After Michael Jackson Died

This will be my last Death of Michael Jackson post. Promise.

But Sean Michaels of Said The Gramaphone has written a poem so lovely that it needs to be shared. “After Michael Jackson Died” is an elegy that attempts to take stock of the man, the myth and the music maker. It’s a wonderful, thoughtful piece of work and the best thing I’ve read about MJ since his death.

”He understood why he had felt so alone, still & still still felt so alone. He understood why his father had hated him. He understood Tito’s gift, and Janet’s loss, and his own greatest mistake. He understood his willowy love, why Lisa Marie had said the things she said in precisely the way she said them. He understood why he had seen his father’s face in the mirror.”

Thanks to Carl Wilson and his amazing Zoilus.

Summer Jams

The delightful Stacy Ferguson

With the hot sun of the summertime comes some of my favourite music in the world: the summertime jam. That ubiquitous pop hit that dominates the airwaves and infiltrates every bar-b-q, road trip and afternoon at the beach from July thru to September. The type of music made better by sunstroke and repeated listens, classic summer jams provide the soundtrack to those hot and shiny days of sunburns and sugar-laced patio drinks.

Here, selected by yours truly, are this season’s contenders for top Summer Jam of ’09. A short list that reveals that pop , hip hop and R&B are pretty much all I’m listening to these days…

6. Make Her Say – Kid Cudi Ft. Kanye & Common

Kid Cudi looking like Humpty Hump

If you found the sly double entendre of Lady Gaga’s “Pokerface” too subtle, this might be the song for you! The version making it to air is far less filthy than the uncensored version linked here. A delightful little paean to the joys of oral sex, “Pokerface” is here sampled and repurposed in the most obvious of ways. But goddamn if that “Oh oh oh oh” ain’t catchy enough to make up for the lack of lyrical imagination.

5. D.O.A. – Jay Z

Hova!

Hova is back bitches! Waxing philosophical about everything wrong with hip-hop in ’09 over a cacophony of screaming guitars and alto sax (!?!) Jay lays down the law and shows the punks how it’s done, son.

4. Never Forget You – Noisette

Girl + Bass = Awesome

The latest retro-soul out of England, Noisette is a three-piece that has obviously put in their time listening to their parent’s Ronnettes and Dusty Springfield LPs. “Never Forget You” is just brilliant, piling hook on after hook, with a timeless sound that’s just a bit too esoteric to be a hit on this side of the ocean. Which sucks, because in a perfect world, this is what everyone would be listening to.

3. Paparazzi – Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga being weird. Again.

Oh Lady Gaga. I want to hate you soooo bad. But your songs make me so very happy and your bizarre sense of style and fashion only makes me love you more. That Lady was writing songs about being stalked by the paparazzi before anyone even knew who the hell she was tells you all you need to know about this amazing young woman and her shallow yet wonderful dreams.

2. I Gotta Feeling – Black Eyed Peas

Wake me up before you go-go.

That I’m a little ashamed to have BEP on the list only confirms it’s rightful place. Summer jams should be embarrassing, loud and stupid – just like Will.I.Am’s multi-culti pop factory. This may be the best song the Peas have ever done and with it’s unrelenting optimism and “F the world let’s party” swagger, it’s clear they were swinging for the fences. I’m going to be so sick of this by October I’ll never want to hear it again, but right now, I can’t get enough of this shit.

1. Love Knocks You Down – Keri Hilson Ft. Ne-Yo and Kanye

What did the five fingers say to the face?

Ne-Yo laments the demise of “the pimp in me” while Kanye brags about being “the new Slick Ric” and Keri coos about how much she loves her man. A perfect pop confection that I’d be happy to have on an endless loop until fall, I fucking love this song and if I had a convertible, this is what I’d be blasting at an obnoxious volume as I drove around town winking at girls. Which is what I would do if I have a convertible.

20 Reasons Michael Jackson Was Cool

I would kill for this jacket.

