Damn you, MJ!

Damn you, Michael Jackson!

I've made a proud habit of making fun of crazy fans lining up near celebrity sightings for autographs (what exactly does one do with a piece of paper and somebody's scratch anyway?), a two second glimpse, crying, fretting, writing crazy notes and going around declaring, 'when s/he passed, a part of me died'. WTF?! And now Michael Jackson has brought me pretty darn close to that state, and i'm not amused. Again, WTF!?!

I was out in 'The Last Frontier' when I heard the news. My friend and I had singed up for a boat trip in a 'fjord', this one a long narrow water inlet surrounded by cliffs, glaciers, and ... nothingness. At the end, we returned to civilization in what turned out to be a rainy, cold evening ... we decided to treat ourselves at one of the nicer restaurants in town.

We got there. They seated us. The diner at table to my left turned out to be a crazy woman, seriously nutty or possibly tripping on some sort of narcotic, who started talking at us. We didn't even get enough time to look at the menu as she marched as through a dozen topics. Suddenly she interrupted herself and said, 'Oh, stop! OMG! Let's talk about Michael Jackson'. My friend, who's Kenyan, and I looked at each other -- I could see she was on the verge of cracking up, as I was. I guess as I grow older I've become unnecessarily cynical. This may come out as borderline, eh, racialist but it's pretty bizarre when you're in the US state nicknamed 'The Last Frontier' for a good reason, not yet fully "discovered" by certain demographics, and a white woman assaults two unsuspecting African women at an upscale-ish, otherwise tranquil restaurant with a conversation and the topic is, 'Let's talk Michael Jackson'. Seriously? I kept quiet. My friend, barely containing her laughter, asked, 'Who's that?' There went my control over my laughter.

At this point a person sitting on the right also joined in the conversation.

'Wait a minute, you guys haven't heard?'

'Heard what?'

'He's dead, you know that right?'

'Who's dead?'

'Michael'

'What do you mean?'

'He died today.'

'What do you mean?'

'He died today, it's all over the news.'

'What do you mean 'he died'?'

'He died today. And farrah fawcett also died.'

At this point I was fully disengaged from reading the menu. They told us what they knew. Between the nutty woman and the news it took us about 40 minutes to pick something and place our orders. Throughout the dinner our conversation kept coming back to, 'I can't believe he's dead.' We couldn't wait to get back to the B&B where we could watch the news. We eventually left the restaurant over 3 hours after we'd arrived. The food was great, the experience, including the news, was torturous.

On our way back I asked my friend, 'So who's the other person who died?'

'Farrah Fawcett'.

'Who the hell is that?' She laughed at me. She's routinely my celebrity bearing,

'You know ... the girl in the red swimsuit. She'd been battling anal cancer.'

For once that was sufficient description. I remember reading about iconic photographs and the girl in a red swimsuit was one of them. Then recently I'd read about a woman who was doing a documentary on her battle with anal cancer. I just hadn't known those two referred to the same person.

"Ouch, nobody will remember she died", I commented. She corrected, "The people who really cared for her will, which is all that matters". True that. True that.

On TV commentaries that followed the death of Michael Jackson spewed a lot of shit, I thought. As we listened to CNN, I found myself getting very annoyed.

' ... we'll have more on Michael Jackson and his controversial life'. Please. The man is dead. He's not even been dead 24 hrs. Can't the fuckers just say, he passed. Period. We've a lifetime to make up and fan more allegations which he'll never defend. No need to get an 'early' start on something for which society is already so far ahead.

' ... we'll tell you more about the fate of his children, whose custody could turn out to be a controversy'. What? Could turn out to be a controversy? What the hell kind of reporting is that ... the media's version of a preemptive strike? It seems like a controversy to me to report on the possibility of a controversy ... which turned out not to be a controversy.

Then there were other little irritating tidbits, like comparing Elvis' and Prince's careers to MJ's. Seriously?

