480: The King is Dead
I received the news almost first thing in the morning on Friday but it's taken a while to sort my head out, to understand the emptiness. 

Friday morning was just another morning. Struggle awake, de-zombify and go to work. Until my dad walked in while my eyes were still bleary and said "Michael Jackson is dead."

First thought? Shit no, that's a terrible ploy to get me to wake up. So I blinked. And gave him the stare of the semi-conscious myopic. He realised that I hadn't processed any of the above so he said it again, "No really, it's all over the news this morning."

Then it really sank in.

Not a hoax, not a lie, The King Is Dead.

For most people my age, it won't mean very much. An icon they've heard of, a vague notion of someone whose influences pervade the bulk of youth-centric media. Our songs, our videos, there's a bit of him in them all. Yet, few have actually listened to that ground-breaking album titled Thriller, the best-selling album of all time or watched even a handful from the dozens of ingenious short films/music videos he crafted that were so hugely part of MTV's early founding and success.  

But for me, well, let's just say that if this had happened 7 years ago, my world would have stopped spinning and ended right there. I would have wailed and gnashed my teeth, I'd have skipped classes and spent my time staring out windows or at blank TV screens because there would have been no point in anything at all. 

He was the first performer I ever truly loved independant of anyone in my family. Queen I got from my dad, Sinatra from my mom but Michael Jackson, that was all me. Five years old, folks, when I watched Moonwalker and probably 7 when I saw him perform live on TV. It was love, love, love everywhere and for always.

Today I can gush about his choreography, his absolute dedication to his music at every stage of production, his creativity and concepts, his personality and charisma. Today I can write essays about why I love him but back then, Ladybird books were about my intellectual standard. What I did know was his smile and his fire.

Say what you like about his appearance over the years but the smile of Michael Jackson is an amazing thing. It isn't about what you see but what you feel. Not those close-lipped smiles that were such a strain to put on for the media but the ones he brought out in his concerts and on the screen. It was warm, beautiful and it would take a heart of stone to be unmoved by it. There was just this incredible purity and delight that came through with it. It wasn't those stripperific antics of his that got women's hearts a-beating like wild horses (though they certainly helped) but that smile of his. Wicked, never at your expense, inviting and genuine. It could be a million things but it was always Great.

And that Fire of his, in the way he sang and danced. Good God, I have rarely seen anyone so Brilliantly Alive. It was fierce and awesome but not intimidating. He didn't inspire fear but admiration. It was an inspiration, a damn-near spiritual experience because if watching him on fire like that didn't move someone to be bigger, better and just More, I don't know what will.

So I didn't know the words then but I understood the feelings well enough. I had never seen anything more amazing or anyone so liberated which was why he became my idol for the next decade or so.

In primary school, I entered and won on online competition for his four albums. (With the help of Dear Ol' Dad of course. I wasn't THAT well-versed. At the time.) I always attempted the radio ones but those were just impossible bloody things. I mourned his inactivity. I prayed to God every night that he would make a comeback. Or be re-incarnated as his Bad self so that we could leap joyfully into the Sunset for a Happy Ending. I conned my dad into buying glossy paper and coaxed our pathetic bubblejet to print picture after picture of The Gloved One after ruthlessly scouring the net for any and all images. (This was way before Google mind and it was agonising stuff. GEOCITIES THE HORROR.) I could've died happy if someone had given me an MJ poster. I knew all the lyrics (and seriously how many 10 year olds know the complete Spanish lyrics for 'I Just Can't Stop Loving You'?), had all the CDs that counted and several DVDs. To this day, I have committed to memory his birthday and the release years of Off The Wall, Thriller, Bad and Dangerous. (I used to chart history/SS dates around these actually) I loved him when it ridiculous to do so. All through the arseholic little chinkyfart boys calling me Michael Jackson in primary school because of my curly/messy hair. It was an honour to me that they'd never understand. I also spent primary school shoving 30 over pages of documentation on the 1993 case at everyone who would read it and even those who wouldn't. I got so angry whenever my parents and aunt used to mock him. It could've been lonely being his fan but it wasn't. I had him and that was all I needed.  

It was in 2000/2001 that my passion for him finally waned. Imagine my psych at his releasing a new album, Invincible. Actually, I first heard 'You Rock My World' off someone's dinky radio while buying stuff at the shops downstairs. I. Just. FROZE. Because I knew all the MJ songs. And this was NOT one I knew. Which meant that it had to be, GOOD HEAVENS, NEW MATERIAL!!!! (Who cares if it wasn't particularly great?) Now to ensure that I could continue to live in this area without people staring and remembering me as The Girl Who Freaked, I had to Contain the Excite and therefore suffered a series of terrible mini-implosions of Glee, Joy and SHININESS. YES SHININESS. 

Unfortunately I did care that the material wasn't that great and seeing as he didn't follow up with much of ANYTHING really (aside from the perpetual stream of reports on the bizarre), I felt horribly let-down. I stopped convincing myself that Invincible was great because it simply wasn't. Good, maybe, but worthy of Him? Not a fly fart's chance. So around then, Michael Jackson the singer, dancer, performer and entertainer extraordinaire didn't just collapse and die but faded away, slowly and sadly into oblivion.

So when he passed on for real this week, I didn't know what to feel. He had been a huge part of my childhood. He had been my definition of Cool for so many years. (And I strongly suspect he was the one that started me on my Metal+Black=SMEX fetish. It definitely explains my taste in footwear i.e Boots Above All Else) Yet that was a part of my heart (Yes I have one) I hadn't touched on for a long, long time. Not gone, just collecting dust like my collection of MJ media. It was almost like an adopted kid hearing that their biological parent had passed away. You know they were important, should be important and you should feel Something but you don't really, or you just don't know what to feel or do.

For three whole days now I've been re-watching my DVDs and listening to only him on my MP3 at full volume, trying to remember what it was I so loved about him, what it was that had made him so special to me and to so many others. I don't know if I'll regain the passion I once had but I do have an inkling of it at least. 14 years since I first saw him and he's still Magic to me, still amazing, still a genius, still utterly wonderful and mesmerising. Seeing him in full regalia again and so magnificent at his peak, the loss of him hits at last and it hits hard.
  

He is the last of the Titans, the old-school megastars, the Icons. I highly doubt there will ever be another who can fill his loafers on stage and as a person. He was sometimes child-like but not childish, brilliant but not arrogant, charismatic but not in-your-face. He was an amazing man, a Great man who was with so many of us in good times and bad. Like a beacon I suppose, but beacons are cold and distant and he was anything but.

And we should mourn him for however long, be it an hour, a day, a week, a month or even a year.
I am heart-broken, miserable and wretched. 
And I will mourn him, with tears and sighs and a million prayers.
But the grief will give eventually.

Already around this world, sobs are turning into songs and despair into dancing. The terrible sound of loss is becoming a resounding celebration of all he was and has given to us. Seeing crowds of people in so many countries, divided over almost everything else, but united in their joyful commemoration of him, is truly Beautiful.

It reminds me that Michael Jackson the man may be moonwalking his way up to Heaven but his legend and legacy lives among us still. So this isn't really like an adopted kid losing a biological parent since Michael's still here in a fashion and making a comeback like non other after all. As MJ put it, 

In my trials
And my tribulations
Through our doubts 
And frustrations,

Through my fear
And my confessions,
In my anguish and my pain,
Through my joy and my sorrow
In the promise of another tomorrow
I'll never let you part
For you're always in my heart.

Long Live The King.