Moonwalking all our lives

As I had some writing to meet a deadline, I went to bed at around 3.30 am on Friday June 26. By then news channels were breaking the news that Michael Jackson was rushed to a UCLA hospital. I didn’t think much of it for two reasons. One MJ has been having a hard time keeping himself fit, especially for the concerts lined up in London. The second was that the media frenzy for everything has been so overdone that ‘breaking news’ is no more breaking enough.
I dozed off with the television on. I woke up around seven (IST) and got to know the bad news. I managed to break my spectacles by sleeping over them. I felt strange. Not because my specks were broken but because it was not the first time I was sleeping over them. The sinister omen was right. After putting together my specks I gazed at the TV and Anderson Cooper broke the news. ‘King of Pop Michael Jackson passes away’ (1958- 2009). I surfed other channels and all were ‘breaking’ the news. An Indian news channel had even sniffed a conspiracy angle to it by then.
For someone who missed the Beatlemania, Elvis and many more, MJ was what filled the gaps in aspiration. MJ was a child star (by the early 80s he had attained cult status), was coloured and had a charming innocence that prompted every parent to wish their child was a MJ.
Growing up in the Arab world, in Kuwait among other places, it would seem strange to say that in the concoction of friends I had, Michael Jackson was a rage. Yes from dishdasha flaunting Arabs to Spaniards who popularised the Berumda shorts breakdancing was the coolest thing to do – on Friday evenings, after football matches and even near souks. Moonwalking was a good way of connecting with the local boys. Though we could not figure out a word they said, and for them what we said, the only common thread we had was music and in the 80s music was Michael Jackson. MJ pushed us to moonwalk near the subways, sneak to school with our walkmans playing Thriller blasting our eardrums. Adding to this, girls liked MJ; they like boys who either played MJ, looked like him or who could dance like him. Where Stevie Wonder, Phil Collins, Bobby McFerrin and George Michael failed, Bad worked.
MJ raised a phenomenal craze for black jackets and white gloves. I always made it a point to wear white socks and pointed toe shoes. How could I forget the black shades. Finding a pair for kids was hard and we resorted to the big ones that rested on our cheekbones. But who was complaining. With our shades, shoes and jacket we were also MJ!
My first MJ video, as far as I recollect, was a collection that had video songs of Thriller, Bad, Dirty Diana and many more. A Pakistani friend who had cousins in the US managed to get hold of an assortment of MJ video songs and Moonwalker. All friends huddled up in Jude’s house. Those days we didn’t have compact discs and VHS’ was the best. As Jude pushed the VHS in (it always took an awful lot of time to start) all of us were staring at the dictionary-type VHS cover. We played, replayed and replayed the songs forever. Music, dance and style were never the same again. All of us friends hugged Jude. Never did I feel so much love for a Pakistani.
Being on the healthy side, as a kid there were people always taunting me to reduce the flab. If at all I felt the need to trim down it was because I wanted to shake my leg like the King of Pop. There was also another reason for aspiring to follow MJ. My brother, five years elder to me, was a lookalike of MJ. His lean built, coloured complexion, big sparkling white eyes and natural curls helped him earn the status of a neighbourhood MJ. To top this he was a singer and knew that he could pull a moonwalk with equal grace (something that I still can’t do).
Maybe it was this deep bounding that later down the years I found it hard to believe his fall from grace. During all the scandals and innumerable eccentricities there was always a voice in me saying that he was paying the price for being popular. I kept telling myself and the world that sneered at him: ‘Wait, he’s gonna come out clean and put to rest all these scandals. His next album is gonna make history’.
The whole world was looking forward to the concerts in July. I hope he is remembered for the music he gave and not his personal life; that he would be shown justice denied to him while he was alive.
Michael Joe Jackson went away before he could sing his last song and receive his last standing ovation.
MJ - thank you for the culture, thank you for the revolution and thank you for the music. Thank you Michael Jackson.

Jesus Christ Superstar

The Vatican last week pardoned John Lennon for his “more popular than Jesus now” statement made 42 years ago. It said that in all probability the remarks were made by the band members because they could not handle the sudden fame and stardom they had achieved. Given this, it must be an irony that Lennon made that statement, as he met Paul McCartney for the first time at St Peter’s Church in Liverpool.
It might be true that being made a Member of the Order of the British Empire did make them a bit cocky (George Harrison was 22 when he received the MBE).
The Beatles were no strangers to controversies -- be it snubbing the Marcoses in the Philippines or getting arrested in Hamburg for arson. In the US, Elvis Presley asked President Richard Nixon to ban the group from entering the US for their anti-war activism and open drug use.
For the Church, which was relatively unchallenged for the greater part of its existence, the statement by the band was a rabbit punch. In the 1960s and 70s the Church was in crisis. The disillusionment of the two World Wars and the hippy movement saw a sharp decline in church attendance all over the world.
The Church was rocked, perhaps for the first time, when Henry VIII of England decided to separate the Anglican Church from the Roman hierarchy in the 16th century. Until then the Vatican had enjoyed unquestioned power and anyone who was seen as being against its interests got a taste of its tough love. The best example is the case of Joan of Arc, burnt at the stake. Later, the Vatican apologised and Joan was canonised in 1920.
Lennon’s statement was small potatoes considering the damage Henry VIII caused to the Church. But the eighth Henry was a monarch while The Beatles were a ‘working-class group’ who symbolised values unbecoming of Christendom. By taking strong exception, the Church was rebuking not just The Beatles.
But the Church’s biggest knock came from a Cambridge theologian who said that all species of life evolved over time from common ancestors through a process he called natural selection.
Is anyone paying heed to a pardon that has come 28 years after Lennon was shot dead? In 1966, when the Church reacted and Beatles’ LPs’ were burnt in the US and South Africa, Harrison said: “They’ve got to buy them before they can burn them.” So how much would McCartney and Starr heed the pardon now?