Black Hat: a tribute of love

How do you properly express gratitude to those who have literally changed the trajectory of your focus, brought light back into your eyes and warmed your heart to bonfire temperature once again? The people who, without them, it’s a wonder where you would be, how do you say thank you for that? If I could, I would be honored to thank those whose existence has altered my own. Even the ones I can and do tell, it feels as though there is no method of doing so that is ever enough.

Michael Jackson was a game changer, record breaker, art creator, and world healer. He was intertwined in the very thin thread that is the best brand of humanity God ever made. On the ninth anniversary of his passing, the air is heavy amid moonwalkers but it doesn’t feel like the greatest showman is truly absent. This could be because I am a posthumous fan but I think knowing what was not so much a period as it is semicolon in Michael’s story, on this side of Heaven, is why I would rather not spend time grieving. Imagine being in my position, unearthing an inspiration so dazzling it’s nearly blinding, all the while knowing he is no longer physically here. Michael: Part I explains the thunderstorm of anguish and amazement. Enjoying the music and the moves of Michael, who was one of the most compassionate people to ever grace this earth, knowing there won’t ever be another chance to see him live in concert is a sinking feeling. “It’s like meeting the man of your dreams and then meeting his beautiful wife.” Part of me fully believes in not falling for dead men, though it’s not possible to fully believe in part. My other half is overjoyed that I found the mysticism of Michael because I needed it. I was unaware how much I needed something to spark not only my creativity, but my heart back into the right rhythm. I needed a reason to be happy again. I hadn’t even realized how unhappy I had been until I listened to his music and felt like I was coming in from the bitter wind and sitting in front of a fireplace.

Grammys 1988

He was human but his work is immortal. Great music is timeless. That is why he put his soul into what he sang and how he moved because he knew that love lives forever. There is a lot of sadness on June 25th for fans of the late Great King of Pop but it doesn’t have to be a day of mourning, for no other reason than the last thing Michael would want is for the MJ Fam to be sad. He was a master of movement and an expert in excelsior, which means taking all the negative energy and using it as positive fuel. It’s a wonder how he kept going with the tabloids chasing him like rabid dogs, perhaps excelsior contributed to his perseverance. He also lived in love which is an undefeated source of power. He didn’t focus on the media, he focused on the fans who, nine years later still reflect that love. He had a wonderful life but it was not without sacrifice that left him very isolated. Personally speaking, loneliness is the worst feeling there is. It is worse than sadness, I’d rather cry a river than be lonely. It is worse than jealousy, despite the destructive monster that can be. It is a feeling of emptiness, emptiness that hollows from the inside out. It’s not like depression, which eventually warps into some kind of numbness where no feeling is felt, good or bad. Loneliness is feeling a relentless void and endlessly wanting it filled. Like a cup with a hole in the bottom, draining as fast as the pouring began. Although many artists are close friends with loneliness, I would imagine very few have felt as lonely as Michael Jackson. This of course is just speculation but as someone who has known loneliness intimately, it’s easy to hear it in his lyrics. In order to recognize it though, you have to pay attention because the void he felt is cloaked in celebratory sound. He wasn’t a typical lamenting performer, like a country crooner who loses their spouse, dog and house in the first verse. Songs like I’m So Blue are beautiful and brutal at the same time. He took his pain and made it sing, excelsior. Fortunately, his life wasn’t just lonely. He was the most successful entertainer of all time, he influenced virtually everyone in the industry, had a heart bigger than his unmatched talent and did as many hospital visits as he did concerts. He maintained his integrity over four decades of fame and consistently conducted himself respectfully. However, the roll he fit better than any of the ones he played in his history making short films, was fatherhood. He was a great dad. He was fun, protective, nurturing and empowering. The only thing the King of Pop did not have was an ego.

Thank you almost sounds like an insult on this day of remembrance. There will never be another Michael Jackson but it’s crazy to think that he existed in the first place, so much talent, intelligence, humility and heart inside one human-only God could create that. I suppose since God did it once He could do it again. The magic of Michael Jackson is not in the glove or the leather penny loafers, nor is it in the moonwalk or the fedoras that he ordered by the box-load. Although symbolic, those things are just things, they were props in a performance. The magic of Michael is not even magic, it is love. The unblemished kind. Magic is a word people use to describe a type of love that is unfamiliar to them. Unfamiliar because it is pure love. Authentic and unconditional, it is the love of God. As someone who is blanketed with that love, I believe that was the thing Michael had that others don’t, that je ne sais quoi, people cannot seem to pinpoint is the God kind of love. In my opinion, it seems that the singer spent the first few decades of his life looking for that love after growing up through an abusive childhood under spotlights and in front of thousands, then finding the love of Christ later in his life when he was no longer a Jehovah’s Witness. Michael wasn’t magic, he was better than magic, he was love.

Beyoncé singing her song Halo to Michael in London, on the night he would’ve been performing there had he not passed away.

What we can do, when we come across stars like this that are brighter than anything else in the skies of our lives, instead of just saying “thank you, I love you,” we can keep the light on. We can live our lives in thankfulness. We can be the love we were given. Michael may be gone but those who love him remain and it’s out of love that we keep his legacy alive, If we do, if we pay it forward, when we die, a part of us will be immortal too. A hat is just a hat and a glove is just a glove, but anything can be made perfect when it’s done in love.