A Day in the Life: Where We Were When We Found Out Michael Jackson Died ---> NOGOODFORME.COM

Tuesday , November 24, 2009

A Day in the Life: Where We Were When We Found Out Michael Jackson Died

WE ARE THE WORLD, AND THE WORLD IS MORTAL

I'm on this web development job that basically is taking over my waking hours for the past and next few weeks, so I was sitting in an office in DUMBO in front a computer, coding like a fiend and thinking about whether or not I was going to walk over to the Brooklyn Bridge and throw myself off. I think I was listening to the "South Park" episode, "Timmy 2000," and suppressing the urge to shout "Livin' a lie!" really loudly in the middle of the office. (You won't get that reference unless you watch "South Park" on a semi-regular basis. And if you do, God bless you!) Suddenly the woman next to me tapped me on the shoulder. I looked up at her, thinking it was something about our work and getting ready to feel annoyed and frustrated. Instead, she said, "Michael Jackson died." I kind of blinked for a moment, then said, "What? Are you for real?" She looked at me and nodded, and I looked further down the aisle and other people were nodding at me. I was kind of stunned. "Michael Jackson? The Michael Jackson?" More nods. The office was filled with streaming bright late afternoon sunshine, I was just starting to get hungry for some dark chocolate and I had another two hours to go before I went home.

But of course I went on the Internet and checked the LA Times but it was down, and then I went on Twitter, which was down. Then I sent a text to my Twitter, asking if he really did die. And then I went back to my work, trying to remember where I left off in my code. But I couldn't concentrate at all -- suddenly I got hit with one of those visceral memories you have of childhood, of a summer afternoon I spent with my sisters trying to figure out how to moonwalk like Michael Jackson. It was the 80s, we had a crappy little tape recorder with a Play button that fell off all the time, we had a vinyl copy of Thriller , we had just seen him on some tv show where he debuted the moonwalk and IT WAS THE COOLEST THING ON THE PLANET. We were in the pre-cool awareness phase of childhood, but we all knew something about the awesomeness of MJ's music and dancing. My little sisters and I were determined to master the moonwalk, so we played "Billie Jean" over and over again and tried to moonwalk all over our yellow shag carpet. It didn't work, but we spent ages trying and inventing other dances, like "The Fish" and "The Soda Pop." This whole memory had always felt so joyous and light before, but suddenly it had this strange weight, due to the fact that the person who inspired it was now irrevocably gone.

There are personal and political tragedies that happen everyday and there will be lots said about his personal eccentricities, peccadilloes and troubles, as well as his real importance as a music icon. But Michael Jackson dying feels like the first movement in the inevitable fading of my childhood, in which all of my memories of being young become more and more ghostlike in their re-experience. When we look back at the past and connect it to the present and future, we take for granted the feeling of continuation between these aspects of time. We know somehow that your third-grade crush grew up and is living a life, removed from yours but still flowing. We know that dude who wore the trench coat in 9th grade became uber-hot and lives in some big city and rides a motorcycle. The cool girl from 8th grade is a housewife who lives on a farm. The boy with a thorn in his side writes for a newspaper in Chicago. That girl from "The Wonder Years" went on to become some kind of math genius, and Blossom grew up, had kids and got a makeover. All this happened while you were swimming through time in your own way. There's something comforting and fascinating about believing that no matter how disparate our experiences, we all move through time together, even if some may be no more than peripheral figures to one another in our actual lives. To get all hippie, "We're all on the same journey, man." But that's not true, because some journeys end before others. Michael Jackson died, and when you think back on your years of bike rides, inflatable swimming pools and jump rope--and listening to Thriller and Off the Wall through it all--you know someone with a dear spot in that set of memories has reached the end of their movement through time. You think back on trying to learn how to moonwalk and suddenly the memory acquires the weight of sadness: the song has stopped and the music has comes to an end. Which it does for all of us, of course.

