oh MJ :(

thank you for the music, MJ

call me crazy but i am seriously getting obsessed with Michael Jackson. yes, weeks after his untimely death, it is only now that i have started listening to his songs, reading about him on the internet, and watching video clips of him over You Tube. suffice to say, i am posthumously becoming a Michael Jackson fan.

maybe it was that Memorial at the Staples Center in L.A last week that made me realize what a huge impact MJ has had not just in the music industry but to the world as well. the past two weeks i’ve been going MJ-crazy trying to get to know this elusive person and all the time saying at the back of my head what a stupid waste it is to only come to appreciate him now that he’s gone.

i am just awed and inspired by everything that MJ has done. as many have said, he was an angel with an understanding of this world that was way too deep than any of us humans ever had. when he was alive, i only ever knew him as this popular singer who can do all these outrageous dance moves, who has given so much to charities all over the world but at the same time was also a strange, eccentric recluse who’ve been accused of molesting children. perhaps i was too young when he was at the height of his career. it was the year that i was born, 1984, when MJ hit it big with Thriller. in the late 1990’s, when i became interested in music, in MTV, and in foreign celebrities, MJ’s reputation had become so tainted i didn’t even bother to listen to his music at all.

but lately i’ve been going over every interview ever done of him, watching all the documentaries and videos available on You Tube, listening to his songs over and over again. and god, did i fall hard and fast in love with MJ. He is probably the greatest entertainer this world has ever known. I’ve seen his live performances and i’ve seen the concert venues filled up by hundreds of thousands of fans wherever he went. From Los Angeles to Romania to Tokyo and even to Manila he had that magical impact on the crowd. Those fans looked like they were in a trance looking at MJ on stage at the same time dancing and singing to his songs. Every time MJ released a single or an entire album, they were guaranteed to hit it big in the charts. To date he has sold over 750 million records all over the world a feat which no other entertainer has ever achieved nor will probably ever achieve. He hasn’t gone on a tour that wasn’t sold out within hours of the start of ticket sales. For about a whole decade from the 80’s to the early 90’s it seemed like MJ couldn’t do any wrong.

Having lived almost all of his life in the limelight, MJ also had to pay the price of fame. He was only 11 years old when he started performing with the famed Jackson 5 in the 70’s. The regular things we took for granted while growing up were the things MJ was never able to experience. It broke my heart to hear MJ in one of his interviews saying that there was a time when he just wanted to play ball with the kids in the park but he couldn’t because he had to go to the studio for recordings and for rehearsals. To say that MJ missed out a lot on his childhood would have to be an understatement. In another one of his interviews, MJ even said that his dream would be to be able to go to a supermarket, push a cart, throw things into them, and line up in the cash register. Poor MJ got hounded by the media virtually everywhere that he went.

Despite having grown up with millions of people’s eyes on him, i think i could really say that MJ never really let all that fame go up to his head. he was purely a musician at heart and did what he did for the sole reason that he loved playing music and he loved the fact that he got to touch millions of people’s lives through it. and the moment that he knew that he had this impact on people, he didn’t just soak in all the attention and fame, instead, he gave it all back to them. MJ used his music to reach out to the world’s underprivileged, especially the children.

Having given up his childhood in exchange for fame and fortune, it is no wonder that MJ really had a special place in his heart for children. I think he was able to live vicariously through them and because he just had so so much to give, MJ made it his mission to help the children all over the world from the inner city kids of most US cities, to the starved children in Africa, and to the sick and dying. MJ opened Neverland Ranch, a place which for him was like a realization of all his dreams. Kids from everywhere got invited to play, eat, and have fun courtesy of MJ and he was happiest doing just that.

My heart went out to MJ when i saw videos of him being taken to court, when i heard of the police brutality he had to undergo, when i heard of the pain and humiliation he went through during those years in ‘92 and ‘93. Sadly it was during the height of his career when jealous people started to bring him down by accusing him of molesting little boys in Neverland Ranch. Not having known anything else about him before, maybe i never really bothered to either believe or not believe them. But now that i think i know him more, i realized that MJ had nothing but pure, innocent love for children. I mean really, what is so wrong with sharing your bed with children? The way i see it, MJ saw these kids as charity cases (and i don’t mean to say that in a negative manner). It’s just like inviting poor kids into your house and letting those kids try what it feels like to have a big beautiful bed because they probably have not experienced such a luxury. Tell me just what is so wrong with that?! It is in fact a very selfless act of love and generosity. Too bad society had a different opinion about it. I think it’s just America’s sick values system that made people equate sharing one’s bed with actually having sex with him or her. It was greed and jealousy that brought MJ down during those years and unfortunately, he was never able to recover from that. His career went careening downhill and although he still remained popular in other countries, MJ lost the love and loyalty of his fans in his very own homeland. In one of the interviews he did admit that his latest album hit No. 1 everywhere except for the US. He said “I’m hurting… I’m really hurting.”

MJ’s life was filled with triumphs and despairs but through it all he carried on still believing that he could continue making music and changing the world for the better. He was set to go on a comeback tour in London just 2 weeks after his death. No doubt MJ was about to make the ultimate comeback no other singer has ever achieved. My heart aches for the loss of a true artist, the kind of artist who used his God-given talent to touch lives by giving to charity and sincerely showing his love to the less fortunate. MJ was an angel that was way too good for this world. Perhaps he really is in a better place now, a place where there are no more sufferings and no more evils.

I can’t imagine what MJ’s three children are going through right now. In many of the videos i’ve seen, MJ has mentioned one too many times just how much he loves and adores his kids. He wanted them to have everything that he never had when he was a kid. When MJ’s daughter spoke during his Memorial, i heard in those 20 seconds the most gut-wrenching, probably most painful speech from a little girl to her father. Ever since I was born, daddy has been the best daddy that i could imagine. And i just want you to know that i love him so much.

To MJ, i have nothing but regret and sorrow in my heart. It hurts me to know just how cruel the world has been to such a gentle and sweet soul. I feel sorry for myself for not having appreciated your music when you were still alive. But you will live on forever through your music and through the millions of people whose lives you have changed through your kind heart.

To the King of Pop, THANK YOU for the music. You will be missed. May you continue making beautiful music up there in heaven. Hope to see you in person when my time comes. Rest in peace, MJ.