Michael Jackson
About twenty-two years ago I took a flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles to start my college career at USC. There was hardly anyone on the plane. Then suddenly, just before take off, the curtain to the empty first class cabin was drawn shut and bunch of people boarded. The flight attendant told me it was Michael Jackson and entourage. When we landed at LAX I quickstepped it after the entourage and caught up with them outside getting into a limousine.
“Do you think he would mind?” I handed a copy of my GQ magazine and a pen to one of Michael’s people. He smiled and presented it to Michael who was sitting in the car. I got wave and signature.
If I brought up that signed magazine two weeks ago at a party I would spawn a mixed bag of jeers and freak jokes. The spectacle of Michael Jackson’s life over the last fifteen years had totally overshadowed his talent. Unlike the spectacle of Lindsay Lohan’s life which overshadows nothing except a string of bad diets and bad acting, the Michael spectacle was something that we all wanted to believe was a phase that would go away. Before the surgeries and alleged crimes, Michael Jackson had given the world great, unique music. Fan or not, in the eighties and early nineties there was something about Michael for everyone to like.
This week I listened to a bizarre conversation between a business manager who had worked for Michael Jackson and a reporter for the BBC. The business manager recounted Jackson’s extraordinary business prowess. His most high profile investment being the purchase of part of The Beetles music catalog. I have a close friend who was in the room when Paul McCartney called Michael Jackson upset that Jackson had out bid him for his own songs. Jackson’s response was chilly, it was just business.
The other side of the BBC piece was on Jackson’s dichotomous spending habits that yielded half a billion dollars of debt. He managed to spend something like 30 million dollars more a year than he made in spite of the fact he had a huge money making empire.
Then the uncomfortable topic of Jackson’s posthumous market value was raised. Jackson’s death is going to be a financial boon. I never bought any of Michael Jackson’s music in the eighties, but I will today. His songs remind me of my first girlfriend Wendy. Spending $9.99 on iTunes to trigger a vivid flashback of my first boob grab is a hell of a lot cheaper than employing drugs or alcohol for the same effect. There are millions more people just like me, and millions more than that who are going to discover Jackson for the first time because of all the media coverage that seems to be respectfully only talking of the Michael Jackson of the eighties and early nineties.
After an awkward few minutes the BBC interviewer finally grew the stones to ask the inevitable question; was Michael Jackson worth more dead than alive. After a wonderfully timed, American style dramatic pause, the answer was yes. He is a superstar again.
I keep hearing over and over from my friends, “That signed GQ magazine of yours is worth bucks now that Michael is dead. You should auction it.” They are probably right. But the intrinsic value is greater to me in my possession. It is a wonderful memory of the first and only autograph I ever wanted, from a time when Michael Jackson was worth more alive than dead. His original run as a superstar.
