Friday, 26 June 2009

• Michael Jackson

  I thought Michael Jackson was a freak when I was a kid.  Growing up with deeply religious parents meant that secular TV and pop music were largely mysterious to me, and I learned to glean what I could from little bits of schoolyard gossip, and connect the dots artfully enough to still be able to converse with my friends.  All I knew about Michael Jackson was that I could recognize his silhouette anywhere, he apparently walked like he was on the moon, he learned how to bleach his skin, and he was probably a transsexual.  Despite growing up in Toronto, most of my friends were the first-generation Canadian offspring of immigrants from Hong Kong.  The eccentricities of western pop culture eluded our parents, and they were naturally rather judgemental.

  My exposure to music was extremely limited.  By the time I entered high school I was finishing up on my classical piano training, and as a repressed, awkward and angry tweenager I listened exclusively to rock.  Rage Against the Machine, Beastie Boys, Bush (or Bush X), Smashing Pumpkins, Our Lady Peace and Prodigy were my staples.  Over the next few years, my musical preferences would evolve with my friends, and I went through a number of phases, from listening to Christian Rock to smoking a blunt and pumping Tupac in the car when I first got my license.

  These few years are but a blur in my head.  During the day I'd go to my locker and drop off my backpack.  Then I'd hop on the bus and visit all of my friends' schools, hang-out, smoke a few blunts while playing cards, drink their parents' liquor, and pass out at kareoke.  In the afternoon I'd work part-time at the bank or at an engineering firm doing I/T support.  At night I'd head downtown to a music studio where for a while I was producing hip hop beats, smoking more blunts, and drinking Jamaican rum.  My parents were strict but they had no way of keeping me in the house.  I was a reckless, feckless teenager and looking back, I must have broke my mom's heart on a daily basis.  I remember coming home high quite a few times, throwing up at the door, and going to bed while my mom would cry.  Hurts to even think about it.  I really can't explain what I was thinking.  I just wasn't.

  Eventually I would get kicked out of high school for breaking the record for number of absences.  Aside from sucking at a few courses that I can't remember, my marks were all in the high 80's and low 90's.  Despite only showing up to class once every few weeks, high as a kite from the chronic and sometimes drunk, I think a good portion of my teachers liked me.  Some teachers and counselors even advocated on my behalf, only to get reprimanded by an overzealous vice-principal (who later broke her leg during an assembly, and got her office firebombed).  Eventually I managed to avoid official expulsion and was merely transferred to another high school.

  My new school was far less ghetto than my first one, and I had fewer people to impress.  With nobody to judge me for my musical preferences, and not many friends to talk to, I'd often walk over to the mall across the street during my smoke breaks and buy CD's to pop into my Discman.  It was during this time that I had finally discovered Michael Jackson, far after his "prime" and well into the period that most would consider to be his darker days.  I'd heard Billie Jean on the radio several times before and remembered it vaguely.  But now that this shit was pumping in my earphones at maximum volume, I felt like I had an epiphany.  For once, outside of the sphere of peer influence, I fell in love with what I was hearing.  The simplicity of the drumming, the groove of the bassline, the feel of the "pocket", the minimalist beat punctuated by the 2s and 4s, the funky guitars.  I didn't fully understand all these things at the time, but I certainly knew I enjoyed it.  Immensely.

  Shortly afterwards I joined a band as a drummer, and I'll admit I wasn't great.  I had developed a fair amount of technique through years of playing at church, but I had absolutely no feel for the kind of music we were playing - R&B, funk, and soul.  It was all mysterious to me, but I started to take interest in it.  Most of the band members were significantly older than me, and I think my taste as a musician began to evolve and mature a bit.

  I left town to go to University and except for a few appearances here and there, that was pretty much it for me as a musician.  I went to New York City at the end of August 2001 before heading off to school, and while I was standing on the top of the World Trade Center with my mom, my boy Fergus called me and told me Aaliyah had died.

  Then came frosh week, September 2001.  I still remember talking on the phone with a girl I was dating, with N'Sync's Dirty Pop in the background.  "What the fuck are you listening to?" I asked.  She told me the VMA's were on.  Suddenly, the song ended ("pop!  pp-p-p-p-p-pop!) I could hear a lot of noise in the background.

  "Hey, Michael Jackson's making a surprise performance!" she exclaimed.  "But he's not very good anymore."

  "What do you mean?" I asked.  She explained that his dancing seemed unplanned and rushed.  I'd never seen Michael Jackson dance, and I actually didn't even really know what he looked like.  So I got curious.

  I got a new computer for school, and it was the first time I owned something that could play DVD's.  I went out and bought Michael Jackson's HIStory DVD's.  I'd never heard of Smooth Criminal, so it was the first video I decided to watch.  I wasn't too impressed with the awkward beat in the intro, and the 80's feel didn't appeal to me.  But the second the music started, I was transfixed.  To this day, the first Michael Jackson music video I watched remains my favourite music video, ever.  I can still watch it for hours on end today.  I soon became a full-fledged Michael Jackson fan, and during the early, pre-YouTube days of sharing mass-media on the Internet, I started watching everything from his early performances on the Ed Sullivan show to his brilliant medley performance with Slash during the 1995 MTV music awards.

