Just Like Mike

Yesterday and today, everything is about Mike.  Yet, after it's all been said and written,  I suppose I'd prefer to not have known.  Because in the end, it's about appreciation of life.  It's about remembering our past, where we've been and what we've been through and most importantly, it's about a shining little light that was Michael Jackson. 

Because no matter what else they write or say, Michael Jackson's music remains.  Long after the tabloids and news reports have ended in an avalanche of accusations, truths, falsehoods, sensationalisms, factoids and innuendos... long after biographers, TV entertainment announcers, lawyers, financiers and a father like Joe Jackson have squeezed the last bit of money from a prodigy that was  Michael Jackson, his legacy will remain.   Michael's gift. 

His timing was impeccable.  A singer who wanted to act, but who couldn't act, he was able to take a relatively new medium, that was television's music video and create a new, brash art form... a mini-movie music video.    He did it well, very well... from Thriller to Smooth Criminal, and all the bits after and in between, Michael Jackson did it and we watched and I... well, really we loved it.

We still do.   I never met him.  Never saw him perform, but like so many other people, he touched my life in a positive way and the most interesting thing about it was, that it didn't cost me one penny, not a dime.  Nothing, zilch, nada. Nothing.  Years and years of enjoyment, all for free.  To me, that's amazing.   I am immensely grateful, that in my lifetime, there was a man named Michael Jackson.   

Michael Jackson's music was a canvas, on which I could paint so many of my fondest memories.  Like family cookouts, when I happily acted a fool and tried to Moonwalk, when all I could manage was a slow slide!  Where I hung my arms across a friend's shoulders and butchered Michael's melodies, forgot his lyrics and then belted out the chorus like nobody's business, and all of this, I lovingly did out of tune!  

I never knew him, but I knew his music and it was awesome.   

~Rest Easy~