mostly nonfiction and bakersfield news | July 1st, 2009
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LA Times Best-Selling Novelist Brad Listi is irreverent. And during the Michael Jackson ordeal, he’s been irreverent. But he’s not so irreverent that you can’t read what he has to say about Michael Jackson passing. He’s been to the Neverland Ranch, he’s a part of L.A. culture who grew up listening to Michael Jackson, and he’s, well, irreverent. With that said, have a read. I read it and I’m an MJ fan. – Editor
By Brad Listi
When I heard the news about Michael Jackson yesterday, I immediately got up from my desk chair, grabbed my French bulldog, Walter, and dangled him over the balcony of my second-story apartment. The skies over Hollywood were filled with helicopters, and in the distance I could hear “Human Nature” blaring from someone’s car stereo. I let out an involuntary, guttural wail, and my whole body shook.
“Oh my god!” my wife said. “What are you doing?”
I turned around and put Walter down and felt a wave of nausea sweep over me.
“Didn’t you hear?” I said. “He’s dead. Michael Jackson…he died.”
My wife shrieked and immediately fell to the floor and started weeping and pulling her hair out, and I joined her, trying to offer comfort, and for roughly an hour we spooned and held each other on the hardwood while Walter licked our tears away and the helicopters continued to buzz across the smoggy desert skies.
Later, when the initial shock began to subside, we got up and sat on the couch in front of our massive flat-screen television (almost as big as the wall), and together we watched the comprehensive news coverage in high-definition while listening to Off the Wall and Thriller at soft, complementary volume. Our laptops were perched on our kneecaps, and as the television played and the stereo hummed, we monitored our friends’ Twitter feeds and Facebook status updates in quasi-obsessive fashion as we tried to decide how we should feel about the death on a moment-by-moment basis. It was comforting to share the experience in real time with so many millions of people, and to know that we weren’t alone in our escalating grief.
I picked up my phone.
“Should I call someone?” I said. “I feel like I should call someone.”
“No,” my wife said. “Just wait. I think it might be too early.”
“Maybe I should blog about it,” I said. “Imagine how many hits I would get.”
“Totally,” said my wife.
I set the phone down and took a deep breath…
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