ONE LAST ROUND

This is (probably) going to be the last post I (O.W.) am going to do on M-J-5 for the time being, bringing to a close a rather crazy 5 day period where it was all MJ, all the time.

1) I just recorded this in the morning: The Soul Sides Kitchen-Cast w/ Ann Powers. Besides being a good friend, Ann also happens to be chief pop critic at the L.A. Times and I invited her over to talk about MJ's musical and cultural legacy in my kitchen (for the record, my green room provides Orangina and mixed nuts).

Here's the podcast in streaming form or you can download it here.


2) Murphy's Law and I recorded our Boogaloo[la] set from last Thursday which includes a 2 hour opening set that includes a good deal of lesser known J5 and MJ covers/remixes/songs. Then there was our 2 hour MJ5 set which slammed down all the "best ofs" into a party-smashing mix. You can download both:

Pre-Tribute set

Tribute set
(Just remember this was recorded live!)

3) For those Poplicks readers who don't read my other blog Soul Sides (and shame on you for not), I put together a long post on some of my favorite, off-the-beat-it, I mean, beaten path MJ/J5 songs, including a 50 minute mix of those songs I cover.


P.S.: I've been trying to figure out why I've been so compelled to stay on story over the last five days and it's certainly not out of the tabloid fascination that will only grow (and get uglier) in the weeks to come. It's the music, always the music, that keeps drawing me back in and it finally dawned on me this morning that while MJ certainly wasn't the first pop artist I heard in my lifetime, he was so utterly everywhere at my entry into the pop world that everything I love about music, about its emotional power and reach - MJ was a foremost influence. In other words, his music was one of the most important ways through which I learned to love music. And so, in paying tribute to that musical legacy, I'm really just trying to find a way to express an appreciation for a gift that, 30 years after I first shook my tush to "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough," has continued to enrich my life on a daily basis. For that gift, I will remain forever thankful for MJ's music, regardless of what I may think of the man behind them.

--O.W.

WHAT MAKES MICHAEL JACKSON'S DEATH A TRAGEDY

Gone Too Soon

Instead of tackling Michael Jackson's legacy, which Oliver and others have spectacularly done, I thought I'd share a true story about why I am devastated by his passing.

Last October, my wife and I had the honor of being invited to Natalie Maines' Halloween party. The night before the event, we received instructions from the Pasdars not to bring cameras, as they would be confiscated by security.

I assumed Natalie was planning to wear some scandalous costume (e.g., Cher's outfit from the "If I Could Turn Back Time" video?) that she didn't want to see end up on TMZ.

But when we arrived, we learned the reason for the no-camera rule. No absinthe or opium could have helped us to imagine this: Michael Jackson was at the party.

When friends at the party first told us this, we doubted it, although the paparazzi outside the property made us wonder. Later, we talked to Natalie and she insisted it was true. She told us that Michael's family -- MJ, Prince I, Paris, and Blanket -- had secluded themselves inside the house (the party was outside).

I assumed that she was setting up a prank that would end with an MJ impersonator and a bunch of zombies emerging from tombstones to dance to "Thriller."

But when Natalie started sharing details of how Michael's oldest child was incredibly well-spoken, I considered running into her house just in case she was telling the truth.

The "P.Y.T."-loving child in me wanted him to autograph my face so I could tattoo his signature on to my forehead. But my wife was several months pregnant at the time and I couldn't afford for either of us to get shanked by his bodyguards.

We would have forever been skeptical about Natalie's claims until, by sheer luck, we saw Michael and his three kids -- with our own eyes -- walk right in front of us. They were all wearing masks, which, ironically, didn't look out of place. (Halloween must have been his and his kids' favorite day of the year.) I was able to see Michael's eyes and hair, which left no doubt. Plus, he was flanked by bodyguards, handlers, and Joan Collins (!). The next day's news reports also helped Dima and me to convince our friends that we weren't making anything up.

(Random thought: My son can truthfully say that Michael Jackson spent a few seconds of his final Halloween standing a few inches away from him -- before he was even born. Who else can say that?)

