I saw the "Michael" movie a week ago, and my head has been in Michael-land ever since. I fished out a couple thin paperback books I got back in the day, amid the mania over the "Thriller" album, which I also bought, in addition to then buying "Off the Wall." My mother got me a Michael Jackson doll, and there were lots of other things I bought back then, in the glorious '80s, as one of the zillions of teen girls crazy about this singer of the famed Jackson Five.
These books were quickly produced to capitalize on the super-stardom at the time. I'm reading now them for the first time -- back then I looked at the pictures, mainly, and didn't really read them. But they offer a perspective that is so interesting, and it is very similar to what you see in the movie. The books were written in 1983, released in 1984, so they cover much of the same time period as the movie: His childhood through the "Thriller" album. I found it intriguing that the movie, coming from Michael's family, chose to end his story where they did. I'm glad they did, because they reinforced to me who Michael truly was. I mean, that's the question we all ask, right? Who really was Michael? And I don't believe that Michael was all the stuff that came later -- the allegations, the rumors, the masks, the changing appearance, the stunt marriage to Lisa Marie (OK, maybe that's just my opinion), the whatever. So I'm good with the particular ground they covered in the movie.
I believe Michael was not homosexual, bisexual, or really even heterosexual, so much. And he definitely wasn't pedo-sexual. He was asexual. He was like a child, and he related better to children than adults. He loved animals. He never really grew up, just like the Peter Pan character he admired. Or maybe he never really had a childhood. Both books discuss that, from the 1983 perspective, one even noting he had mannequins that he would talk to in his room at the family's house in California. He was often lonely. One book includes a quote from him about going to the schoolyard when he felt down, to watch the kids play. That would be an emotional lift to him. He truly loved children. But a celeb wouldn't say that these days, would they? This world has become a different place, but Michael is still the same person.
I will never forget when Michael came to town while I was working at The Detroit News in downtown Detroit. It would have been sometime between like 1998 and 2001. It became known in the newsroom that he would be doing an interview at the NBC affiliate, Channel 4, WDIV, across the street from our building on Lafayette. But no one out there knew it. We had an eye out for him, and when his SUV entourage arrived, I forgot I was a journalist. I was glued to the window of our department on the second floor of the old News building. I was telling the others, he's here, he's here. They might have gathered at the window a bit, but they didn't go all fan-girl like me. We watched him and his people get out of the vehicles, go into the building. No one else was around. Then we watched for them to leave again, which wasn't all that much later. When they came out and got back into the vehicles and pulled away, there I was, the teen girl again, watching excitedly. I couldn't wait to tell my mother later. I got to see him. Live. The legend, Michael Jackson. My teen crush.
But then ... as the SUVs pulled away on Lafayette, a window rolled down. And a gloved hand reached out. And waved. I totally lost it. How did he notice that crazy girl up in that window? Maybe Michael really was always all about the fans.
I will forever love that moment. I am somebody who has covered a lot of events and interviewed a lot of celebs in my career. I got a wink from Robert Conrad across the room at the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Con in Maryland. I got genuine hugs from Yvonne Craig and Grace Lee Whitney at the Motor City Comic Con (I interviewed both of them for The News). I opened and drank the can of orange juice Lou Ferrigno left on the table after a Q&A session at a con I was covering for a comics website -- maybe it was in Atlanta? -- just so I could say I drank the Hulk's orange juice. I got "the hand" from Lindsay Wagner at her table at the Motor City Comic Con when I tried to ask her a question as she was signing the photo I was paying for. I got called a "cheap fuck" by novelist Harlan Ellison at his table at MegaCon in Florida when I asked him to sign something but wasn't interested in buying the book he was promoting at the time.
But that wave out the SUV window ... now that was a moment.
C'mon, any haters out there. Let's get real. Michael was not a Diddy or an R. Kelly. Michael was a unique individual who I believe genuinely wanted to make the world a better place, and he believed he could do that through his music. He wanted to bring people together. He wanted to give the world some joy. He was tremendously talented -- people sometimes forget that, and I'm glad the movie reminded us. In my view, the only crime he committed was in being different. In not fitting everyone's mold or expectations. I can relate.
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