Music and Me

I've got a lot to say tonight.  I need to sit here and type it out and get it right out of my skin.

I'm writing this blog, I suppose, because deep down inside I want my grandchildren to know who and what I am... or was... when they are old enough to read it.  I also want to make myself feel guilty if I don't try and get myself in shape, but I honestly think that 's a bit of a by-product of the whole blogging business. It's more important that I establish my identity and trim out the misconceptions.

I adore those grandkids, they are THE most precious things in my life, besides my own daughters.  I'm going to live to be 150 just so I don't miss a minute of their lives.

And tonight, I want them to know something very important about me.

I adored Michael Jackson.  Adored him.  If I had a religion, it was Michael.  

Tonight, Conrad Murray, his sham of a doctor, was found guilty of his death and I sat in front of the TV watching the verdict read by the jury and I just felt seething anger and a deep sense of loss and ... I don't know how to explain it... maybe the word "blood lust" is right.  I want him to pay for what he has taken from the world.... deeply, painfully and in public view.

Does that make me sick?  Does that make me a freak?  Does that make me stupid?

You know what?  I don't care what I'm labelled, at this age, and with this mindset, I just want that man to suffer intolerably.

How did I get to this point?  What brought me to say that out aloud?  Well, I'll tell you.

Michael Jackson was only a week older than me.  He was born on 29th August 1958, I was born on 4th September 1958.   As a little girl in Australia, the big world of America and Hollywood and all that jazz was a giant beacon and fantasy.  By the time I reached about 10 years of age, playing chasings in the back playground of Penrith Public School or playing this weird game we had where we lined up at the top of the back grassed area and ran with a football in our hands to the other end of the paddock being chased by everyone who tried to tackle you while you outran them, I knew of Michael and the Jackson 5ive and I wanted to have Michael as my best friend.

He was black and he was very cute.  He had these great 'groovy' clothes and he could dance.  Wow, could he dance.  I only ever saw him in black and white on the TV on shows like the Ed Sullivan Show but the radio played songs like ABC and I Want You Back all the time.

Next to him, Donny and the Osmonds were just boring old nerdy white boys.  I wanted to have a black friend who was Michael.  Yes, it was a marketing ploy, similar to Sherbet versus Skyhooks wars in Australia as we got older, (by the way, I was a Skyhooks girl but thought Tony Mitchell from Sherbet was a bit of alright) but I didn't know that then.  As far as I was concerned, Michael was the greatest boy on earth.

So I wrote him long letters and I asked my mum to send them off to him.  I don't know if she ever did, but I thought she had and I waited for him to answer me and tell me that he wanted to be my friend too.  I remember very clearly one very long letter I wrote to him where I used all the titles of all the songs they had and weaved them into a story.  I wrote it on a lined notepad with a very cheesy mint green background and when I sent it, I remember kissing the seal so he might 'feel' that when he opened it.

Of course, I never got a reply, but that didn't deter me. As I got a bit older I spent all my pocket money on buying Teen magazines so I could get his photos and I lined my bedroom walls with them.  Dad used to come into my bedroom and do his famous "Black Power" arm signal or tell me to turn the light on because it was so dark in there - it was the 70's, we'd never heard the term "political correctness" at that time.

I remember entering a competition in Dolly magazine once to win a copy of the album "Going Back to Indiana" and I won it.  I can't begin to describe how my heart leapt when it arrived at home.  I had no idea I had won the competition , and because it was signed, I thought it came straight from him to me.  Heaven hit me with a lazer bolt that day.  Yes, I still have it.  I will never give it up.  It brings back a happy time when I touch it.

Time moved on and teenage years hit and Michael got a bit gawky, as we all do in those years, but his voice kept getting stronger and stronger.  He put out some solo albums and I just "knew" that every song on them was meant for me.  I can still sing every word of every song and I still cry when I hear some of them.  As a child prodigy, he outshone them all with his talent.

Then came the 80's and I had married and was breeding.  The marriage partner didn't like Michael at all.  In fact, my life was made a misery every time I tried to play an album.  So, I did it in secret with my kids.  Before school, after school, whenever I could, I played them Michael music and got them singing and dancing and learning the words.

As he got older, his songs became more meaningful and songs like Man in the Mirror and Heal the World were what I wanted my kids to learn and to have ingrained deep into their minds so that they would one day remember them and think "yes, that is meaningful and it's true and I want my own children to learn this".  

