I heard that the world literally stood still on June 25, 2009 upon hearing of the death of Michael Jackson, the King of Pop. I know I did. It was the 26th here in the Philippines and I only learned about it that Friday morning through a text message from my brother. You see, I've been a fan of his since his Jackson 5 days. My family and relatives know this.
I used to dance to all the songs in their christmas album. I grew up listening to songs from his Off the Wall album always being played on the radio. When MTV first came out in the 1980s, I watched closely at his music videos from the Thriller album and even sang along. By the time I entered college, MJ released a number of albums already (the coolest, to me, being his Dangerous album). Whenever the opportunity presented itself, I asked people for their MJ memorabilia...be it a compilation of his music videos through the years, recordings of his concerts, etc. Note: I asked, I didn't buy...wasn't earning yet, then, and, let's face it, I was just too cheap to buy my own stuff! I vowed then that if MJ holds a concert here, that I would make sure to buy a ticket and watch him.
But by 1996, the year when MJ did come, I unfortunately, wasn't able to watch. The tickets sold like hotcakes long before these were officially released (a lot of people made early reservations). No one I know, knew how I can get tickets to the much-awaited concert ever to be held in my country for that decade. At that time, I was still new to the workforce and didn't have any "social pulls", "connections" or "networks" to speak of, whatsoever. To make the story short, I just waited for the week after to watch the "televised version" of MJ's HisStory world concert tour here in my own country :(
1993 was the year I was in the United States and when he was accused of terrible things. I admit I was saddened by it. I didn't know whether to hate the guy or not. I didn't know whether to believe the accusations or not. I even got teased about it by my relatives a number of times. My only answer to these were (and continue to be): I will not pretend to know about his personal life. What I do know is that, despite his sad childhood, he still remained child-like in heart and mind. And I know that he is THE MOST SOULFUL and THE BEST SINGER-SONGWRITER-PERFORMER OF ALL TIME!
Now, who can argue with that logic?