Unfortunately, Michael didn't spend time at the party dancing. Or joining us for karaoke. Instead, he spent most of the time inside the house, near a window, watching his kids play with others in the children's party area.

But as I look back on this unbelievable story of being at a party with Michael Jackson, I am haunted by the profoundly sad thought that struck me that evening.

Michael spent much of the last decade being deprived of the one thing he loves most: being around children.

One doesn't need a psychology degree to see that Michael was a man who spent his adult years trying to live out the childhood that he was denied. Whether putting a young Kris Kross and Macaulay Culkin into his music videos or bringing Webster to the Grammy Awards, Michael clearly loved to surround himself with kids, whom he saw as the innocent antithesis to evil adults.

Of course, this is all creepy if you happen to believe that Michael Jackson is a child molester.

But I don't. I believe and have always believed that he is innocent of these heinous crimes. And not because I am a naive fan who believes he can do no harm.

Undoubtedly, the sexual abuse of a minor is one of the worst and most despicable things that any human being can do. The charges against him deserved to be taken seriously. And if they were true, he deserved any public scorn or punishment that fell his way.

But in my opinion, falsely accusing someone of sexually abusing a minor is also one of the worst and most despicable things that a person can do. The harm to one's reputation and soul must be just as damaging -- and last just as long -- as the scars from actual abuse.

While we'll probably never know the truth, I've written before about how the evidence against Michael in the Arvizo case was flimsy.

Undoubtedly, the King of Pop is also the King of Bad Judgment. What with his publicized sleepovers and backyard carousels, his sense of boundaries is like no other adult. His myriad plastic surgeries and careless spending suggest someone missing a few marbles. But those things -- plus his few million dollars in assets -- only made him, in my mind, an easy target for someone looking to make a fast buck.

Yet, despite his acquittal and the fact that no judge or jury ever concluded that he inappropriately touched a minor, Michael Jackson rarely is considered a victim.

Sadly, this week's articles about MJ describe a world that adored him despite his personal conduct. They seem to deny the existence of people like me who adored him and believed he engaged in no sexual abuse.

How horribly sad for a man who loved children like no other to be kept away from all but his own. Sure, he wasn't legally restricted like registered sex offenders from being near minors. But the paparazzi -- waiting to photograph him touching a child to start a new chain of lies -- and the endless child molestation jokes that followed him ensured a forced separation.

Thus, his surprise appearance at that party reminded me of the cruel sentence he spent the last decade of his life serving. He probably wanted nothing more than to spend that Halloween surrounded by hordes of children.

But as a result of the scandalous allegations of the last 20 years, those children at the party no longer adored and idolized him as did those of us who grew up in the 70's, 80's, and early 90's. Plus, if their parents knew Michael Jackson wanted to play with them, they would have pulled their kids away, just to be safe. (Despite my steadfast belief, I, too, would have prevented my kids from being around him without my supervision.) Plus, Michael's lawyers, agents, friends, and family probably preferred he be separated from minors, just to avoid further troubles.

On a related note, I've never understood why Michael Jackson is mocked for forcing his kids to cover their faces. To me, it's clear he's protecting his kids from the kind of public scrutiny that chipped away at his happiness over the past forty years. Unlike many other celebrities, he has managed to give his children anonymity and provide them the possibility of a private, quiet life. And yet, he is famous for being a bad parent because of that one incident during which he failed to fully secure his son for two seconds while holding him over a balcony ledge. (Does anybody really think there was a risk that Blanket was going to fall?)

I hoped Michael's upcoming London shows would be a resounding success, just so he could die knowing that the public's last memories of him wouldn't involve a criminal trial for child molestation. I also wanted him to pass on wealth to his children, instead of debts.

But alas, that will never be. And that is what makes his death especially tragic.

Thankfully, I retain one very positive Michael Jackson-related memory from Natalie's party. At some point, the DJ played "Thriller" when he saw what looked like someone wearing a Michael Jackson costume -- not knowing that it was actually Michael Jackson. Even more ironic, the popularity of the song filled up the dance floor in a way that gave him the freedom to walk by partygoers largely undetected.

