As He Came Into The Window
It Was The Sound Of A Crescendo
He Came Into Her Apartment
He Left The Bloodstains On The Carpet
She Ran Underneath The Table
He Could See She Was Unable
So She Ran Into The Bedroom
She Was Struck Down, It Was Her Doom
Yesterday afternoon at approximately 3:00 PM pacific time, the “King of Pop” passed away. Michael Jackson was a tortured soul and must have lived both a thrilling and a stressful, worried-filled life. While learning his A-B-C’s as a child, he seemed to take no greater joy than being on stage performing. He was a smiling, dancing, happy kid.
After becoming “King of the World” you could see a person that both wanted to heal the world (perhaps as Captain EO), yet despite his success, he had to retreat and isolate himself. He would have to remind himself that he was not alone.
He had odd moments with marriages, odd moments with his own children, and questioned moments with other children.
He was both one of the most celebrated and revered musical artists not just of our time, but in the entire history of the world. But he was also a little off the wall, and confusing to the world. The part that confused me the most, was the fact that by the end of his life, you really couldn’t tell if his appearance was black or white, human or alien. He had multiple surgeries on his face. He just couldn’t help it. He could no longer recognize the man in the mirror.
No matter your perspective–whether your view of him is of a musical dancing genius, or whether you see him as a bad, deranged man– the fact remains that he was a global icon. His popularity went further then just the girl named Billie Jean, but stretched throughout the world. The girls were his, the men were his, the world was his. At the height of his popularity, he could do no wrong. He was invincible. He could even walk on the moon.
He is gone too soon.
News of his death quickly passed around the eInternet and it even caused sites to go down.
News of Jackson’s death spread quickly online, causing many websites to experience technical difficulties under the unanticipated swell of users. Google announced technical difficulties after a sudden swell in searches for “Michael Jackson” led the company to believe it was under attack from hackers, while social networking site Twitter reported a crash after record numbers of users used the site to spread the news of Jackson’s death. Wikipedia itself had temporarily experienced technical difficulties and crashed at 3:15 PDT reportedly due to excessive edits and user overload. Many news organizations were generally very cautious about the initial reports of his death.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jackson#2009:_Death
As I heard the news, and quickly reflected on his life and death I wondered if he would be remembered as Elvis or Buddy Holly are remembered. Author Samuel Roy has argued: “Elvis’ death did occur at a time when it could only help his reputation. Just before his death, Elvis had been forgotten by society.” You could probably say the same about Michael Jackson. He had become an anomaly to culture. Hopefully his death will make people remember the time when they danced, sang, and just couldn’t get enough of his music rather than the disfigured man, sharing wine and beds with boys, trying to free willy. Will Neverland Ranch become his Graceland?
As I contemplated his legacy, I at first thought that although I viewed him as filthy (in the baseball sense–amazingly good), I didn’t have any sort of connection or tie to his music. But then as I thought about it more, I realized that I have 2 (actually, just thought of a third) vivid memories of his music.
The first was when I was only six years old. It was late 1982 and my family was renting a winter cabin for a week or weekend in the mountains. When I was younger this was kind of a tradition. We had another family come visit and share our time for a few days. One of my brothers friends (I think it was Tyler Monroe), brought with him the new Thriller album. We listened to the album non-stop and even pretended we were making a video for it. I also remember being scared and having nightmares of the title track. It was really a freaky song for a newly six year old boy in a dark musty cabin.
My next vivid memory (both of these memories I can still see very clearly in my mind’s eye), took place when I was in junior high school. It was a Sunday morning, and I was waiting in our Volvo (Volvo for life), for my dad to finish chatting with people after church. It was parked on Martincoit road, along the street, right outside my former elementary school that housed our church. I was sitting there listening to the radio, and Casey Casem’s top 40 countdown. The number one song that day was Man in the Mirror. It was a spiritual moment for me, as I sang and cried to the song. It inspired me that day, to want to make myself a better person, to want to help people, and to focus on my own problems, rather than the faults of others. It’s a trait that I have hung onto and grown my entire life–within each problem, fight, scenario that I might encounter, I look to see where I could have blame so that I can attempt to change that pattern in the future. I think this is sometimes a detriment to myself, as I too often claim more blame than I should. But overall I think it is a good concept. Why blame others and hurt them with anger, when I can find and fix the role I played and build up the esteem of the other person?
The third vivid memory that I have in my photographic memory (or would it now be called a videographic memory?), is my senior year in college. It was a week before school started, and I was hanging out preparing for the year with the other R.A’s in my dorm–Erin, Erin, Angeline, Rebecca and Jon. We were setting up our R.A office (does anyone remember “the Dugout?”), using bleach to clean out the mold in the refrigerator from a long summer. We were setting up our pet miniature illegal turtles (what did we name them? M.J was one I think), and getting the entire dorm prepared for the rush of students and the new year. Our dorm,V.K, was shaped similar to how you might view a Motel 6. It was two stories, rectangle in shape, that all surrounded a large green courtyard with cement walkways. While we were busting our humps cleaning, laughing and enjoying new friendships and experiences, we were blasting in the courtyard Jackson’s album, HIStory. We just couldn’t get enough. It was a precious moment in my life, and along with laughter, love, and hope, Jackson was providing the soundtrack.
