mj

I didn't cry when I learned Thursday evening that Michael Jackson had died. To be honest, I didn't really give it all that much thought. But then I got to work yesterday morning and Erica and I were reading our various Facebook updates over each other's shoulders and we got to my friend Ben's most recent entry. And I sat there in my office, abruptly stunned into tears at the realization of what we've lost, of what he meant to some of us.

I know that there is already controversy and discord in the ways that people are mourning or not mourning the death of Michael Jackson. To some he was an icon, an idol, a force of nature, the King of Pop. To others he was nothing more than a pedophile, and undeserving of any accolades or grief. To still others (and I counted myself in this category) he was mostly a creepy picture on the cover of National Enquirer, pasty and noseless and strange and very, very sad.

But then I read Ben's entry and now, for me at least, Michael Jackson will forever be the person behind the song that got Ben through. And, in my mind, that's enough to make him a hero.

Ben's memorial is in four parts, given the restrictions of Facebook statuses, and he has been kind enough to give me permission to share it here:

"PART ONE I did not talk for two years. I went to college after my mother passed, and I did not talk to anyone. I made no new friends. I didn't talk about classic '80s movies, politics, the genius of Prince--nothing. I was scared to connect. New relationships equaled new possibilities for hurt. There was a bar at the end of the street that had dancing every night. One night a month was all '80s music.

"PART TWO Although it's from 1979, they'd always play MJ's "Don't Stop 'Till You Get Enough." It's impossible for me to describe how this song made me feel, but I guess I'll try. It was, and still is, pure exhilaration. That intro still sends a shiver through me that makes me want to jump up and down!

"PART THREE Those six minutes are filled with such joy, fear, and excitement. I could compare the feeling that I get when I hear this song to slowly climbing up that first big hill on a roller coaster, but it was really so much more. I guess I'm trying to thank MJ somehow.

"PART FOUR Through MJ's song, and for only six minutes, this scared, lonely, fat, and angry kid was able to feel alive, and, most importantly, SPECIAL, at a time when I was convinced that I was anything but special. MJ always was dramatic. He died on the 15th anniversary of my mother's death. He didn't have to do that--I would've always remembered him anyway."

(Ben Bloom, 6/26/09)

Also my favorite MJ guilty pleasure: Smooth Criminal. And when I was nine or ten, I was a little bit obsessed with We Are The World. We had the record. I listened to it, a lot. I mean, just how much more adorable could Cyndi Lauper possibly be, anyway?