Thursday, June 25, 2009

Where were you?


I'm sure there will be many a post dedicated to the King of Pop. I, Betsy, thought I'd just ask for your memory.

Where do you picture yourself when you think about Michael Jackson? When I think of him, I think of all the rides in the car listening to his tapes while my mom was driving. I remember the day Bad came out and going to the store to buy it, opening it and reading the inside while we listened. I also think about dancing slow and meaningfully to Man in the Mirror on our driveway with my fisher price cassette player, and the many times Bill and I have played and sang it in the car. Lastly, I think of decorating posters for cheerleading camp in my friend Heather's garage in high school but stopping because HIStory was just released and the world premiere of Scream was going to be on MTV. After watching that we went back to the garage and tried to remember all the moves to Thriller. There are so many memories of his music and videos. I just can't think there can be another pop star of his caliber, at least as long as music is done the way it is today. An icon falls, and it's hard to believe.

14 comments:

jason said...

Yes, I will be contributing to the many posts about Michael Jackson. but to answer your question, probably my first memory is watching an HBO live in concert special back in like 1996 during the History tour with my roomate in our dorm room. I think it was in Budapest or something. Amazing - I'll be writing about it so I don't want to give away the kicker - but it totally solidified his iconic status in my eyes.

bill said...

I remember being at home with my family on Friday nights. We always got to eat dinner in the living room while watching the Friday night line-up on ABC. It was always a special treat because Fridays were the only days we got to eat dinner in the living room.

And I remember one Friday evening with my family watching the debut of the Black and White video...on ABC. They interrupted their regular TGIF line-up to debut his new music video. And they did that on multiple occasions through the years...but only for Michael Jackson.

I can't think of one other musician that could debut their music videos during prime-time on one of the major networks. But Michael was THAT huge.

And we weren't allowed to watch MTV growing up, so those were the only music videos I saw.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I remember having a poster of Michael in our toy room (yup, we had a room dedicated to toys, board games, etc.). I grew up fairly sheltered until I was about 16 (no cable, so no MTV and Comedy Central and all the other shows everyone else watched). So us having that poster must have said something about how huge he was. Of course, I started using the poster as a dart board for some reason. I can't remember why, proably just bored. Nothing against Michael. So everything was swell and dandy until my mom took the poster down and saw all the holes left in the door. I remember her coming at me with a long aluminum measuring stick (probably about 3 feet long) and I dove under a table in the toy room. She grabbed me a yanked me out and proceeded to pound on my behind. That thing never really hurt though. It was too flimsy. So that's it. That's my Michael Jackson memory.

Jeff

Anonymous said...

Actually, I am wondering if Bill started using the poster as a dart board and I followed suit. That was usually how it worked.

Jeff

ragamuffinminister said...

Neyland stadium, early 80's. My first concert. Very loud. Opening act was...a juggler. Then the Jackson Five, then Michael. Don't remember the song lineup, just remember my 3 babysitters who surprised me with that concert were all dressed like him and the whole stadium was filled. Nuts.

Also, I was the only white kid in my school for 4 years in downtown knoxville and I wasn't allowed to be part of the "Michael Jackson lookalike" crew. I tried and was made fun of. I didn't take it hard. I was white, after all. But in the early eighties, all of us wanted to look like him. Even the white kids.

Anonymous said...

I remember getting a Michael Jackson t-shirt for my birthday(probably my 10th?) and his glove on it sparkled. I also got my own sparkly glove and a poster for my bedroom wall. I kept it on the wall at the foot of my bed. I really thought he was cool. (Although my little brother, Bill, blabbed before my birthday that I was getting the shirt, I have since forgiven him.)

Peggy

SCOTT said...

We used to go to my friend Jason's house (because I was not allowed to listen to MJ music); and turn off all the lights in his basement so it was completely dark and turn on thriller...the first one up the stair or turned on the light was the biggest chicken and we mocked them, til someone else chickened out first...good times!

Anonymous said...

Thinking about Michael Jackson makes me think of two, kind of three, people. Mike Benedict - he liked listening and dancing to Beat It on our Fisher Price tape recorder in the toy room. And Weird Al Yankovic/Jackie P. Weird Al made fun of Michael's music and Jackie brought those parody's to life at many "talent" shows. Michael made great music. And he danced like no one else I've ever seen.

Jeremy and Jessica said...

My sister had the MJ doll, (kind of like a barbie doll) and she outgrew it and passed it down to me. It came w/the sparkly glove and red leather jacket. I played w/it a lot, wish I knew where it was now, it's probably worth something.
I also remember watching the black and white video w/my mom. That was a big deal b/c my mom was sooooo not into that kind of stuff. I sat like 8 in. away from the T.V. screen in awe.

michaelCODY said...

Used to sneak my moms taperecorder into my bedroom at night and listen to the Thiller cassette tape and fall to asleep to it each night. A friend left it at my house and I basically told him I never found it.
Middle School came around and doing MJ songs and moves is how I got girls attention.
I remember waiting all day for the video premiere of Black and White and in later years, the Scream video with Janet which was aired every hour on VH1 and MTV, which was great, because our MTV channel was blocked.
When I turned 18, mom gave me a Michael Jackson doll they got me as a kid, knowing I wouldn ttake it out of the box since I was older.

Finally, I remember taking a girlfriend in 2001 to a showing of Phantom of the Opera and hearing the next day Invincible would be released. We weren't far from Virgin Studios so thought we would stay another day and pay it a visit tomorrow to buy the album because sometimes the artists make a surprise visit and signing. Well, he did. I have a framed copy of his autograph on the CD artwork. Well worth the 4 hour line wait.

bill said...

Dude, I didn't know you had his autograph. That's awesome!

Lynsey Grant said...

I think this memory may have been suppressed until reading some other peoples memories. But I remember that I had this random chain with a medallion on the end of it that was long enough to fit around my waist. So I would always put it on pretending to be MJ with some random chain hanging around me. I also remember trying to dance like Michael on my parents bed with said chain on.

It is crazy to think about how he affected our lives. If he hadn't died i would just continue to think about the fact that he had good music and yeah I liked him. But now that he is dead I keep thinking aobut all the times that I tried to dance just like him. From the age of six or so on through college and the present. Someday I will learn to do the Thriller dance. Even though i can't dance.

By the way, this is Derek not Lynsey

Betsy said...

lol, derek, the whole time i thought it was lynsey and it completely changes how i view that comment.

Derek said...

I watched Moonwalker today for the first time in years. That brought back TONS of memories. For instance, being a little kid and asking my mom if she could do pelvic thrusts like Michael and I could. (I realize now how awkward that must have been for her).

That is all for now. Maybe more later.

derek