Once, when my nephew was very small, he asked me not to have my 30th birthday and "stop where I was." I asked him why, and he very charmingly and naively explained, in that way that small children have, that he wanted me to wait for him to turn 30, and together we would be 30 together, all at the same time, and then go forward at the same pace. I think he liked the idea of all the people who made him happy marching together towards some destination and ending up there at the same time. In a primitive way, no one wants to go ahead alone, and no one wants to be left behind. We all march towards the unknown, and it is so comforting to imagine us all getting there at the same time, finding out what really lies beyond together and, I don't know, high-fiving or something. (My nephew seemed to think heaven involved lots of cake and flowers; if there's a heaven, I hope there are french fries, horses and bowling.) I'm really kind of bummed that Michael Jackson isn't sharing my movement through time anymore in a strange, strange way. It just makes me sad in that primal child-nephew way that someone who made songs I loved as a kid won't be able to high-five me as we cross the great existential finishing line. I want everyone to get there all together, holding hands like in "We Are the World." (Kat)

ELIZARDBREATH: Yesterday was one of those days when everything made me excessively sad - like, I was sitting in a cafe when I found out Farrah Fawcett died, and I almost started crying into my coffee. Then, while making my lunch I listened to an NPR story on Yonlu and got so worked up, I practically sobbed all over my tofu salad. Then "Kodachrome" came on the radio and I went "Gah, Kodachrome's dead too! Everything is dead!" but somehow managed to hold myself back from what my mom would describe as "weeping copiously." And then I checked Twitter, and everyone was Tweeting about Michael Jackson having had a heart attack. I typed "Don't die, Michael!" and some other stuff, and then I left to go get a surfboard at Emily Richmond's houseboat.

Halfway down the 10, I got a text from my buddy that read: "Omg! Michael Jackson!" and, like a very bad motorist, I texted back: "Did he die?" and she said yes. Then I turned off the stereo for a while and drove and drove with no sound. Then I turned it back on, to the radio, and the classic rock station and "Beat It" was playing the CD started to skip and they cut it off early and went to "Jamie's Cryin'" by Van Halen, which I found crass. Then I went to Emily Richmond's houseboat, got the surfboard, and drove to Venice Beach for an MJ Memorial Solo Sunset Surf Sesh, and the water was rough but the waves were good. After surfing I drove home, listening to Michael Jackson and Jackson 5 songs on the radio, then went to a birthday party on a pretty patio and talked about Michael Jackson a lot. On the way to the party I got a gross veggie burger and Diet Coke at Burger King; on the way home I got a caramel sundae at McDonald's. WHEN MICHAEL JACKSON DIES, I GET TO HAVE BURGER KING AND MCDONALD'S is something I could've probably Twittered at the end of the night.

So, yeah, like a million girls, Michael Jackson was the first pop star I was ever in love with; I wanted to marry him but figured he'd probably end up marrying Madonna. I also really wanted to go see him in concert, but I had this idea that at all concerts, everyone headbanged the whole time, did lots of drugs, threw up all over each other, and lit each other's hair on fire. How sad that that's not actually true.

I think maybe Thriller was my first record but I'm not entirely sure, because in my memory Thriller and Like a Virgin and Purple Rain and She's So Unusual all came into my life at the same time, and they were all I ever cared about, apart from Return of the Jedi. Somewhere around then, my dad taped a special for me about the making of the "Thriller" video, and I watched it at least 1,001 times. I was really scared of the actual video, so whenever that part came on I'd either make my dad watch it with me or - not understanding how to use the fast-forward button - just leave the room until I knew it was over. (God! Could I have been any dumber when I was six? Cripes.) Anyway, the best part of the special was this clip below, which I've played 87 kajillion times between last night and this morning. This is my very favorite Michael Jackson, shy and giggly and little-kid-like. I'll never not be in love with that Michael, and I'm so happy I got to have him.

