We'll miss you, Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson died. There, I said the unbelievable, shocking truth. As many of you know by now, he died from a heart attack in Los Angeles, California. As my Mom was lying recumbent and sleeping on the sofa with the TV turned on in the den I was playing the guitar in my room during the commercials during King of Queens. I thought maybe King of Queens would be on but when I checked all I saw at the bottom of the screen were the words “Breaking News: Michael Jackson died, aged 50” and the face of a lady reporter repeating those words. I was shocked out of my mind. My Mom was sleeping and when I woke her up, she got up in time to hear the lady reporter repeat what she just said. She couldn’t believe it at all. She got the telephone and started dialing as fast as she could. Watching her, I remembered about my cell phone and who I wanted to contact. I texted the bad news to Ate Sherry, Kuya and Steph, waiting for a quick response. And a response I got. For the rest of the day, Michael Jackson rightly took the spotlight once more on TV.

I pay my truest respect to Michael Jackson and my heart goes out to his family, friends and fans. I feel I don’t know him enough to give you a stuffed obituary about him. And I don’t want to tell you what I looked up on wikipedia because anyone can do that. Instead, I’ll tell you my thoughts on him after watching an interview of him in the recent past. In the interview he was reacting to the name “Wako Jacko,” that ignorant people made up. He said how calling him that name was mean and that it hurt his feelings. I could definitely understand that. Any name-calling would turn off the light in anyone. The simple message Michael was getting at was that everyone has feelings and hurting those feelings – by any means – is just wrong. He seemed to me, to be a man who only innocent and natural thoughts, no matter what other people thought about him. To me, it seemed like people, particularly tabloid makers and paparazzi, just want to dirty everything for their selfish entertainment at the expense of the person they’re pursuing or prey on, rather. And I really hate that. In the interview, Michael was standing up to those kinds of people, saying that there should be a boundary, a line that the paparazzi and tabloid makers shouldn’t cross. That line was to protect the “star” and the star’s privacy. Some would say that it was inevitable that there would still be those kinds of mean people and that Michael should be prepared to fend them off. But Michael, having simple and innocent reactions and thoughts believes in a little something called world peace and that people should be kind and not invade or people’s privacy or hurt their feelings. Michael was a good man and his contributions in this world show nothing but love – love for people, music and the world.