Another Tragic Loss
Thursday, July 02, 2009
No, this one has nothing to do with business. I'm talking about Michael Jackson.
I can't defend -- or, really, comprehend -- much of what he's done starting around 20 years ago. The numerous plastic surgeries ... the skin bleaching ... the incredibly sketchy relationships with young boys which very well may have been sexual ... all of that. It's been obvious for a very long time that Michael sustained a deep level of trauma at an early age, and while I'm not going to armchair-psychologize, his attempt to morph his physical body into a figure most closely resembling an anorexic Caucasian woman is a pretty much indisputable sign of deep internal self-hatred.
Rather, I'd like to remember Michael at his prime. I have friends ranging in age from 20 to 60+, and in conversations the past few days with the younger end of that spectrum -- who weren't yet alive when Jackson fever reached its apex -- it's hard to explain the phenomenon, much like I can't rationally process "Beatle mania" because it happened so long before I was born. Still, I'm happy to admit that the first concert I ever saw as a young boy was The Jacksons at Texas Stadium in 1984, and I vividly recall the hysteria that accompanied every aspect of it, including the unprecedented requirement of purchasing a minimum of four tickets at $30 each. Although today such a figure seems laughable -- the best seats at a Stones show are at least ten times that -- it was highly controversial at the time, and Michael received significant negative publicity over the fact that his ardent lower-income fans couldn't afford such an outlay. If I recall correctly, they ended up loosening the four-ticket-minimum restriction, but tickets were still in such demand that a lottery system was in place to obtain them, so we considered ourselves privileged when we landed seats for the Dallas show -- never mind that our designated seats were at the opposite end of the stadium as the stage, and it was impossible to see them perform minus the Jumbotrons erected for the event.
Though ostensibly a "Jackson Five reunion," everyone knew that it was all about Michael, and his solo hits took precedence. Still, the air in the stadium that night was electric in a way I haven't seen since, and when the crowd burst into hysterics once Michael busted out the moonwalk during "Billie Jean," I could for the first time understand what all the Beatlemania fuss two decades earlier was about.
I can't defend -- or, really, comprehend -- much of what he's done starting around 20 years ago. The numerous plastic surgeries ... the skin bleaching ... the incredibly sketchy relationships with young boys which very well may have been sexual ... all of that. It's been obvious for a very long time that Michael sustained a deep level of trauma at an early age, and while I'm not going to armchair-psychologize, his attempt to morph his physical body into a figure most closely resembling an anorexic Caucasian woman is a pretty much indisputable sign of deep internal self-hatred.
Rather, I'd like to remember Michael at his prime. I have friends ranging in age from 20 to 60+, and in conversations the past few days with the younger end of that spectrum -- who weren't yet alive when Jackson fever reached its apex -- it's hard to explain the phenomenon, much like I can't rationally process "Beatle mania" because it happened so long before I was born. Still, I'm happy to admit that the first concert I ever saw as a young boy was The Jacksons at Texas Stadium in 1984, and I vividly recall the hysteria that accompanied every aspect of it, including the unprecedented requirement of purchasing a minimum of four tickets at $30 each. Although today such a figure seems laughable -- the best seats at a Stones show are at least ten times that -- it was highly controversial at the time, and Michael received significant negative publicity over the fact that his ardent lower-income fans couldn't afford such an outlay. If I recall correctly, they ended up loosening the four-ticket-minimum restriction, but tickets were still in such demand that a lottery system was in place to obtain them, so we considered ourselves privileged when we landed seats for the Dallas show -- never mind that our designated seats were at the opposite end of the stadium as the stage, and it was impossible to see them perform minus the Jumbotrons erected for the event.
Though ostensibly a "Jackson Five reunion," everyone knew that it was all about Michael, and his solo hits took precedence. Still, the air in the stadium that night was electric in a way I haven't seen since, and when the crowd burst into hysterics once Michael busted out the moonwalk during "Billie Jean," I could for the first time understand what all the Beatlemania fuss two decades earlier was about.