Goodbye Michael.. man will you be missed.

My mind raced a million miles an hour when I first saw the headlines about the passing of Michael Jackson. The dude was one of the true giants of the entertainment industry. He was our generation's Sammy Davis Jr., Elvis and Jimmy Hendrix all rolled into one. I have generally been an outspoken critic of our society's growing fascination with celebrities. This seeming need we have to follow their every move, every success, every failure, every aspect of their lives in gory detail. Likewise I have always felt we get carried away in how much time and energy we spend on their deaths. Death is after all the great equalizer. No matter what we do in life, we all end up in the same place. But this was different. This was Michael Jackson, a voice I had heard since I was 5 or 6 years old. A vocalist I had begun imitating before I can even remember doing so and whose dance moves I, like 100 million other guys, practiced endlessly in the mirror but never quite got right. Michael was a part of me. Part of who I am.. part of my childhood, part of my college years, part of my adult life. . You may laugh, but I was never one who believed he molested those kids. Not that I didn't believe he had the kids in his bed. That I could completely believe. What I could not believe was that this man would do anything ever to harm a child. Some might call that view naive, but it has an honest origin.

A few million years ago, when I was working weekends at Disney World's EPCOT Center, I had occasion to meet him. In fact I rode down an elevator with him. And a bunch of his handlers, entourage or whatever you want to call them. He was being escorted to the ride I was working, and I was returning from a break to work the ride. There was no conversation, nothing more than a polite, "Hi." Not even a handshake of the gloved hand. But in that 2-3 minutes, I learned a great deal about Michael Jackson. He was maybe 23 or 24 years old at the time, but he conducted himself like a child and was treated that way by his "people." I was a huge fan of his music, but I simply was not the sort to get starstruck on anybody. So I did not fawn all over him or act like a teenage girl. I kept my cool, though I most certainly wanted to at least tell him how great I thought his music was. Instead I just listened. I listened to how his people talked to him. How he responded. How withdrawn he was. I remember being struck by how small he was. He was so skinny. He slouched as he stood there and when he walked. He seemed frail to me. At all of 5'7" I felt like I towered over him. But what really sealed it for me was what happened when the elevator opened. As he walked out some of the people in the lines spotted him and it was on. The teenagers surrounded him, the crowd engulfed him and his reaction spoke volumes to me. I could see his face as the scene unfolded. He was befuddled, frightened, completely helpless and taken aback by the situation. I remember thinking to myself: "This guy has dealt with this mob scene since he was 6 or 7 years old, and he hasn't figured out how to handle any better than a mousey look to his managers? Wow!?!?" The managers and some of the Disney staff, myself included, moved in quickly and ushered him out of the mass and onto the ride. I realized at that moment the extent to which Michael Jackson was not in control of his life. I remember thinking that he didn't sound all that bright in conversation. I also recall reading a letter he wrote in one of his album liners that might have been written at 5th grade level. So there I was, making $8.50 an hour, telling people about plants and agriculture on an EPCOT ride, feeling sorry for multi-millionair megastar Michael Jackson.

As the years wore on I watched as he moved into and out of a series of bizarre relationships with women. From Brooke Shields to Lisa Marie Presley to that Debbie whatever her name is woman. I always remember thinking: "This brother has no idea what he's looking for in a woman, and therefore he will likely never find it." Then there is the matter of the allegations of child molestation. I just don't buy it. Michael thought of and conducted himself as a kid until the day he died. The things he did with those kids, in my opinion, were consistent with a man who just never grew up and who enjoyed playing with and hanging out and yes sleeping with little kids more than he did the company of adults. Frankly, on that count, I can certainly see his point. I enjoy the company of my 8 year old more than I do all but a handful of adults I know. If you're a parent, you know how special cuddling with a little one can be. There is an innocence, a tranquility to it that defies description.

Michael's biggest problem, was that he alternately raised by his borderline insane and certainly obsessed father and the sycophants who were hired to take care of him both when he was a child and later when he was an adult... child. Rare is the employee who can look his or her boss in the eye and say "Boss, that's some stupid stuff you're doing and you need to stop. NOW!" It's truly ironic that the people who had the most to lose from his downfall, namely their livelihood, were unwilling to step in and steer him away from so many of life's pitfalls. Though that may be unfair. Perhaps some of them did exactly that, but got shouted down. The absurd plastic surgery, the often odd, always lavish lifestyle choices, the increasingly ill-advised consorting with other people's children. There is no playbook on how to be a man. Most of us learn by watching. Our dads, our big brothers, our teachers our coaches etc. Michael had agents, handlers, lawyers, other entertainers... his own brothers, who had their own issues, and of course his own father -- Joe. The fact that he never really evolved into a true "man" was not much of a surprise to me. In that one regard, he was greatly handicapped in life. So here I sit, some 26 years after my first episode of feeling sorry for Michael Jackson, still feeling pretty much the same way. In fact upon reflection, I never really stopped feeling sorry for him. Even though he would have great successes after that first encounter, I could never completely forget that chance encounter in the elevator at EPCOT and the lasting impression it left me with. Michael Jackson seemed as much a prisoner in his life as anything. At least he's no longer that. I hope his affairs were in order spiritually and I trust he left his children in good stead both in terms of their care as well as financially. Hopefully we will not be so cruel to them as we were to their father over the last 15 years.