The other day I asked a friend about his thoughts on MJ. His response was a somewhat nonchalant, 'Well, it doesn't affect me, but he was alright' kinda take. Mind you, this brat grew up in Ethiopia too, listening to MJ stuff. I told him I'll now have to reconsider our friendship. But you see, this is what I mean... MJ has turned me into one of those freaky, fanatical fans. I'm taking this personally. Damn you, Michael.

The day after I found out about MJ's death, I went hiking with the Kenyan friend. She told me how while she was growing up in Nairobi, people used to translate Michael Jackson's songs into Swahili or Kikuyu. Smooth Criminal had become 'Muishi Munyoroku' which literally translates to 'slippery criminal' form Kikuyu. The didn't have a word, nor concept, for 'smooth' in that context. So up we went Mt Roberts, singing 'Muishi munyoroku, munyoroku, munyoroku ...aww ...! '(they sang that in place of 'Annie are you ok, so are you ok, are you ok ...') Hilarious!

To my knowledge no MJ song has been translated to Amharic or other Ethiopian languages, but you never know. "muliCHliCH leba"? "afetlaki leba?" "aschegari leba"?

My earliest memory of Michel Jackson was on an NTO bus, on a rare trip to Lake Langano with families from my mother's maheber. Somebody put a MJ tape in the player, and there it was, Beat It, beating though the speakers in communist friggin' Ethiopia. To parents' and us little kiddies' entertainment, some of the teenagers were on their feet attempting impersonations of MJ. I was maybe 4 years old. I doubt that was the first time I heard MJ's music, but that was the day I got the bug. We'd been hit by a smooth criminal ... and it was more than ok. (yeah, i'm getting carried away here, and no, I know my name is not Annie.)

Last night I was reading random stuff about Michael Jackson and came across a reference to his legendary half time Super Bowl performance in 1993, which I didn't know much about. The writer claimed that was the best performance in the history of Super Bowl. Of course, I believe anything about Michael Jackson, right? I figured I'd check it myself so I dug it up on youTube. As I have never watched a Super Bowl half time show I have nothing to compare it to. But on its own, it was a stunning performance. Surreal. Quintessential Michael Jackson.

At the end of Heal The World I couldn't help but feel guilty. Society had severely misjudged and mistreated this man. Eventhough there's a chance he was a pedophile, you say? No, I don't believe so. For Michael Jackson to be a pedophile, then the parents who settled for money to drop their charges had to have been pimping their kids out for child prostitution. You can't drop a case on sexual assault on your kids for any price, at any time. Perhaps the only thing I find more disturbing is to think parents as selling their kids for sex, and that somehow the law allowed that to happen. I don't even understand how that was permitted. So I I chose to believe that the parents lied, and MJ paid.

Back in the 80s when Micheal got 3rd degree burns while filming a Pepsi commercial, one of his many good wishers supposedly sent him a note that read, 'Michael, I heard you're pretty hot, but this is getting ridiculous'.

Now a similar statement can be made about how Michael's always been pretty cool, but he's gone a little over the top this time. More than a little. (a bit in bad taste? I've to find something in this to keep it light.)

Wherever he is, I hope he finally finds some peace and happiness. I never know whether to believe if there's heaven and hell, but I'll make this exception and hope that there's an afterlife for him. And may this afterlife be much, much better than the one life he had thus far.

He'll be missed.

p.s. Long post, I know. But Dude, it's about MJ!

Tempted New York

I had been thinking a lot about moving to Manhattan, but battling with the idea of trading my currently calm surroundings of statewide, littered 2 story buildings and strip malls for the hustle bustle of preoccupied, perhaps a tad self-important new yorkers pouring out of skyscrapers at odd hours of any day. I feel like if one has the opportunity, cities like London, New York and Tokyo are must-live-in places, especially in the absence of kids and family.

I gave my notice to the management office of my apartment and now, whether i like it or not, I've to be out of my place by the end of the month. Looking for an apartment is a daunting task. Looking for an apartment in Manhattan is a daunting task and a half. It so happens I had to be out in Ohio last week, and I’ll be back there again next week. I attempted a bit of apartment hunting this weekend and here Sunday evening approaches with nothing to rave about.

