MJ And ME

So, Michael Jackson is gone. So too has another part of me.

Growing up in the 80s, Michael Jackson was one of the leading artists for my adolescent days. Days that were my most carefree, when food on the table and roof over the head appeared magically without a thought; days when my hormones were running wild and my mind kept morphing with the most vivid of imagination.

What could be more inflammable to the teenage imagination than a one-gloved, military-clothed, moon-walking, crotch clutching sensational performer? And the ability to command hysterical screams from millions and make teenagers faint with a single gesture of a hand? Damn. If I had become a singer out of that era, I would probably owe my singing career to the King of Pop. Of course I had other singers around that time. But MJ was like no others.

No others were like MJ. No others could be nearly like him, with the way he amazed and enchanted us with his musical talents, choreographic creativity, larger and weirder than life charisma, and his ability to rock, and shock.

Who else could make you shake your hip when he's singing and dancing, and shake your head when he's not? Yup, nobody like Jacko.

There IS nobody like Michael Jackson because there is no other person, past or present, who virtually lived out his whole life on a stage under the watchful eyes of millions, through the lenses of relentless media. No person could come out of that kind of abnormal environment and be normal. While at the same age, we grew up from our childhood, he probably grew tilted 45 degree under those stresses out of adulthood. Perhaps that contributed to his musical talent in some way.

As soon as I stepped out of my carefree days, my youthful days were gone. A multitude of artists had splashed all kinds of color with their signature and style on my canvas of youth. When I demystified the appearing act of food on the table and roof over my head, the picture of my youth was completed and framed. I can no longer go back to that times and change the picture. But the picture is not dead.

The colours are alive. The colours change their hue according to the activities of the artist who painted it back then, until the artist passes away. The colour dies. And a part of me dies.

We feel sad when we lose something that we hold dear to. When I learned the news of MJ's death, I felt at a loss. The patches painted by MJ can no longer morph. This is it - a major part of my picture of youth is dead. Freezed.

That's what Michael Jackson is to me - a painter of my youthful days. A creative painter. Remarkably creative. Out-of-this-world creative.

Of course, there's something immensely different between dying at the ripe old age of 80s or 90s and an untimely death at the age of 50, in terms of shocking value. And MJ did know how to shock, even with his death. It'll leave behind a legacy like no others - hung. Work undone, work could have been done ...

So, the Michael Jackson that we adore is dead. All of his creativity was spent ...

Unless ...

He has some pre-arranged bizarre kind of funeral in store for us?

With MJ, I guess you'd never know ...






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