Sometimes I wonder if Michael wasn’t tired of people always expecting the unrealistic of him. He was 50 years old, not old by any stretch of the imagination. A man of his physical agility and conditioning for most of his life through dance and being on stage giving 1000% every time, was of course in better shape than most men half his age. But Michael Jackson was human and he had limitations. He suffered from lupus for God’s sake. He had some fractures and some wear and tear to that otherwise well tuned body. Conditions directly related to being the hardest working entertainer in the world as well as some other ills that he the was unfortunately dealt in this game called life. Not of his doing, and not by his own will. Did people think that he was some kind of machine you just wound upcomehell or high water and he’d perform for them? Hadn’t he paid more than his dues already by leaps and bounds? What more can I give he asked? All of you came the reply. All of you. And so he did.
Michael Jackson had worked more years than most laborers who usually work 30 years and then retire. He had worked 45. Didn’t he deserve to retire as much as any other human being? What made them think that he still owed society 7 more years of his life? One more to be honest? He had paid his dues to society. He had done his part.
Perhaps those people could argue that they didn’t know that lupus is an auto immune illness and it affects a person’s ability to stress, stress free. Stress takes a toll on the body and leaves it weakened and subsceptible to other ilnesses. Add an auto immune illness to that and you are flirting with disaster. Michael Jackson didn’t have the common cold. He had a debilitating, life threatening illness. And it appears to me that no one cared enough about that to just leave him be.
Sure people have said to me that Michael looked healthy enough in This Is It. At some level I would agree. He certainly could still move and wow the audience. And I am sure for maybe 10 concerts, he would have gotten through just fine. But the idea that a person with his illnesses would be forced into a corner and made to believe that his very livelihood depended upon doing just what we saw in TII 50 times over, is, in a word, assinine. No one has, can or will ever convince me that Michael Jackson was looking forward with giddy anticipation to being contracted to 50 Michael Jackson performances. Because we know that a Michael Jackson performance is what it is, and that equates to nothing less than perfection. Michael would never settle for anything less. But his body would not be able to have handled that. Anyone want to try to prove to me that the powers that be didn’t know that? Anybody?
As I look back, as I have been doing for the last 23 months, I don’t see anyone having had Michael Jackson’s, the human, best interest at heart. No one. And the cost for that no where equal to the loss sustained from his work ethic to try to do the impossible. I still feel that there is more to the story that is yet to be told. Maybe it will be. Likely it won’t. Money talks.
I miss Michael Jackson as if he were an old, dear, beloved friend . I hurt for his children who try not to wear their hearts on their sleeves, and his mother who can disguise her pain for only a while, but sometimes has to let it show.
I wish Michael Jackson knew that he didn’t owe anyone anything anymore. I wish he knew that all things work themselves out in time no matter what. And I wish he had had someone real in his life to look out for him when things looked a bit shady. Not a handler. Not a manager, lawyer, a watcher, but a real down to earth friend.
God, Jehovah, Allah or by what ever name you call Him, knows what happened on June 25, 2009 and I know He is on the job. The guilty parties know who they are and if they have any heart at all, must have a hard time sleeping at night, or waking up in the morning. … if they have any heart.
No comments:
Post a Comment