The King
He has finally succumbed to whatever it was that took his life. There'll be many speculations, maybes and what if's. But let's not be overwhelmed by all this. The business of death is not ours to determine.
Let's instead talk about why when he died, I was speechless for almost 30 minutes. My collective unconscious just went blank. Total silence. I guess this was what it felt like seconds after the first A-Bomb dropped on Hiroshima (or was it Nagasaki first).
Many of my friends did not understand my apparently "extreme" reaction. Of course they wouldn't. Most of them were very, very young when that haunting song called "Beat It" was released. Some of them weren't even born yet, and even if they were, language comprehension was still a concept lying somewhere in Chomsky's blueprint. So how could they possibly understand the feeling?
For many of my friends and I, we were in our early teens when the phenomenon of Michael Jackson came into being. This was the time when many things caused anxiety and stress. Some of my friends were bordering on depression but we didn't know what to call it at that time and the popular belief was that depression was only something suffered by menopausal women like our Discipline teacher Madam Chan.
So, one of the "antedotes" that we had was music and one of those belonged to this awkward looking African-American called Michael Jackson. It was like a diversion for us to talk about him, scream at his posters or sing along to his songs. It took our minds off family crises, acne breakouts and hormonal turbulance. And with him came an array of other 80s icons e.g. Duran Duran, Eurythmics, Culture Club (Oh God, Boy George!) and hoardes others. In other words, Michael and his songs were part of the landscape of our teenage years. If I were to paint an impression of my teenage years, it would be incomplete and lifeless without him and his songs.
So, words failed me for half an hour...
Let's instead talk about why when he died, I was speechless for almost 30 minutes. My collective unconscious just went blank. Total silence. I guess this was what it felt like seconds after the first A-Bomb dropped on Hiroshima (or was it Nagasaki first).
Many of my friends did not understand my apparently "extreme" reaction. Of course they wouldn't. Most of them were very, very young when that haunting song called "Beat It" was released. Some of them weren't even born yet, and even if they were, language comprehension was still a concept lying somewhere in Chomsky's blueprint. So how could they possibly understand the feeling?
For many of my friends and I, we were in our early teens when the phenomenon of Michael Jackson came into being. This was the time when many things caused anxiety and stress. Some of my friends were bordering on depression but we didn't know what to call it at that time and the popular belief was that depression was only something suffered by menopausal women like our Discipline teacher Madam Chan.
So, one of the "antedotes" that we had was music and one of those belonged to this awkward looking African-American called Michael Jackson. It was like a diversion for us to talk about him, scream at his posters or sing along to his songs. It took our minds off family crises, acne breakouts and hormonal turbulance. And with him came an array of other 80s icons e.g. Duran Duran, Eurythmics, Culture Club (Oh God, Boy George!) and hoardes others. In other words, Michael and his songs were part of the landscape of our teenage years. If I were to paint an impression of my teenage years, it would be incomplete and lifeless without him and his songs.
So, words failed me for half an hour...
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