Now, Just Who is Scott Brooks, Again?

Michael Jackson’s death has been a painfully hard pill to swallow. Even as I watched the news reports and glanced at the 117 text messages I got in 20 minutes all telling me the same thing, I just didn’t believe it was true. I expected at any second for it all to have just been another false scare. But, in the end, it came to pass that Michael Jackson was dead.

For me, even as I write this, It is very much like having lost a lifelong friend. Obviously, it sounds silly to see an entertainer you’ve never met as a friend, but Michael Jackson has been a part of my life since I was a child. Michael’s death has had me thinking a lot about my own mortality. I’ve thought about why Michael’s death is so real to me and it’s because Michael’s music is the soundtrack to my life.

I remember the time in third or fourth grade and the class in a circle playing outside with a big parachute where we would all take turns running under it while we moved it up and down. The entire class sang along to a record playing. It was Michael Jackson’s “Rockin’ Robin”.

I remember the times watching The Jackson 5 cartoon on Saturday mornings and loving little michael.

I remember the time as a 14/15 year old when my father wouldn’t get me tickets to see Michael Jackson and The Jacksons play during the Victory Tour. All of my father’s pothead friends mocked me when I tried to win tickets on the radio.

I remember the time we were walking down the strand at the beach and stopped to watch The Thriller video when it first came out as it played in a store and getting picked on for liking him. I don’t remember anything else about that beach trip.

I remember the time as a teen riding with my mother and her friends on vacation and listening to We are the World endlessly rewinding the parts where Michael sang.

I remember the time in 9th grade when my friend Todd Lancaster’s father was driving us from junior high school to the high school so we could be on the varsity wrestling team. His father, Vince, was probably 35 at the time and was singing along to the radio. “I always feel like somebody’s watching me” he sang. “That’s Michael Jackson, you know,” he told us.

I remember the time as an 18 year old rushing home one morning after an overnight shift at my first full-time job just to hear the radio debut of Michael’s I just can’t stop loving you.

I remember the times checking the BAD CD out of the Danville Community College llibrary and listening to it on one of their cd players because I didn’t have a CD player and the CD had a bonus track on it (Speed Demon).

I remember the times I was at Longwood College talking to my girlfriend who was in High School while I was listening to Remember the Time cause we were separated and all we had were memories.

I remember the time I was engaged to be married and in my early 20s when the first Michael Jackson scandal broke. She and her family laughed at me as I sat and watched the press statement Michael made from Neverland Valley Ranch.

I remember the time inthe late 90s when I was separated from someone very close to me and I kept playing “You are not alone” over and over again.

I remember times like these scattered throughout my entire life. But, none so much as we Charlie Fulp and I went to New York to see Michael Jackson’s 30 Anniversary Show at Madison Square Garden. It was September 10, 2001 and we had a plane to catch the next day going home. The next day was 9/11 and Charlie and I never caught that plane, but, Michael Jackson is even forever linked in my memories to that tragic day.

I have been mocked for being a Michael Jackson fan by more people than I could ever count. I have endured countless Michael Jackson jokes. And even as he acted in bizzare ways and physically changed over the years, he was always still just Michael Jackson. The man that one day I might meet. The man that if we ever met would like me and we would become real friends. But, that day will never come.

Because his music and art and influence on pop culture has been part of my life for my entire life, I am going to really miss him even though he never knew I or really any of us fans even existed. Michael Jackson  has been like a baby blanket from my childhood that I’ve carried with me til today. I’m laying it down now. I love Michael Jackson. I love Michael Jackson’s music which will never die. But, I am not going to tune in while the world begins to destroy his legacy with the impending battles over his life, death, estate, and so on.

Michael Jackson is my friend. My friend has passed away. I love you, Michael Jackson.

“I love you, too,” Michael says in my head, just like he would say when he was alive to the fans who screamed “I love you” all over the world.