At the very least, Michael spent his last Halloween being reminded that his music will bring great joy to a dance floor for decades to come.

I truly hope that he can rest in peace, something that fans and non-fans alike have denied him for so long now.

--Junichi

MICHAEL JACKSON: NEVER CAN SAY GOODBYE

From the time he was 10 Michael Jackson grew up in front of the world - first wonderfully, then weirdly, then woefully. His death at just 50 is hard to quite process. A tragedy? Yes but I'm not sure if it's any more tragic than the grotesque implosion of the rest of his life. I thought Hua had it exactly right: "Different versions of Michael Jackson had already died years ago."

A similar point was echoed by my friend Eliani while we were noshing at 2am at the Taco Zone truck, following a two hour MJ5 tribute set with Wil at the Shortstop. In between bites of carnitas, she proffered (I'm paraphrasing), "depending on when you grew up, each of us has a different Michael Jackson we knew and lost."

I was lucky to have grown up with one of the incadescent MJ incarnations. I probably heard a J5 song at some point in my '70s childhood but I don't actually remember hearing a Michael Jackson song until "Don't Stop 'Till You Get Enough" and the Off the Wall album came out. I was probably 7 or 8 then, just discovering the radio and top 40 and so my exposure to the expansive world of pop was indelibly marked by his presence.

It's been an interesting process, trying to decipher what exactly made him so great. After all, and this is not meant to be remotely disrespectful, but while Jackson clearly helped sell a gazillion records, if you actually parse down his musical impact, he's overshadowed by any number of peers. Some have had a greater, overall presence on pop music (James Brown + The Beatles), others have stayed in the mix as a creative force with more consistency (Dylan), and certainly, there's been other artists just as commercially successful but more adventurous (hello Prince!).

That said, consider how a pre-pubescent child managed to score success on par with Marvin Gaye at the turn of the '60s/'70s, then gradually pull away from the machine (or if you prefer, The Corporation) that fueled his success, only to emerge into a solo career that didn't simply improve on his achievements but elevated him into the greatest pop artist of his generation.

Child singers are simply not meant to survive into adulthood. I can only think of two similar examples: Stevie Wonder comes to mind but Stevie never had the kind of instant success that the Jackson 5 provided Michael (that said, Stevie's creativity is unparalleled, including by Michael). The other would be, interestingly, Celine Dion. Do with that what you will. However, those exceptions aside, pop music history is littered with the ghosts of child singers whose careers disappeared with the onset of puberty.

Whatever the truths of Jackson's childhood (idyllic vs. tortured), what you can say is that he had to shoulder the same kind of creative challenges under the Motown system that his colleagues - thrice his age - were also dealing with. Not only that but he was expected, long before he was old enough to even drive, to emote the kind of passion, longing and melancholy that usually only repeated adult heartache gives you access to. Emotionally, he had to grow up in his singing much faster than what his physical age would otherwise belie. It's common to talk about J5 songs like "ABC" being "filled with innocence" but if you listen over the group and Jackson's solo catalog from the 1970s, there's a lot less sunshine than you'd imagine. That he managed to drop iconic, hit records throughout most of that process (with the exception of a fallow period in the mid-'70s) is a testament to his talent/genius/luck/whatever you want to call it.

And therein, to me, lies both the triumph of his achievements but also the makings of his (and in a sense, our) tragedies. As Jeff Chang argued, "for that voice, he lost his childhood. Or more precisely, he gave it to us," which isn't quite like saying he died for our sins but I think part of what Jeff is suggesting is that if Michael wasn't blessed with such a magical presence, we may not have liked him so well. And if we didn't like him so well, maybe his life would have turned out more normal, less (self)-destructive. These "what if" scenarios are impossible to answer, of course. All we know is the Jackson we were given and if his life is to be read as a kind of sacrifice to our pleasure, at least we can honor that by celebrating his libations.