Chartattack.com – the online home of the late, great Chart Magazine, has published my list of the top twenty reasons MJ was awesome. (It could have probably withstood another polish, but I wrote it quickly and while misty-eyed. Forgive me, and enjoy.)

Michael Jackson

Moonwalker

This performance of Billie Jean, taped for an NBC special, was featured on a VHS about the making of the Thriller video. I can’t tell you how many times I watched it or how many hours were spent teaching myself the moonwalk, the spin, the kick, the pelvic thrusts. I would practice in my bedroom, imagining I was him, imagining that I could do what he could do.

I couldn’t of course. The whole point was that no one could. He sang and danced in ways that were foreign and exciting to me. His videos expanded my imagination and made me think of music in a whole new way. He was my first hero, my first idol. I bought black pleather pants and a glitter glove and a t-shirt that said “Beat It.” Yes, I was a bit of a nerd about it. But it was my first experience of being a fan. Of dreaming about something larger than myself and the immediate world around me. Of imagining what was out there and what I could be or become.

His decline – in popularity, in mental and physical health – did little to diminish my fascination and yes, even fondness of and for him. His obsession with surgically altering his appearance, his love/hate relationship with his incredible fame and even his eventual freakshow status – I empathized, I wished for him better handlers, better friends, a better life.

Then there were the things that were harder to reconcile – the charges of sexual abuse, the Jesus Juice, the admissions that he had slept in the same bed as the children he befriended. Though I clung, perhaps too long and with too much vigor, to the hope that these were lies created and designed to extort him of his wealth, the truth is that I don’t know if I’ll ever be certain of what the truth was. Maybe I don’t want to know.

But I didn’t know and love Michael Jackson the man. I knew and loved Michael Jackson the performer, the icon, the idea. A little boy with more talent in his soul than anyone I’ve ever met. A little boy who was beaten and abused and who nonetheless created music that was as joyous and full of hope and optimism as any I’ve ever heard. From “I Want You Back” to “Rock With You” to “P.Y.T.” to “The Way You Make Me Feel” to “Remember The Time,” MJ has provided a soulful soundtrack to my life that has influenced every idea I have about music and entertainment.

There has never been and will never be another Michael Jackson. His influence is everywhere and he did as much to create our modern pop culture as anyone else I can think of. With him dies a part of music history and a part of my own history. He was a genius and a freak, an inspiration and a broken man. The most famous person on the planet, he lived a life none of us will ever understand, know or experience and we all richer for the contributions he made to our world.

He was my first hero.

Photograph by Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty Images. Stolen from Slate.com

Attention Citizens of Toronto

Killer

Good news! Apparently if you have no priors and can hold down a job, it is now all but legal to attack complete strangers on public transportation and kill them.

The Toronto Star reports today that John Paul Vallon has been handed a sentence of 10 years (minus 4 years and 4 months “credit” – though the crime took place only 2 years ago) for his lethal attack on student Nick Brown. On April 13, 2007, both men were on a near empty subway car in the early morning hours when Vallon attacked Brown, stabbed him 14 times and left him for dead. For no reason. At all.

So Brown is dead and Vallon will be a free man by 2014. For his part, Ontario Superior Court Justice Eugene Ewaschuk blamed not Vallon for the attack, but rather, the knife Vallon was carrying: “That’s what brought it all on. He got the knife and he was looking for trouble.” Ewaschuk is the same judge who sentenced two reservists to ten years for the stomping death of a homeless man in Moss Park.

So the next time you feel the need to release a little stress and get some of that rage out, go ahead and attack a fellow citizen. Chances are you’ll be free before the 905 gets a hockey team.

Behold the Power of The Lord

A Holy French Fry

As well all know, Jesus is all-powerful and can basically do whatever the hell he wants. This includes having his sacred image appear on everything from bagels to pancakes to the late Nell Carter’s ass. (Though that last one can’t be confirmed, I do have it on good authority such an event once delayed production on a third season episode of  “Gimme A Break.”)

Here’s a montage of news reports detailing the various times and places The Lord has popped up in America in just the past few years.