Just after Kristy was born, he came to Australia.  God knows how, but I managed to talk the girls father into taking us to see him at Parramatta Stadium.  You can't begin to imagine how I felt that night.  My little girls dressed in Bad tee shirts and skirts coming with me to see Michael.  I'm actually crying as I type this.  I was so on edge, so excited, so breathless, so overwhelmed that I was in the same air space as him, and with my children.  I will never forget that night.  Louise and Lisa loved every minute of it and by the end of the show, Lisa, all 4 years of age, was crying out "Come back Michael, I love you".   

What was it he had that did that to people?  To children?

For me, it was his pure belief that if you were a good person, if you showed your love to everyone, you were doing the right thing.... plus, he was damn cute.

But of course, THEY didn't want to believe that.  THEY wanted to sully every thing he did and THEY wanted to crucify him.  Show your love of children and you are a pedophile.  That's what THEY say.

Did THEY ever have children?  Did THEY ever take a child's hand in their own and look that child in the eye and feel that purity and love?  Did THEY ever want to ensure that their children never had to see the bad in the world, never had to feel fear, never had to grow up?  Did THEY ever have the love of a child as their responsibility?  Did THEY ever want to give what they had to make sure that some child was given more of a chance at life?  Did THEY ever stop to think about someone other than themselves?

They crucified Michael Jackson for doing that.  For showing us that you don't have to be a sexual predator to hold a child as a grown man and share the magic of childhood.  THEY didn't understand that.  They only saw their own base desires and they projected them onto someone who wanted to only give charity and hope out, and they made him out to be a monster.  Bastards.

In the 90's I got internet savvy and I can tell you for a fact, I spent so many hours defending Michael Jackson's reputation that I lost count.  Every stupid man and his dog wanted to bag him out because that's what the media portrayed and THEY were too stupid to stop and look at it logically.  

Well bugger me but I did.  I looked at my own children and I wanted for them what Michael was able to give to so many kids around the globe..... hope, and faith that there is good in the world.  I wanted my own kids to prolong their childhood as long as possible and not have to become one of THEY.  I wanted them to remember the magic in the world, but I also wanted them to know that the magic isn't available to everyone and that if they are lucky enough, they need to share that.

I did that, and as far as I'm concerned, I did it with Michael Jackson's help because without his song lyrics backing up my work, I had nothing to reinforce my thoughts.  My girls now are the embodiment of that work. Louise, Lisa, and Kristy are all loving, happy, caring, thoughtful and dedicated women and they all have those songs in the back of their minds.

Two years ago Michael died.   The morning of his death I was at home and didn't know of it.  My best friend in mind, spirit and body, Lindy, phoned me early which was unusual and she said "Kim............"  There was silence on the other end of the phone.  I thought she was sick or her partner had been hurt and I asked what was wrong.  She said "Have you heard the news?"  No, I hadn't.... " Michael has died"  .  I remember wondering who she could mean and then thinking that I didn't know what she was on about.  "Turn on your TV" she said.  I did, and I saw, and I told her it was bullshit.  Bullshit.  He's not dead.  It's bullshit, don't believe it.  She was crying and she said it was true.  I hung up and I watched the TV and I walked around my house and I didn't believe it.  Bullshit.  Can't be true.

That night, I stood outside in my garden and looked at the sky and felt so much anger and despair.  I was sending messages to Lindy and she to me and we were both so upset because something had died in the world.  Not just a man, but a goodness and a spirit that could never come back.  It wasn't just death, it was murder.  I remember Lindy saying "I feel something has gone that should make us all afraid now".  

I don't care who of you is sitting there now shaking your head and thinking that I'm a fruitcake.  I really don't care.  You have your religions or your beliefs and you think they are the be all and end all of what constitutes our makeup.

But in my books, what makes us real, what makes our time on earth important, what makes us memorable, is our ability to pass on love, faith, magic and delight to those young enough to absorb it.  

He did that for me and he taught me, through his strength of character and his determination not to let what THEY said get to him, that that's how I should live my life too.

Strong, determined, caring, and with as much magic as can be mustered thrown in to the mix.

Tonight, the moron who killed him is behind bars.  With the stupidity of the justice system, he could end up on house arrest or in some well catered prison where he's protected for a couple of years, then he'll no doubt be given a new identity and drift off to live his life peacefully.

Well, I'm quite happy to say that I hope he rots in hell because by killing Michael Jackson, he's killed magic, and as far as I'm concerned, that's tantamount to killing the world.