There are probably many other moments of my life that Michael Jackson provided soundtrack to. But these 3 are the most vivid. I remember them so crisply and can picture them on a loop in my head. Whether I am 6, 12, 21 or now practically 33, his music and life have been integrated with mine.
Will you (if I have any readers) share any specific memories, moments, or flashbacks that you may have had with Jackson and or his songs? How did he make you feel?
President Ronald Reagan and Nancy in 1984 before receiving an award for his contribution to a drunk driving awareness program.
Got up at 5am and left our place at 6:05. We walked a few blocks to the taxi stand outside of 
When we awoke this morning for our last full day here, we headed over to meet up with JeanE and Kathie. Their place is really cool one bedroom, living room, mini kitchen studio-like place right near the 
While my dad was away, my mother sneakily bought a tool that would turn carrots into curly-q designs. She swore she would use it (**its been almost a year now and she has used it once?).
In one corner of the church Cerasi Chapel of Santa Maria del Popolo is the pice called 
From that church we made our way down the street till we reached the 
We continued walking down the streets, till we reached the Trevi Fountain. If the Spanish Steps was the meeting place, this place was the party. Fan upon fan chanting and singing and dancing. What an experience. I am so happy that I am here during this time. Although extremely crowded, I can’t get enough of the revelry. I have a little video, however do note that video and pictures only capture about 1/10th of a story. And indeed, my video is not as loud or as chant full as the experience was.
This big game is in town, and the town –without warning– decides that no alcohol will be sold today anywhere. So there will be no wine with lunch today. This is probably a good thing. But imagine the Super Bowl, or a tailgate party, at the last minute decided that no alcohol could be bought.
After our lunch, we walked over to 
We got on the bus again and headed towards the 
After way too much debate, we decided to go for it. When else would I have this amazing chance? Little did we know the headache that would then occur.
It is always an interesting experience trying to explore a museum with others. Everyone has their own style. Some are fast, some are slow, some like to sit and stare, and others just like to sit.
We snuck out the back door so that we would get directly into St. Peter’s rather than having to wait in the long line at the front of the church. Inside the church, we walked around, touched Peter’s toe, enjoyed the mosaic art and most of all the cool temperatures.
We were there till ab
out 4:30 pm, and then we trekked back to Campo di Fiori and picked up some happy hour snacks. Following that we walked to dinner to an interesting calzone and pumpkin place. Yes, a pumpkin place. Most entrees had pumpkin in it.
We decided to take the double decker bus tour today since we were denied that yesterday. Once again it is a really hot day. We sat on the top deck so that we could enjoy the breeze. However, each stop was rather long, and everytime we stopped we absolutely were baking.
We now went back upstairs and rode the bus till we reached our beginning stop, near Piazza Navona. It was lunch time so we decided to go have lunch near 
It was tiny and there was a bigger side and a smaller side. I wasn’t sure which side to put in the front. The smaller side didn’t really cover much, so I went big in the front, which left it tiny and crammed in the back. It was a nice massage, but I think if I do it again, I will go back to the traditional thai massage. The traditional felt much more beneficial to my body with muscles being stretched and kinks worked out. The oil massage felt too meager. However, the nice comfortable hot shower afterwards felt fantastic.
We grabbed their bags, and took the 4 of them back to our apartment to show them, and drop off the bags. We then went into Piazza Navona and found a resteraunt there and enjoyed a nice meal and some wine together. It was a great and fun reunion.
We have been moving so fast, seeing so much, tiring ourselves out for almost 2 weeks now that I think the lack of sleep is catching up to us. We rested late, but kept worrying if we were gonna over sleep the pope. It is Sunday and I want to see the Pope give his blessing at noon from the 
We are in Rome the week of a large, Super Bowl type event. It is the 
The Pantheon is crowded outside–its another really cool open square with cafe’s–but we make our way thru the people and enter into the building, which isn’t too crowded inside. This is a really cool building with an oculus that lets in rays of sun, and in wet days, rain as well. It holds the tomb of Raphael and is a really cool temperature which is welcoming on this hot and muggy day. I think its one of my favorite things in Rome. It has a ton of history too and is built with great geometric precision. Its a building that has inspired many great buildings and domes around Europe.
We stayed their briefly, catching our glimpse, our pictures, and our dissappointments, and then followed the signs that led to the spanish steps. Now I have never been to the spanish steps, so this will be brand new. It was a long hot walk and my body is really feeling gross and sweaty. The spanish steps aren’t very easy to find, even with a map–at least the first time. After walking these crowded streets, we found these crowded steps and did the italian thing and lounged on them for about 10 minutes. I could do this everyday. Sit here and just people watch. There are really hoards of people here. It’s about 7:00 PM and its sunny, hot, sweaty and crowded. It hasn’t been the most pleasant of days, but the things we have seen have been ridiculously amazing and fun. What a day.
