Requisite Michael Jackson Blog Post

I figure that, although you may not care where I was when I heard he died, or what my best memory of his music is, it is necessary to preserve these memories for posterity, because, for years, we'll all be putting on Thriller, having a wine spritzer and saying, "Where were you when you found out he died?"

At least, those of us who aren't going to be out there denying he is dead are going to be doing that.

I found out yesterday when my plane landed in Oakland, around 3 p.m. The woman in front of me must have checked her voicemail messages, because she exclaimed, "Oh my God! My sister cannot be telling me this! She knows I am on a trip! Is she fooling with me!? I can't take THIS and Farrah Fawcett dying on the same day!"

I was intrigued. Who was the mystery person that this woman held more closely to her heart than Farrah Fawcett? It couldn't be a family member, since she probably would be crying or her sister would not be THAT cruel. So I hurried off the plane and checked like four different applications on my phone to see who was reporting a death more profound than Farrah Fawcett's. Twitter aced it. My first thought was to call my cousin in LA, but decided that she might think that was wierd. Not so wierd that she didn't call me literally as I was having that thought though. I hadn't even realized that she and I had ever particularly bonded over MJ.

She said that her sister (another cousin) had once had a lengthy conversation with Farrah Fawcett in a bathroom at a party in LA, and she was wondering how her sister was holding up, under all the news.

So back to Michael Jackson. I never got to see him in concert or anything. I remember my aunts went to the Jackson Brothers reunion tour. I got the Thriller album for my birthday one year. Probably the first record I ever got. And in fifth grade, our school hosted a party at a local roller rink. The rink usually projected videos during the skating, but because it was a Catholic school, the rink didn't offer that entertainment this night. However, a grassroots movement to get the DJ to show the Thriller video was successful. I was "thrilled" because I had never seen it before. The video didn't even show for 2 minutes before some kid started crying and her mom made the DJ shut it down. Everyone was so mad at that girl. It was all we could talk about. It taught me a lot about how long the very powerful will let grassroot movements go before they crush them, I can tell you that.

Also that night, I wanted to wear a cut-off sweatshirt and my mom made me put a Polo shirt on underneath it (seriously). So when I got there, I took the Polo off and hid it in a locker, but then my mom got there early and I had skate faster than I ever have in my life to find the shirt and go into the bathroom to put it back on before she saw me. Again, it taught me a lot about how far I could go with my fake-ass sexuality before the very powerful would crush it.

I think Michael would understand that.