Thoughts on the King of Pop and others...

I must have forgotten how young Michael Jackson started his music career because I was fairly certain he was older than fifty. It was a tough week in Celebrity Hills with Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett...and Jackson. And I think I even heard yesterday the infomercial guy passed too? What is going on? I thought these type things come in "3's"...or so I once heard. The passing of Michael Jackson is absolutely shocking to me, as it was for the bulk of the world I am sure. When I first heard, I was walking out of my office and our receptionist said, "Look at the TV on CNN...Michael Jackson just died." Stuff is weird. I didn't cry or nothing, but as I got into the car and turned on news radio, I did give some of my drive time to the thought of Michael Jackson and his music. In fact, I think I brought it up on my iPod in the car. I thought of several things: (1) You know that country song 19 Something by Mark Wills? In that song there is a line that talks about the past in the 1970's and he says "I was a kid when Elvis died, and my momma cried..." Well, strangely, I thought about my daughter Alexandra saying "I was kid when Michael Jackson died...etc." I mean, this is huge. Michael Jackson is WAY bigger than Elvis ever was. Sure, a different era and time and place and Elvis died very young, not able to carry on more. I even got into a debate over who's loss of life would be more significant, Jackson's or that of Paul McCartney. Without a doubt, Michael Jackson. Jackson is way bigger in stature than any one Beatle, any of them. The Beatles group is massive and I understand the impact regardless. Anyways...(2) I also thought about the first time I ever happened to listen to Michael Jackson's music. It was his Off The Wall album that my father owned. I didn't listen to it much because I was very young, however...Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough is one of my all-time favorites to this day. As I have been watching all the Michael Jackson tribute shows on TV the last few days...I sit back and reminisce about how much that guy accomplished! How many hits, how many stories (bad and good), all the images (his hair being burned during that Pepsi commerical comes to mind, as well as him holding the baby off that balcony). Mostly I remember the video's. All of them were fantastic. While all are good in their own way, I sort of liked Smooth Criminal and Leave Me Alone. Smooth Criminal because I sit there and can watch it to this day and be awed by that man's dancing moves. How the heck did he do that? When he leaned over...amazing! I liked Leave Me Alone because of the deeper messages mixed up in not only the song lyrics, but also the way it portrayed in a video. It was profound on how Michael Jackson really must have felt about his life. Can anyone in normal circumstances imagine what his life was like day to day? Toss away your feelings about whether he was a pedifile (debateable) and all that garbage and just think about how sheltered he was as a child, never experiencing childhood for what it really was, and then never to be able to go anywhere, ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, and have his own space and thoughts and privacy. He was sheltered. Sure, many of us have thought, "Give me a break, I don't feel sorry for someone making millions of dollars, etc. etc. etc." But don't you? I feel sorry for Michael honestly. The man, quite frankly, could change the world through his music, his humanitarian efforts...His music was inspiring to me and although my daughter doesn't understand the impact of his music or life, I certainly do.