic which has already been beaten to death like an angora baby seal.)Perhaps due to my recent carnival experience where I went as Michael Jackson (above), several people left messages of condolences for me after hearing the news. Now, I have never been a fan per-see, as I wrote in February (including that short clip of me dancing in the street), although I have always recognised and tried to promote his awesomeness, and I count myself lucky to be just old enough to remember him as the incredible superstar that he was.
At first, I didn't know what to think. I have always said that he was dead to me after 1993 at the latest, probably earlier. But upon hearing the news, I sat down and watched some CNN reports on the news just after midnight. Then, I put on my black jacket, found my costume hat, and went downstairs to where the neighbours were drinking around a fire. (They are always there) So, there we were, drinking, laughing, reminiscing about MJ, but mostly laughing and drinking, until 4am. I hadn't been planning on drinking at all. At one stage, we heard a classic MJ number playing a few apartments further down. We went along and shared the love. Remember, I was kind of impersonating MJ at the time, which fooled them into thinking I was a hardcore fan. That led to me getting the honour to say a toast, which was something like this:
"Dear God, by which I mean Michael, may you one day dance on our graves like we would like to dance on yours."
It seemed so appropriate, in line with the disturbing and complicated relationship between reverence and ridicule of such a legend. I still don't know what to think, but it surely does put it everything into perspective. No, I'm not talking about the preciousness of life, but the preciousness of good music. The next day, the first of the post-MJ-era, the music channel had devoted the entire day to him. I watched so much, until I actually felt sad. Why did we have to wait so long for this? Can we make this a yearly event? Ideally, MTV should just be a permanent cycle of his music. I mean, the only thing on the airwaves nowadays is generic, manufactured, chemically refined music, sung by shallow, generic, surgically altered, media-refined, attention-and conventional- whores. I am not remotely suggesting that MJ wasn't part of this, hell, he might have invented it. But his music and performance was genius, and hopefully now we can agree and move on.
This also signals a break for me with pop music. It is officially dead to me. Why bother with it anymore? And in this frame of mind, I am entering the just-started music festival season in Holland, to see bands who hopefully will never be shown on TV, at least during times when nudity is prohibited. I have forgotten my point here, but it might have something to do with nudity.
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