Consider too: Jackson was a once-in-a-lifetime musical (and of course, cultural) figure, the likes of which will almost certainly never be duplicated again (sorry Jonas Brothers). The pop landscape has shifted, irrevocably I feel, over the last 10-20 years and the ability for a singular figure to become a multi-generational crossover star seems practically impossible. Of course, it probably seemed impossible back in the '70s...until Michael did it.

I should add too: for all his foibles, scandals and just general surreality, I absolutely guarantee you that the music Jackson and his family left behind will only evolve to seem more sublime, enchanting and moving [1].

In lieu of a more organized/formal post, here's a rush job on tunes to listen to.


("Big Boy," an early, early J5 single on Steeltown)


("2 4 6 8." The numeric sequel to "ABC" recorded for the Jackson 5's second Motown LP.)


("Never Can Say Goodbye." Stone. Cold. Classic.)


("I Wanna Be Where You." Off of Jackson's solo debut, produced by Hal Davis and Willie Hutch.)


("I Can't Help It." Quiet storm at its best.)


("Butterflies." From his 2001 Invincible and one of the last great songs I heard from Jackson. Shout out to Floetry for the OG).



If you feel like it, here's me and Jay Smooth musing on MJ for The Sound of Young America, recorded earlier today.
The Sound of Young America


And I was also briefly on Michael Barnes' tribute show on KCRW.


[1] This presumes there isn't some smoking gun evidence which comes out posthumously that MJ was indeed, guilty of child molestation. But even his music could likely survive that.

--O.W.

DON'T CRY FOR HIM, ARGENTINA

I don't normally like indulging in schadenfreude but good god, between this and Senator Ensign, it's been a very entertaining last few weeks.

Love the understatement here from the NYT, who said that Sanford's admission is, "considerably dampening his prospects for a national political career."

--O.W.

RACE AND POLITICAL LEANINGS IN LA

Blacks, Latinos in L.A. more conservative than whites, Times Poll finds | L.A. Now | Los Angeles Times

Interesting results here but wait - why aren't Asian Americans included here? We constitute the third largest ethnic group in LA county!

--O.W.

TNC ON RACE AND THE SOUTH

southern son, klan father

Nathan Bedford Forrest Has Beautiful Eyes - Ta-Nehisi Coates

Hua and I were talking the other day about how much things have changed for us as writers since the beginning of the decade - suffice to say, there's been a massive transformation and not necessarily for the better, at least from a freelancing point of view. Back in the heady days of, oh, 2002, it'd be more than enough to get a column-length piece into the SF Bay Guardian about music or art or culture and that, to us, was the ideal kind of platform to work out our ideas.

Of course, the emergent blogosphere created an exponentially greater number of platforms and obviously, I had no qualms in taking advantage of it for personal use (i.e. you're reading this blog, no?) But as we all know, the spread of blogging was one of the forces that weakened the older print base I had taken for granted in my 20s. And for the last five or so years, what we've seen is a decline in print opportunities, a proliferation of online voices but dare I say - the level and quality of discourse didn't carry over mediums. It just hasn't.

That's why I've been so floored by what Ta-Nehisi Coates has been doing over on his Atlantic blog. Practically daily, he penning these incredibly thoughtful and provocative posts that, in my mind, realize the full potential of what a blog can do in terms of speed-to-publish (a main liability of today's print press), not to mention sheer quantity, but without sacrificing intellectual alacrity or quality of prose.

This is one example of what blogging writing should aspire to, regardless of the medium, but I am ever so thankful TNC's holding it down online.

Anyways, read his latest post and see what I mean for yourself.

--O.W.

THAT OLD INTERRACIAL DESIRE CHESTNUT

White male seeking sexy Asian women | Salon Books

Ronnie sent this over to me this morning asking for the ol' Poplicks opinion.