I went up in Spanish Harlem to see two apartments, one of which reminded me a the meqabir houses you'd see in the country side in Ethiopia - tiny, windowless and dark. The street scene, on the other hand, was my kinda scene. I've never liked prim and proper places. Harlem streets, in my opinion, have personalties you can never characterize. This time a rushed Hispanic man stopped me and fired a couple of inquisitive sentences. I responded, 'No hablo Espanol', with a weak smile in what I know is a decent accent (well, Americans have a knack for butchering pronunciations and I'm not there yet) . He looked at me for a second more and walked on. (Ok, I speak a bit of Spanish but I hear it less, and specially less when it's fired at me at 5 words/second rate). Then there was an old man sitting with a very nice pile of stereo system, drumming well (very well, to my untrained ears) to blasting Caribbean music. A block lower was a lady who screeched away on a microphone in Spanish. She paused in between to interject 2 or 3 English sentences, the gist of which was, 'Evil, evil is no good for you. Evil takes away your ignorance.' I do hope she meant innocence, or arrogance. Maybe she means both. Oh wait, the latter is ... bah ... who knows what she meant.

The better of the apartments was owned by a guy who turned out to be a funny Israeli who's lived in new york for 'toity' years. 'Twenty?', I asked. 'No, Toity'. Huh? 'Toity, toity ... three... zero'. Oh. I don't know if that's an Israeli thing. 'I hate rent', he told me. I told him, likewise, and if he figures out a way for me to have that apartment sans rent, I'd take it on the spot. He pauses for a bit and goes, 'You mean like a sugar daddy?' I guess I had that one coming. I told him that, in my book, would still be considered as rent.

I filled out an application and pointed out that somebody will have to clean the kitchen more. He called me back and said, 'let me see your knees'. What? 'let me see your kneeeees'. I'm standing right there in a pair of jeans. I stare on. I had no clue what he was getting at. 'Good knees!', he goes, 'Woman, get down on your knees and do some cleaning.' I briefly thought of a HBO documentary I saw last week of Billie Jean King handing Bobby Riggs a pig symbolizing male chauvinism at their Battle of the Sexes match in '73. But this man was laughing at his own joke so hard that I'd to let it go. Later we walked by the kitchen when he said, 'oh, gross', like a 13 year old kid. I said, 'Exactly!'. But surely, he must have seen it before.

On my way out of the city, I parked my car 'near' (4 avenues out) my office to grab my laptop. I was legging it and on the phone with a zemed when i noticed a car slowing down on my right and a man saying something which appeared to be directed to me. I figured he was asking for directions. I got closer to the curb, leaving a parked car between myself and this car. There were three men in the car, the one in the driver's seat yelled out,

'I've been waiting for you for 30 minuites. You never showed up.'

Hmm.

Hmmmm.

It took me a while to acknowledge that there was no way I could have misconstrued a question for directions into that statement. I start laughing and walk away. The car continues to crawl at my pace.

'Come on. Let's go have breakfast'.

I keep talking on the phone but the guy is relentless.

'What do you say ? Let's go to a MacDonald's'

At this point I start laughing again and ask my zemed when MacDonald's started serving a breakfast menu, and more importantly, when did pick up lines become so bizarre as, 'hey babe, let's go have breakfast at a MacDonald's'. I glance towards the car, nod my head yeah-rrrrite, and continue walking.

The next thing I know the guy has pulled the car into a spot by a fire hydrant and is following me saying, 'Let's at least have a talk, sweetie ... I'll make it up to you', when it occurred to me, holy shit, he thinks I'm somebody else.

I opted to bolt. I was in mid-town at 11am. I didn't expect anything weird to happen, but I crossed the street and hastened my pace. The next time I looked back either he'd given up the chase, or become indistinguishable in the crowd. I stayed in my office for an hour before I made it back in the streets again.

The thing is, when you start apologizing to a girl who you presumably ... let's say, slept with but can't even remember what she looks like, shouldn't there be a rule of thumb as to how far you'll go to apologize ... for whatever it is that you've done?

And for heaven's sake, don't take her to a McDonald's!