I worked last week, for the first time in 2 months...wow, it was weird. It was weird to be working again (although it's over now). It was weird to work my old hours (7am-3:30pm...Ick). And it was very weird to be there when the upstairs desk called into the basement I was working in at the old UCLA hospital, to tell us that Michael Jackson just died across the street and the police were blocking all traffic on that section of Westwood Blvd.
So weird in fact, I would call it surreal.
Michael Jackson is dead people!
I really didn't believe this when they said it in the stuffy little room I had spent the whole day counting stuff in. I still didn't believe it when they announced it on the radio as we drove past the hospital where the crowed was quickly forming, it was just not REAL.
Not because I was a huge fan mind you, I don't own a single Jackson album. But, because he was so ingrained into our culture...I didn't believe he would die. He was otherworldly, like some kind of elf. This was supported of course by the plastic surgeries, the privet Neverland Ranch, and the secret parties with boys more than half his age. He became some kind of enigma, you only saw him in little peeks and glimpses, so it was like he wasn't really there. He was there less lately, in the last few years, so it was even weirder that he popped up with a new tour and album only to keel over and die.
It seems sad, he seemed sad. Last night I caught the last part of "Living with Michael Jackson" and he seemed uncomfortable. Frustrated that the media didn't understand him, he kept trying to defend the parties and sleepovers. It must have really sucked to have been all warped by an abusive father and then have to be responsible for life in a world you never knew. I know most people think this was just the cover story, so he had an explanation for abusing children himself. But I'm not so sure he did, he seemed to be a big kid that didn't understand.
No matter what you thought of him, he changed the face of music, popular culture, and the way we dance. Life would not be the same without his influence.
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