Tuesday, December 09, 2003
The king of pop
There's a new craze in the house of TAn, started by the man of the house, taken up by his kids.
nono.. i'm not saying the object of our affections is Elvis Presley. That craze is old news. ALthough I must add that Big daddy once tried to impose the reign of the cat king on us by sitting us down to a 2 hour documentary of how Elvis the Pelvis rose to fame, but that is another story.
Flinging aside all the newspaper articles about Michael Jackson engaging with more ridiculous hanky panky, my dad enthusiastically whipped out old videos and piled the family onto the couch to watch the dude heat up the dance floor. The music was blaring to the max, our roof was threatening to disengage and the hi fi sounded like it belonged to a music mad teenager on crack. Oh .. even freakier than viewing the classic Jackson MtV -- " Thriller "was watching my good ole daddy and my 9 year old bro dancing like the gloved one. I think i wore the same expression as the poor gal in the MTV when she watched jackson transform into a werewolf. Something had slid into our house like a Smooth Criminal and whisked away the last of our sanity. I even learnt how to do the dance move, "popping" from watching the videos. Even more unnerving was my brother doing a replica of the "zombie side shift". He's even taken to dancing out in public, which is the time when my sister and I tell him to " beat it" ( or we pretent we don't know him ). Nah.. the ultimate was watching my dad dance. Thankfully my dad has the ability to do justice to any dance he attempts.
I grew up listening to Elvis and Michael Jackson. It is doubtless that the music influence came from the big man of the house. I spent my childhood belting out tuneless versions of " I"m bad" , hoping that it was an adequate reason to avoid caning. Vague memories surfaced of how I used to sit in front of the TV watching Jackson strut his stuff ( and switching the channels to WWF when my mom wasn't around).
Even today, his moves just elude my understanding of gravity and knee joints. As I watch his legs wave and weave in time to the beat, it seemed to me that they consisted of nothing except cartilage. I tried to imitate his moonwalk and ended up with blistering feet and stubbed toes. His MTVs were mystical and to put it plainly.. the eptiome of coolness. He was the god of rock and dance and he knew it well. As my dad put it, " there was hell of a lot of smoke and wind in his videos". But the exagerrated features of his presentation only served to reinforce his mystique. Watching him prostrate himself over a vent on the stage during an Mtv awards performance, the billowing white shirt and hair just served to invite more screams from the appreciative audience.
Jackson wasn't just a talented dancer and singer, he was the advocate of so many issues of the modern world. Many of his songs featured reminders for Peace like " Heal the WOrld", racial issues like "Black or White" or unmistakable calls to protect the environment. Yeah, only he could pop these messages in the guise of a song and still make it a number one hit.
I can't help feeling a deep sense of sadness as I read the press' mocking reports of how he turned into wacko Jacko. No one would have dreamed of calling him that in the early 1990s. He was just waaaay too funky then. But fame has its price. The cash enable him to endulge in dreams of altering his physique and he took it too far. Now he looks like a lifeless, polished marble sculpture. Even his eyes, which once danced with a mischievious, devilish spirit, have lost its capacity to charm. He looks repulsive and weird. And its hard to salvage any shred of that image I once had of him. Both Elvis and Jackson were caltaputed into the heavens in a flash and it was now going to be a long, agonising fall back to earth.
My dad postulated that jackson was just a nice guy whom everyone was taking advantage of. Recalling the numerous songs he dedicated to improving 3rd world countries and the charities he supported, I can't help agreeing with him. But I can also understand why the media and the public take so much pleasure in mocking him nowadays despite all his earlier contributions both to music and to society. It is too easy to indulge in a freak show. People forget the niceties too easily, they want sensation, they want gossip and they want to take a freaky looking ex-superstar to mock. They want to be able to laugh their heads off at his ghoulish visage and his weird demeanour. It's just our human nature and Jackson's misfortune that drove him to his present position. Everyone wants a piece of him ( his wealth more specifically) and they won't stop until they tear him to shreds.
I still mantain that I like Michael Jackson, but I love the pre-weird king of pop. I love the singer who advocated racial harmony while executing nifty footwork and prancing along the alleyways of the darkest neighbourhood. I idolised the dude who charmed the girls with his entrancing dancemoves and catchy songs, but whom never forgot to remind the world to save the environment and preserve world peace. And oh yes, who could forget his subtle promotion of safe sex in " Billy Jean". All these being done amidst lotsa Wind and Smoke.
SO don't think i'm mad or Bad if I tell ya that the King of Pop is still number one. I dunno if he is guilty or not of those charges but I can tell you.. he is still lord of the dance floor. Even my bro, born in a a jackson post-weird era will tell you that.
And if anyone needs me, i'll be practising the moonwalk in my room with the fan switched on at full blast and lotsa dry ice around.
