Please forgive me on my tardiness on blogging about MJ as I have been in avoidance mode since I heard the awful news. I don’t know how you feel but it hurt me. I think my lateness also has to do with the fact that I don’t want Michael Jackson to become old news. In this country the media swoops down on an event really hard and strong for a short period of time then disperses. Then the heavily covered subject becomes obsolete. It becomes yesterday’s news that everyone has forgotten about. Here it is 19 days after his death and a week after his funeral and I was actually asking myself…Is it too late to blog about this? Is this not a “hot” topic anymore? What? I think not! M.J. is timeless.

I think most of us can agree that Michael Jackson has provided a soundtrack for our lives and the lives of our parents. What other artist can you name whose fan base crossed so many races, ethnicities and generations? Both my mother and I were torn by the news. I was talking about it with a 14 year old and he said “I know I wasn’t alive when Thriller came out but I know his music and I grew up copying his dances.” A 50 year old man at my job who happens to be white told me that his 12 year old daughter loves the Thriller album and that her dance team did a routine off the title track. He also said “Beat It” is a common choice of hers when playing Guitar Hero.

For me, MJ was my first boyfriend. I know he started at age five but my experience is that he had ALL the girls’ hearts on lock in the early eighties. I had the MJ posters, the pins, the dolls and lunchbox. You name it I had the MJ paraphernalia. Thriller was my first record. Yes, I had the 45″. And yes, he stole all the girls’ hearts but he had all the guys trying to be like him. Jackets with many zippers, glittery gloves, high-water pants, were all emulated by the

Read the rest of this entry »