Saturday, December 4, 2010

If I'm going to hell, I'll Moon Walk all the way!

This Is It. I've finally started writing about Him!

I love Michael Jackson like it's nobody's business. He is my absolute favorite everything and I idolize him!

I swear if anyone even mentions the molestation "charges" I'll inflict bodily harm on them. (Actually, my friends are good for teasing me, but I always win. Mostly because I yell and turn really red.)

Tonight I started listening to some music and just like every other time, I found myself sweatily jumping around to "Billy Jean." I love love love love to dance. I wish I knew how much I loved dancing when I was 3 or something because I would have started then and trained for everything. Within the last 8/10 years I've come to use dancing as a release and it's pretty much the only exercise I get. But when I'm home alone, I go for hours. I do it downtown too.

When I was in high school there was the Jackson's 30th Anniversary. I recorded it because NSYNC was performing. Well, I ended up recording the entire thing and killed the tape because I watched it so much. But this was about the time when I realized that I can watch a music video three or four times and then dance in sync with it. I did it with Michael Jackson, NSYNC and Britney Spears. Not one of the finer points in my life, but...I found my passion.

I focused mostly on Micheal. Stayed up watching VH1 because they play his entire videos to kill air time. Yeah, I recorded them too. Back home, I have an entire box of videos, probably a quarter of it is various Michael Jackson. About this time my mother gave me all her records. I mean, everything she had left from the 70s and 80s. Thriller, some Whitney Houston and Lionel Richie, The Empire Strikes Back Soundtrack, Casey and the Sunshine Band and a few others. Yeah, I'm a bit of a Star Wars freak too!! With the Thriller album I was able to practice with out the videos and just dance to awesome MJ funkiness!! 

Dancing is such a wonderful thing to do. It feels so nice to just funk out and move. To be fluid and rhythmic. To sweat out your stress. It's gross, but there's nothing like being cover in sweat, feeling your chest heave and pound your limbs tingle for the blood flow. It feels good.

My father came to Massachusetts when I was 16. We were hanging out at my grandmothers and he asked me what I wanted to do when I graduated high school. I told him that I wanted to be a professional background dancer and that I danced about 2 hours a day after school. He was encouraging but told me that I needed to lose a little weight. My grandmother walked in and joined the conversation. When she realized I was talking about touring with Michael Jackson, because I knew he was going to do a comeback/final tour again, she laughed at me. We all know that I've been chubby since I was like 12/13, but she was so mean. She killed my dream. Made me feel really bad and I stopped taking dancing serious.

Michael's "This Is It" is what I was waiting for. It's what I wanted to train for. I didn't know in 02 that's what it was going to be, but I had a feeling that he wasn't done. Just to be in that man's presence would have been amazing. Even just to have him watch me audition. I guess that's done and over with. I let go of being a profession background dancer and touring with MJ. But I didn't let him go. I've considered getting his silhouette tattooed on my right ankle. Or his feet in the Billy Jean stance. Or something MJ somewhere on my body!

Summer 09 I almost lost my job for trying to go to his funeral. My boss said I could surely leave, but there wouldn't be a job waiting for me when I got back. (And then he let me go home for a week for my Mammy's 70th birthday.) So, for the last two years, on the anniversary of his death (his funeral was the first time i did it) and his birthday, I wear white socks with black shoes. If I had a fedora, I would rock that too. Oh, and I love making dumb jokes with his song lyrics! I've got about 8 of them! 

Obviously, I dance a ton a home when I'm by myself. But when my friends and I go out, we usually dance all night. That's a bit of an exaggeration, because sometimes I have to beg them to dance, though mostly we do. One way I can get them to dance for sure, is if I promise not to ask for MJ. Then we all go break it down. One night, I swore I wouldn't ask....and they ended up asking for me. That probably had nothing to do with me sitting all frowny at the Imperial. But, they were the ones who dragged me on the floor that night. My best friend Tonya, laughs so hard when I dance because I probably look like a fool, but I have so much fun.

This one DJ calls me Billy Jean Girl and rarely remembers Roberta. Sometimes he calls me Rebecca. (But, I got use to that one a long time ago.) I use to have to make pouty faces to get him to play any MJ at all. And swear that all my friends would dance with me -which is why they sometimes do an MJ-ban. It got to the point that sometimes I wouldn't have to ask, he would see me and just play it. That always got me going because my friends will stop dancing and look at me. Then I have to try to explain, over the music, while dancing and trying to get them to join in, that I didn't ask. But we always have a super good time, MJ notes or not!

Dancing is therapeutic and my latest thing has been Dancing With the Stars - Maksim Chmerkovskiy has quickly become my favorite over the last two seasons!  I wish I had the time and a partner to take ball room lessons. That would be so flippin' awesome. Though, I know traditional ball room dancing isn't like the show.

Michael Jackson is the World's King, not just the King of Pop. He's a talent beyond reckoning. I can safely say, about Michael, that in my generation, or my children's, or my even my great-grandchildren's, there will never be another entertainer like him. Never another to break his records because he set them and then re-broke them in death. He's a singer, a writer, a dancer, a poet, a musician, a father, a cook, an idol, a icon, a multi-talented God who has truly shed his flesh too soon. The man had millions at his command and the only message he tried to give us was to love and take care of one another and care for our planet before we kill it. He could have created an army, planted any idea and we all would have followed without question. He truly could have been a modern Messiah. 

We love you Michael! Forever inspirational!








My friend Chris and I dancing. Well, I was mostly acting out for the camera. But who cares, cause we rocked it!

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