LAURA JANE: On the evening of June 25th, 2009, I was semi-stoned at the Hazelton Lanes Whole Foods. It was the day after my 24th birthday, and I was in an unstoppably great mood. The "5 Items or Less" cashier's diamond earrings were beautiful. So was his face. He asked me how my day'd been; I said "Amazing!" I told him that yesterday was my birthday (he wished me a Happy Belated, being a perfect gentleman and all) and that I'd been celebrating for the past nine days straight, was kind of "birthdayed out," and was planning on staying in tonight and making myself the rice-cream sundae of my dreams, which I was presently buying ingredients for. He told me I'm allowed one more weekend of celebration, and I said "Saturday, Dude!" and he warned me not to party too hard.

Next thing I knew, a mousy cashier ran up to our checkout and hollered "Michael Jackson died!," then ran away screaming "It's true! It's true!" to everybody, or nobody. What a legendary moment. There I stood, shocked, elated, grinning dumbly, my eyes darting back and forth between Diamond Earrings and the wispy blonde in line behind me. I loved this moment because it seemed as though all three of us were attempting to cultivate a deep significance within it, and were succeeding. We were all intensely aware of each other's presence, our now lifelong intertwined-ness, adapted as a unit to the understanding that, now, this day would always be this day. We were in it together. We loved each other. I loved them, at least. The blonde and I traded off on saying "Whoa!" She had a cherubic face, red lipstick, a messy bun I found darling. I made sure to stare directly into her eyes, to impress my countenance upon her memory forever, taking extra precaution to make sure that, when she recalled the moment over and over again for as long as she lived, she would not remember some faceless girl there at Whole Foods, but would remember me, as I will her.

Honestly, I could not have asked for a more epic conclusion to my epic 24th birthday festivities. I have close to no attachment to Michael Jackson as an icon, musician, or anything, except for I really like "Ben" and "The Love You Save" (and "Dancing Machine" and "I Want You Back," obvs). I have been thinking for months now that the world is long overdue for some sort of earthquaking "John Lennon's death/JFK's death/Princess Diana's death" celebrity tragedy; this one's more fantastic than I ever could have imagined! Michael Jackson lived a cool life. I honor its weirdness. It was an exuberantly grotesque escapade from beginning to end- stay tuned for 45-year-old Laura "James Joyce" Jane's tetralogy of novels about my imagined version of MJ's fascinating existence. They'll be so epic, they'll make yesterday seem like the day nothing happened and nobody died.

PS: After exiting Whole Foods, I immediately twittered that "Farrah fawcett is the darby crash of today," which is the smartest thing I ever thought of. RIP Everybody.

Tags: Michael Jackson

Posted by Liz in A Day in the Life | Permalink | Leave a comment | Comments (5)

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5 Comments!!

good writin yall

lj, even though you called to not tell me michael jackson died, i wanted to tell you i also felt really bad about the whole darby crashness of farrah's big day. so sad.

love you guys

By emily on June 26, 2009 4:51 PM

I like the way this post accidentally progressed from ten to zero.

Kat, that was so beautiful!

And on the day Paul McCartney dies, I will totally break veganism for a strawberry sundae from McDonalds, the #1 food I'd break veganism for. Thanks for the inspiration, barker.

By Laura on June 26, 2009 5:20 PM

More of a "gradation" than a "pro-" or "re-gression," actually

By Laura on June 26, 2009 6:47 PM

So, I meant to facebook status this thought (I'm not tweeting yet-- just a little behind on the times), and the Darby Crash thing re-reminded me of it. It freaks me out that Farrah Fawcett will NEVER know that Michael Jackson died on the same day as her, that while the rest of the entire world mourns and talks and freaks out about it, she will never know that she was one part of a celebrity-death-double-whammy. For all she knew, Michael Jackson was going to live forever, and the thought of him dying had never crossed her mind, as it hadn't for the rest of us.

THAT is what horrifies me about death.

RIP, y'all.

By April on June 26, 2009 11:56 PM

WHOA. GOOD POINT, APRIL!

Mind officially blown!

By Laura on June 27, 2009 12:19 AM

Say something so insightful and witty, it will blow us away. (No pressure.)

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