MJ, You Have a New Fan

My friend, Len, of Len Speaks wrote an entry a week or mor ago about seeing This is It, the compilation of the rehearsals for Michael Jackson's comeback tour, aborted by his untimely death. I hoped to see it, as I have had a long time grudging admiration for the man (grudging because of the well publicized eccentricities and swirling accusations), but I had no sense that I would ever write about it, if I saw it. Taking a few days off, I have interspersed meditative thoughfulness (or what passes for that in my impatience) with shopping, and now movie going. I happened to hit the theatre just before a showing of This is It, yesterday afternoon. So, why not?

It was apparently Mr. Jackson's routine to have his rehearsals documented, to watch later, to mark the preparation of performances. I wonder if he had some prescience also about his early death. Maybe it wasn't prescience, because he knew what abuse he had to know what abuse he was heaping on his body with the obsessive plastic surgery and the drugs. Watching him in rare quiet moments working with the musicians, it was clear he couldn't stay still, his hands moving always. And for the most part, even in a darkened theatre he wore sunglasses. Perhaps his handlers were thinking ahead, just in case, which, as it turned out was the case. He'd never do this tour, but we have its essence now for posterity.

Once he was dancing, you'd never know that he had any impairment. He seemed indestructible. And twice or more the age of probably all of dancers backing him up, he moved with an ease that rivalled theirs. I was mesmerized. I could not take my eyes off him. They were mesmerized, even giddy watching him during their breaks. He could conjure what he wanted the performers and himself to do in tandem with an uncanny precision. His timing was transcendent, where to put a beat, where to hold, where to have silence, when to have a startling note. His life was whole here, while it was in shambles everywhere else. And it was a visual truth projected into the theatre.

All I could think of was, this film is a treasure. Yes, AEG and the Jackson Estate is making money. Their motivations are clearly not altruistic, for if altruistic, they would simply give the documentary to the world without remuneration. But it doesn't matter. It's here. This is not everybody's kind of music, I know, but the spark of genius is visible as much here as I imagine it was in its time for a Mozart. I have this odd feeling that in many ways these men have similarities in their inner lives. All is poured into this one thing. Music. And everything else is effectively damned. It's a drive, like a salmon going upstream. Does it allow for forgiveness of responsibility? Maybe not. But all things being equal, what is left behind, this one true thing, is a pearl of great price.