There's a new craze in the house of TAn, started by the man of the house, taken up by his kids.
nono.. i'm not saying the object of our affections is Elvis Presley. That craze is old news. ALthough I must add that Big daddy once tried to impose the reign of the cat king on us by sitting us down to a 2 hour documentary of how Elvis the Pelvis rose to fame, but that is another story.
Flinging aside all the newspaper articles about Michael Jackson engaging with more ridiculous hanky panky, my dad enthusiastically whipped out old videos and piled the family onto the couch to watch the dude heat up the dance floor. The music was blaring to the max, our roof was threatening to disengage and the hi fi sounded like it belonged to a music mad teenager on crack. Oh .. even freakier than viewing the classic Jackson MtV -- " Thriller "was watching my good ole daddy and my 9 year old bro dancing like the gloved one. I think i wore the same expression as the poor gal in the MTV when she watched jackson transform into a werewolf. Something had slid into our house like a Smooth Criminal and whisked away the last of our sanity. I even learnt how to do the dance move, "popping" from watching the videos. Even more unnerving was my brother doing a replica of the "zombie side shift". He's even taken to dancing out in public, which is the time when my sister and I tell him to " beat it" ( or we pretent we don't know him ). Nah.. the ultimate was watching my dad dance. Thankfully my dad has the ability to do justice to any dance he attempts.
I grew up listening to Elvis and Michael Jackson. It is doubtless that the music influence came from the big man of the house. I spent my childhood belting out tuneless versions of " I"m bad" , hoping that it was an adequate reason to avoid caning. Vague memories surfaced of how I used to sit in front of the TV watching Jackson strut his stuff ( and switching the channels to WWF when my mom wasn't around).
Even today, his moves just elude my understanding of gravity and knee joints. As I watch his legs wave and weave in time to the beat, it seemed to me that they consisted of nothing except cartilage. I tried to imitate his moonwalk and ended up with blistering feet and stubbed toes. His MTVs were mystical and to put it plainly.. the eptiome of coolness. He was the god of rock and dance and he knew it well. As my dad put it, " there was hell of a lot of smoke and wind in his videos". But the exagerrated features of his presentation only served to reinforce his mystique. Watching him prostrate himself over a vent on the stage during an Mtv awards performance, the billowing white shirt and hair just served to invite more screams from the appreciative audience.
Jackson wasn't just a talented dancer and singer, he was the advocate of so many issues of the modern world. Many of his songs featured reminders for Peace like " Heal the WOrld", racial issues like "Black or White" or unmistakable calls to protect the environment. Yeah, only he could pop these messages in the guise of a song and still make it a number one hit.
I can't help feeling a deep sense of sadness as I read the press' mocking reports of how he turned into wacko Jacko. No one would have dreamed of calling him that in the early 1990s. He was just waaaay too funky then. But fame has its price. The cash enable him to endulge in dreams of altering his physique and he took it too far. Now he looks like a lifeless, polished marble sculpture. Even his eyes, which once danced with a mischievious, devilish spirit, have lost its capacity to charm. He looks repulsive and weird. And its hard to salvage any shred of that image I once had of him. Both Elvis and Jackson were caltaputed into the heavens in a flash and it was now going to be a long, agonising fall back to earth.
My dad postulated that jackson was just a nice guy whom everyone was taking advantage of. Recalling the numerous songs he dedicated to improving 3rd world countries and the charities he supported, I can't help agreeing with him. But I can also understand why the media and the public take so much pleasure in mocking him nowadays despite all his earlier contributions both to music and to society. It is too easy to indulge in a freak show. People forget the niceties too easily, they want sensation, they want gossip and they want to take a freaky looking ex-superstar to mock. They want to be able to laugh their heads off at his ghoulish visage and his weird demeanour. It's just our human nature and Jackson's misfortune that drove him to his present position. Everyone wants a piece of him ( his wealth more specifically) and they won't stop until they tear him to shreds.
I still mantain that I like Michael Jackson, but I love the pre-weird king of pop. I love the singer who advocated racial harmony while executing nifty footwork and prancing along the alleyways of the darkest neighbourhood. I idolised the dude who charmed the girls with his entrancing dancemoves and catchy songs, but whom never forgot to remind the world to save the environment and preserve world peace. And oh yes, who could forget his subtle promotion of safe sex in " Billy Jean". All these being done amidst lotsa Wind and Smoke.
SO don't think i'm mad or Bad if I tell ya that the King of Pop is still number one. I dunno if he is guilty or not of those charges but I can tell you.. he is still lord of the dance floor. Even my bro, born in a a jackson post-weird era will tell you that.
And if anyone needs me, i'll be practising the moonwalk in my room with the fan switched on at full blast and lotsa dry ice around.
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