It’s been a year and five days since Michael Jackson passed away. His fans all over the world and on the Web have been talking about him, discussing his artistry and paying tributes to the legend in their own ways. I have come across a few of the tributes that could probably bring any MJ fan to tears….take a look at them…..
REMEMBERING MY FRIEND MICHAEL JACKSON
I was a junior in highschool when my friend Michael Jackson asked me to go on tour with him. He was spending the summer in Europe staging the largest ever (at the time) rock tour for his latest album DANGEROUS. I begged and pleaded with my parents to let me go. We’d known Michael for a few years by then and grown quite close. He’d even come and stayed at our house in suburban Boston for a few days. Who could forget the time he clumsily tried to make his bed in the guestroom in the morning in an effort to impress my mother so he might be invited back? Or the ill-fated breakfast he tried to cook for my sister and I that we forced down our throats with strained smiles as he carefully watched us? Aside from being the biggest celebrity on the planet, he seemed like a pretty good guy so eventually my parents relented and let me go.
Screamers, Moaners – and The Great Michael Jackson
There was a tribute the other night to Michael Jackson at the MTV awards in New York – yeah, where Kanye West made a fool of himself and where Madonna uttered the immortal line “Michael was also a human being and alas, we are all human beings”. Jackson’s sister Janet danced to a song of his, Scream. For the most part you hear his singing in phrases here and phrases there. And it’s all fantastic.
The Day The Earth Stood Still
When my children ask me one day where I was when Michael Jackson passed away, I’ll tell them this:
I had just come home from being out with my mom and sister. My dad was upstairs in his room watching CNN and asked us if we had heard about Michael Jackson being rushed to the hospital. I said “No…” and quickly turned my attention to the tv. I was thinking “First Ed McMahon…Then Farrah Fawcett this morning…and now…Oh God…please not Michael” My dad said “Well you know they say death comes in 3′s”…I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and just knew that Michael would be alright. We all sat there and waited…I got calls from my friends Michael and Gia as we kept going back and forth over the phone lines just waiting to hear good news.
MICHAEL JACKSON’S FINANCIAL LEGACY
In the summer of 1988 Jackson played an unprecedented seven concerts at Wembley Football Stadium in North London on his Bad Tour. This achievement was recognised in Guinness World Records. It was probably the peak of Jackson’s performing career, and his finest hour. I have fond memories of this tour because at the time I was employed in London by a specialist accounting and tax consultancy firm whose clients were drawn exclusively from the entertainment industry. Jackson was one of its clients.
On concert days we monitored the revenue protection controls inside Wembley Stadium, and then got to watch the performance for free.I watched the concert from the opposite end of the stadium, about 100 metres away. It didn’t matter. The atmosphere was electric, and even without attending one of the concerts anyone living within 10km of the stadium could have been forgiven for thinking that they had been in the presence of greatness.
Michael Jackson: The Boy Who Brought Me to Tears
Michael was always very quiet. His older brothers were a lot more loose and outgoing, always joking and laughing. But Michael came alive onstage — almost like he lived for those moments.
In the early ’70s, I went to a small concert at a school for blind children in L.A. I was sitting cross-legged two feet away from Michael with all these kids in the front row. His voice had such a pure quality to it that it just released something in you. I could see all the kids listening and moving, so enthralled by the music. He just sang so amazingly beautiful. It was so joyful and such an outpouring of angelic sound that it released something in me, and tears started rolling down my face.
