In memoriam of the upcoming 1-year anniversary of the King Of Pop's untimely passing, I thought I would revisit an email thread, between Ricci and Myself ("The Professor") that was written last year on July 2nd 2009.. It came as an impromptu reaction to the, then, SHOCKING news of Michael Jackson's death. Seeing as the 1 year anniversary of that fateful day is fastly approaching, here, in their entirety, were our reactions..and what I found later to be apt TRIBUTES, to a man neither of us thought we would miss as much as we do.
The words you are about to read are the transcript of two emails that were written by Ricci and The Professor on July 2, 2009..[I added the pics to add some sizzle and flava..Mike would have liked it that way..]
RICCI:
Michael Jackson…..
Dead?
I won’t waste time going through the rehashing.
Michael Jackson is dead.
In the words of the Professor: “..Charles Manson –ALIVE!? Michael Jackson – DEAD??”
No balance. No sense. Just plain humbling.
Well in the days since his death (Oh yeah, my sympathies to anyone who died during the Michael Jackson Death YEAR – like Farah etc) I’ve read a few articles online posted on some fairly reputable websites (MSNBC, CNN) which seem to be written by people who clearly do not know WHO Michael Jackson was, which is actually incredible.
We are talking about one of the greatest mutants in the history of man.
Bo Jackson –true mutant.. but “D-Level” when compared to Mike.
Michael Jordan –MUTANT but again, he cant hold the Man In The Mirror’s single shiny glove..
We could write a paragraph of human super-freaks and you will NOT be able to mention ONE who could honestly stand next to Mr. Michael Jackson.
How writers are missing the discussion of the true talent and genius of Jackson is confusing.
The fact that every article, OH, and every segment of broadcast information about him, seem to follow the same pattern is disturbing: Michael Jackson has died, brief clips of him as a child, discussion of him and his brothers in the Jackson 5, quick switch to him performing at the NAACP (BET?) Awards doing his signature “moon walk” (which by the way was being done by several million black teens BEFORE this evening, but heaven forbid we pay attention to black teens –yes SNARKY), then suddenly the discussion turns to allegations ALLEGATIONS of child molestation and plastic surgery.
LOOK, if that is the way you want to discuss one of the FEW TRUE NATURAL BORN PRODIGY/GENIUS HUMANS we may ever witness, FINE. But know this, its LURID. Its WRONG and being a black man, it just seems, as usual, somewhat strange… because I have a really serious gut feeling that if another person, of a different color, was entertaining ADULTS at the age of 5; BLOWING chart topping Motown Greats off of the planet by TEN, selling out SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND TICKETS for a concert in FIVE MINUTES –and is FIFTY!!!!...plus upon his/her death set a RECORD for downloaded music sales online.. I’d be watching many more in-depth features about this singular talent and how the talent will be missed, and how the talent should be appreciated, praised, and again, in the words of The Professor: potentially DEIFIED!
THE PROFESSOR:
Michael Jackson..dead.
Dick Cheney..still livin'..
George Bush..still livin'..
OSAMA BIN LADEN..still livin'..and making MIXTAPES(!)
...and Michael Jackson, DEAD.
Newt Gingrich..still livin'.
Charles MANSON..still livin'.
Kim Jon IL..had a stroke..in a country where starvation is the norm..still livin'.
..and Michael Jackson, DEAD.
Don’t make no kinda damn sense!
I could understand when Jim Morrison, or Hendrix, Joplin or Mama Cass left early..
I could understand why Marilyn Monroe checked out. There was always a quiet, beneath the surface, melancholy in each stunning photograph she took..
I understood Elvis leaving the building in his 40’s. Everyone saw that one coming..with the weight fluctuations, the heavy sweating under hot Vegas lights night in and night out..
But Michael Jackson..?? Devout spiritualist and humanist. A man so squeaky clean, growing up he was the bane of scorn and ridicule.
..and Michael Jackson, dead.
What I keep hearing in the wake of this sudden and tragic passing are eulogies of a “troubled” superstar.. ...“troubled”. Hmmm..
I wonder.
I guess John the Baptist was “troubled” with all the ridicule and animosity he had to endure with all that “messiah” talk.. Damn shame what they did to him when they cut his head off..
Moses, I suspect, was “troubled” seeing as tho he had to run from pharaoh for a living and take an entire “people” to the “promised land”..Some life that must have been..sucks to be him.
And then there was this cat, Jesus. ..Talk about “troubled”! Boy did he have to hear it, huh? With all that “being a Jew” stuff an’ all.. And let’s not talk about the trumped up charges and that execution thing.. Now THAT was “troubled”.
But I’ll be remembering Mike like I remember all those other biblical, larger-than-life, individuals..as superhuman, living deities. If Mike was “troubled” than he was in GOOD company.
Michael Jackson was a once-in-a-planetary-lifespan entity. To wit..ELVIS wasn’t a superstar at NINE years old. And ELVIS didn’t REMAIN relevant his ENTIRE life since childhood. As my colleague Ricci so eloquently put it: “when Elvis died..THAILAND didn’t cry.”..When Michael died someone in THAILAND committed SUICIDE.
The Beatles were a quasar act.. they lit up the landscape, changed the vacuum of space around them and left it forever altered for time to come..but they came quick and went..quicker.
Marilyn Monroe was a product of other people’s projections. She was the original human pitrie dish.. She lived in a shell always looking out wondering..”why is all this attention on me..? what did I do?” You actually did nothing Norma Jean..you just look good and we all wanna wake up next to you.
Michael Jackson, on the other hand, was a genius…a prodigy..a musical force of nature.. Not like the forces of nature, like hurricanes and tornadoes WE know here on earth.. Michael was that perpetual planet-sized red STORM on Jupiter that started before us and will end long after..us. Earth has never known a “Michael Jackson”. And will never see a “Michael Jackson” ever again.
This needs to be eulogized. This needs to shouted. This needs to screamed. Every generation in every corner of the planet has been touched by something Michael Jackson said, sung, or wrote. What other figure can say that..? Perhaps…Jesus? Muhammad? But then again.. “those” guys were polarizing figures..
EVERYBODY loved Michael.
And it SHOULD be stated that Michael Jackson was an American Black Man. Oh, he looked like a kabuki transvestite..but “we” knew that MJ was all showbiz..and underneath..was a Black man.. which I suppose is why the so-called King of Pop is not getting his just due to this writer’s satisfaction.What the critics say wont matter in the long run..
James Brown once said that: “people will ‘feel’ you before they ‘hear’ you.”
The world “felt” Michael Jackson. I suspect the world will know Michael Jackson for the next 500 years.. No matter what revisionists, or skeptics, or naysayers write about this superhuman being known as Michael J. Jackson...the fact remains that this planet has been inextricably altered by the presence of this man.
We “felt” him before we heard him.