  A few days later, on September 10th, 2001, Michael Jackson had the 2nd of his 2-concert 30th Anniversary tour at Madison Square Garden, in New York City, with the Jackson 5, Britney Spears, Usher, Mya, Whitney Houston, N'Sync, Shaggy, Destiny's Child, and many other guests.

  The next day, while buying textbooks at the University Bookstore, I watched in absolute horror as the same World Trade Center that I had set foot on just 2 weeks earlier collapsed.  This shook me in a way that I could never quite explain.  Perhaps symbolically it representated the fragility of things that I thought would always be there, things I always took for granted.  I think, however, that the events of 9/11 made me question religious fundamentalism.

  I don't know what it was about these first few weeks of my university career that kickstarted my interest in a new type of music, but the more I listened to Michael Jackson, the more I became interested in his Motown roots.  Then I started listening to James Brown, the Temptations, and Chaka Khan.  I started studying Chaka and discovered that she had collaborated with this other mysterious name that I had heard often during my childhood:

  0(+>, or the artist known as Prince formerly known as the Artist formerly known as Prince.

  Prince was another curious figure that, like Michael, I had perceived to be an androgynous freakshow with limited talent.  I discovered just how wrong I was when I went his July 2004 Musicology concert in Toronto.  I stood for 3 straight hours (along with the entire arena), jamming along to tunes that I didn't know could sound so very fucking funky.  I started listening to a lot more shit after this point - D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, Common, the Roots, Lauryn Hill, Parliament Funk, Earth Wind and Fire, the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, the Brand New Heavies, Raphael Saddiq, and Jill Scott.

  I didn't know what funky was until then.  Funky music broke all of the rules I had learned during my classical training and countless theory exams.  Actually playing this shit broke a lot of mental barriers for me, not just in terms of music, but life in general.  I realized that a lot of the morals and paradigms that I grew up with were not absolute - they were merely fictitious constructs that were heavily influenced by social values and norms.

  This realization was a liberating experience for me, as I began to learn how to appreciate duality or relativity in life.  Learning to see music and life from new angles gave me a new imperative - to strive to understand things from as many perspectives as possible before placing judgement.  It was what changed my views about religion, world politics, sexual orientation, and economics.

  I see these phases as critical events that dramatically altered the course of my life in a very fundamental way, leading up to a period of personal enlightenment.

  It all started with a Michael Jackson CD.

  Now, 12 hours after his death, there's a lot of chatter about his "controversial" life.  I really don't understand what the fuck people are rabbiting on about.  I really don't give a fuck about his personal life.  The lawsuits, the criminal investigations, hanging a baby over the balcony.  For one, I don't know that they're necessarily true; he was after-all acquitted of all of the charges laid on by an arguably over-zealous prosecutor and money-grubbing mom.  But more importantly, it's none of my fucking business.  Seriously.  This guy was a fucking entertainer, not the Pope. 

  Some people thought he was demented and perverted.  I think however, that given his childhood, upbringing, and incomprehensible pressures, I totally understand why he turned out how he did.  I understand the odd behaviour, the strange values, the desire to stay young, the mental, and emotional confusion from years of departure from reality, his obssession over his apperance, his lack of confidence from growing up as a cute and adorable kid and transforming into a teen with awkward features, acne and a big nose, and the emotional and social impact of having blotches of white skin from vitiligo.  How does one who is introduced to celebrity status far before puberty, and then within months is subjected to extended periods of isolation, security, body guards, rehearsals and endless tours supposed to understand the complexities of human relationships and sexuality?  He didn't grow up roofing tennis balls and playing red ass or baseball.  He didn't grow up being chased around by girls with cooties.

  I don't know if he did anything perverted, inappropriate or abusive with those kids.  If he did I would condemn him for it just like anyone else.  But I do have a great deal of compassion and empathy for his circumstances.  His situation was unprecedented - international child star.  I can't possibly comprehend what he went through, whether good or bad.  And I highly doubt anyone else can truly say they know how they'd act in his shoes.  I really doubt it.

  Through my lens, Michael Jackson was a brilliant entertainer who had a remarkable passion for music, and inspired countless millions, and me, while he was at it.

  Furthermore, his life taught me that success in life or business isn't always formulaic.  Michael Jackson's brilliance was largely intangible.  He was a great singer.  But let's face it; there are many who can sing "better" than he can.  He was a great dancer who revolutionized the genre.  But he didn't invent the moonwalk, and there are better dancers.  He was a brilliant "total package", but I also think you could probably find a better singer/dancer combination out there.  I'd argue (and probably get stoned for it) that Usher sings better live and is an equally good, if not better, dancer.  But I'm sure that even Usher would attest - he is no Michael Jackson.  There simply is no real comparison.

  I think he was brilliant precisely because you can't explain his brilliance.  He just had...something about him that was absolutely charismatic, magnetic and enigmatic.  The X factor, the "it" factor, call it whatever you want.  You can't measure it, you can't even describe it, and so you can't duplicate it.  You can do all the same dance moves, and sing exactly the same way, but only Michael Jackson had that level of emotional connection and intensity.  Diddy was just on Larry King saying that Michael made him believe in magic.  I know that sounds corny.  But I agree.  Nobody can really define what made him great.  Watching his life story, listening to his music, and watching his videos, it really was magic.

  Rest in peace, and thank you for the happiness that you brought to my life.

   

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