Salon.com's Laura Miller reviews a new book by Richard Bernstein, The East, the West, and Sex: A History of Erotic Encounters, and highlights the myriad shortcomings in Bernstein's attempt to defend the historical tradition of White Western men lusting after Eastern/Asian women. To be honest, I don't have much to add onto what Miller does here - her critique is incisive and thorough though, it must be said, based on what Miller quotes, Bernstein's book hardly seems to make a convincing argument about the benefits of this arrangement for both sides of the racial line. One imagines that Bernstein is one of those that insist Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings were in love despite the inconvenience that he was her slavemaster. However, given that I haven't read Bernstein's book, it's probably unfair to saddle him with such a weighty assumption (maybe not though).

As usual, it's the *comments* section that is far more fascinating - and maddening. God forbid one should ever raise some important questions about equality or power in relation to sexual desire - you'll find a thicket of apologists sprout up instantly. There's quite a few "I have a thing for Asian women and I'm loving it!"-types (boring self-aggrandizement) and an unfathomable number of people trying to deploy a biological diversity argument, i.e. "we're 'naturally' attracted to people different from us" which I find especially disingenuous since one only need point out the rather low number of White male/Black female couplings to suggest this "biological imperative" argument holds no water in the face of social realities. The sexual entanglements of West/East are inextricably linked to history. And economics. And war. Et. al.

Perhaps in an *ideal* society, one free of such nuisances as racism and colonialism, ethnic difference could be a more innocent part of romantic/sexual attraction, but unless one is being willfully ignorant of history (and Salon's commenters seem to have this particular affliction), you can't claim that sex and desire exists in such a world.

I'm not - at all - claiming that cross-racial love/sex/desire always enacts unequal relations of power. However, you can't possibly remove that context either, which is the problem Miller has with Bernstein (who seems to brush such concerns under his (Oriental?) rug) and the problem I have with the apologia in the comments section. After all, aren't entire realms of sexual fantasy predicated on variations of inequality, whether you're talking about dominance/submission role play or even something more basic, such as the dynamic of selfishness vs. selflessness during lovemaking? So long as such inequalities are consented to and fulfilling for all partners, I don't have a problem with it but to refuse to acknowledge that inequality is part of what's being eroticized is dishonest as best and imperial at worst.

One last thing: as 1) Asia rises in geopolitical and transnational economic prominence during this century (thanks, in no small part, to America's ballooning debt) and 2) contemporary feminism takes root and expands in Asian societies, I wonder how this all might impact sexual relations both in Asia and between Asians (women and men alike) and non-Asians.

--O.W.

THIS HAT IS WHERE IT'S AT

--O.W.

SEX SELECTION AMONGST ASIAN AMERICANS

U.S. Births Hint at Bias for Boys in Some Asians - NYTimes.com

I wrote about this last year and new studies reconfirm the findings. An absolute shame - and frankly, scandal - in our Asian American communities.

--O.W.

SHAUNCRONICITY

Shaun The Sheep - The funniest videos clips are here

I deserve a late pass but seriously, this not only showcases how stop-motion animation can still be more magical than going balls out CGI + the wonders of dialogue-free storytelling.

--O.W.

PHOTO TOKENISM

City digitally adds black guy to Fun Guide cover to make it more ‘inclusive’ - Posted Toronto

I don't know which is worse - the fact that apparently, no one could find a stock photo that was more inclusive or just the terrible Photoshop hack job here.

--O.W.

TA-NEHISI COATES AND ANDREW SULLIVAN DEBATE IDENTITY POLITICS

Writing Out Loud - The Atlantic
(June 11, 2009)

This whole exchange is good. Really, really, really good. TNC = game-changer when it comes to an astute, thoughtful approach to blogging about race and politics.

--O.W.

STARING AT THE SWIM TEAM GETS YOU KILLED BY A GANG OF DANCING NINJA MEN WHO KNOW HOW TO TWIRL

I dig the Literal Video series.

--Junichi

VIRUS ISSUES FIXED!

For over two weeks now, Oliver and I have been trying to figure out how to fix this horrendous malware issue that shut down Poplicks for a few weeks. Many of you probably received warnings while trying to visit this site.

I'll spare you the details, but it looks like we're finally virus-free now.

If you can see the video above of the Republican Party's mascot, all is good.

--Junichi