MJ

It is 1983, I am 10 years old. Fluorescent colors are all the rage as well as, bangles (those bracelets we wore by the hundreds up our arm), MTV, white lace gloves with no fingers, Reebok's with Velcro straps, big hair, VHS, aquanet hairspray, Jolt Cola, Fraggle Rock, Knight Rider, the A-Team, brightly colored legwarmers, jheri curls, stirrup pants, Madonna, Boy George, Wham and of course that was the year Michael Jackson released the number one selling album of all time and to this day, Thriller.

I don't usually have a hard time with the death of stars but his was an especially heartbreaking one for me because Michael Jackson has been incredibly famous my entire life. He was my first boyfriend and his face adorned the first boy toy idol type poster on my wall as a girl.

This was the poster I had



I cannot go on with my week without mentioning Michael Jackson in my blog. I was blown away on Thursday when I got to work and heard that he was dead. I was in total disbelief! How could the guy that we grew up imitating, adoring, and later making fun of just be gone forever.

The first two records I ever owned were Culture Club's "Kissing to Be Clever" and Michael Jackson's "Thriller". Thriller was by far my favorite of the two and my cousins, siblings and I spent hours listening to it on my dad's record player while we tried to master the moonwalk and many other dance moves we had seen Michael do on the greatest video of all time. I mean really this guy was a revolutionary he changed the way we danced, sang, and thought about the music video. Are you of an age to remember suffering through old Devo videos? I am, and let me tell you they were really nothing to brag about. Not to mention he broke through the race barrier and single handed brought an end to only crazy, shouldn't be dancing, white people on MTV (thank you).

His life has been continuously and often painfully scrutinized and wrought with turmoil as long as I can remember. There were the stories of his fathers abuse and pushing too hard, the Neverland Ranch (really, what 23 year old wouldn't want a ranch with amusement park rides and tons of weird animals if they could?) Later his marriage to Elvis Presley's Daughter, Lisa Marie, loads of plastic surgery that turned him from a fairly nice looking black man into a really weird looking white woman and then his increasingly outrageous behavior had the tabloids following his every move. All of his fame really came to a screeching halt when the accusations of child molestation came out. I am still unsure as to how I feel about that but the fact remains that he is one of the biggest icons of my life time and he will be missed.

Let us not forget the other fallen stars that unfortunately had to share their deaths with an icon. Farrah Fawcett (I always wanted her hairdo) and Ed McMahon (that guy always looked like he was having a good time).

My favorite Michael Jackson song was Human Nature and I was wondering if you wouldn't mind leaving me a comment with your favorite MJ hit as well as your favorite 80's stuff.