Friday, July 03, 2009

Michael Jackson: Tale of Triumph and Tragedy

MJ: Tale of triumph and tragedy

By Conway Tutani
Zimbabwe Herald

Late, late last Thursday night as we were about to leave the newsroom, after "putting to bed" the next day’s issue of The Herald, Deputy Chief Sub Editor Rungano Gwanzura, sitting next to me, jerked in his chair in a way that only something least unexpected had caught his attention.

He is a person who is not easily rattled.

I rushed over to his workstation.

There on his computer screen on the AFP website, pictures of Michael Jackson were popping up with speed and the accompanying text was also changing constantly as news about the singer being rushed to hospital in a coma after suffering cardiac arrest and his rapidly deteriorating condition was being updated until the dreaded announcement — he had died.

Had we any option but to quickly recall Page 2 to insert the story?

Such was the fame of Michael Jackson that the sad news had to be in the paper before the printing press rolled.

Such was MJ’s impact in the United States in breaching racial prejudice that African-American civil rights leader Reverend Al Sharpton had this to say: "He paved the way for Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods and Barack Obama."

Such was MJ’s influence that in its March 19 1984 cover story — two years after the release of his phenomenal album "Thriller" — Time magazine wrote: "The fallout from ‘Thriller’ has given the (music) business its best years . . . he is a one-man rescue team for the music business . . . He is a singer whose music cuts across all tastes, styles and cultures."

Such was MJ’s universal appeal that there was a global sense of personal loss — from China to Chile.

This level of grief, as if we had lost a close family member, is a reminder that the human race is one big, if not always happy, family.

And we, as black teenagers in the 1970s living under the then colonial regime, claimed him as our own as Rhodesian-inspired music left us cold because it was far surpassed both lyrically and melodically by the Jackson Five’s uplifting hits such as "I Want You Back" and "ABC".

One simply had to sport an Afro hairstyle and bellbottoms a la MJ style to be seen to be "with it".

In my home this past week, peace broke out in the lounge as there was no more open or silent conflict over which satellite channel to view with whole family glued onto the latest news about MJ’s death as rewinds of his spectacular achievements on stage and record over three decades grabbed our collective attention.

His music was truly cross-generational, for how can one explain that I and my 19-year-old daughter are at one on Michael Jackson?

The Internet was jammed and is still jammed a week later.

Such was MJ part of the lingo that easily the best joke I heard from my late best friend Patrick Jecka, who had a wicked sense of humour, way back in pre-Independence Zimbabwe was: "Uyu bharanzi kana akafamba naMichael Jackson for 10 years haambofa akachenjera (Isithutha lesi singahamba loMichael Jackson okweminyaka elitshumi asisoze safa sahlakanipha/This guy will still remain a bumpkin even if he were to move around with Michael Jackson for 10 years)."

He became the first truly global superstar.

But where did the wheels come off?

Nine-year-old MJ launched his musical career alongside his four elder brothers as the Jackson Five in 1967 after winning a talent contest at New York’s Apollo Theatre.

By his own admission, he never experienced the joys of childhood because he was quickly thrust onto the stage by his hard-driving father owing to his prodigious talent, "a child star who never had any childhood".

From the earliest age, MJ knew nothing else in life but performing and recording — without which he felt inadequate.

Did the demons from this repressed childhood finally erupt with a vengeance?

Some say MJ died many years ago when he reached the pinnacle with "Thriller".

After that, it became practically or humanly impossible to climb any higher.

It is from that period that signs of cosmetic surgery and skin bleaching began to show.

This feeling of being overwhelmed is a classic symptom of burnout, which results in deterioration of one’s physical and emotional health.

Success, which is supposed to give one peace of mind and satisfaction, can have the opposite effect of propelling one into a frenzied drive to achieve even more, much to our detriment.

The roots of MJ’s bizarre, freakish side are well documented, but what made him go over the edge?

Who, as it were, pushed him on?

And who, as it were, were not there who should have been there to help when he was pushing himself or being pushed to the precipice?

While money empowers, it also opens doors for flattery, manipulation and delusion.

Stars, particularly megastars, seem to recruit or be followed by exploitative hangers-on with a poisonous and, sometimes, fatal influence.

Prodigiously talented English football player Paul "Gazza" Gascoigne had his own hanger-on, Jimmy "Five Bellies" Garner, his hard-drinking pot-bellied pal from their boyhood days in Newcastle.

It was Garner’s bad influence that was said to have led him astray into alcoholism, near-suicide and the psychiatric ward, cutting short a career that should have placed him along soccer greats.

The tragic circumstances surrounding the death of the "King of Pop" have eerie parallels with that of the "King of Rock", Elvis Presley, who also had a lonely childhood as an only child after his twin died shortly after birth.

(Another striking coincidence — or was it? — is that MJ went on to marry Presley’s only child, Lisa Marie.)

From 1954, when he rose to stardom, until his death in 1977, Presley was constantly surrounded by the so-called Memphis Mafia, a core group of friends, associates and employees.

Several of them filled practical roles in the rock star’s life as bodyguards and on tour logistics, but many of them were "yes-men", who lived off fringe benefits from him such as gifts, cars, houses and bonuses.

"Surrounded by the parasitic presence of the so-called Memphis Mafia, it was no wonder," says pop journalist John Harris, that as the singer "slid into addiction and torpor, no one raised the alarm: to them, Elvis was the bank, and it had to remain open."

With friends like these, do you need an enemy?

Elvis was found dead in his bathroom — also a victim of cardiac arrest.

There was a time when MJ had as many as 300 people on his payroll.

They appeared and disappeared as his fortunes rose and waned.

These "cheerleaders" will cheer you on to the grave whether you are popping 100 or so addictive pills or downing a bottle or two of whisky daily because they won’t dare to remonstrate with you as their sole benefactor.

"Ane mari ndiye mukuru," the late Marshall Munhumumwe’s hit song says.

Another breed of hangers-on has emerged in Western showbiz: that of celebrity doctors and so-called gurus who are at the beck and call of megastars 24/7.

MJ’s determination to continually erase the natural features he was born with — a clear symptom of a highly troubled soul — until he had a grotesquely transformed appearance, succeeded because of cosmetic surgeons, who certainly knew better.

And these surgeons, who, by indulging his dangerous pathological fantasies, were accessories to this abomination, should be made answerable for the total mutilation of Jackson’s face, which inflicted invisible psychological damage.

This damage, I believe, eventually led to last week’s tragedy.

MJ was now barely recognisable from the adorable child star who shook the music world in the late 1960s. The epochal 60s is the period when the catch-phrase "Black is Beautiful" emerged in the African-American community as blacks fought for racial equality and went back to the natural African look by creating their own cosmetic industry and defining their own aesthetic or beauty standards.

In his plays, Shakespeare uses the device of the "foil", a secondary character who is the complete opposite of the main character, alongside an alter ego, a very close and trusted friend who seems almost a part of yourself.

Maybe each megastar needs an obligatory foil nearby to constrain them from wandering into delusion and have their feet firmly on the ground so as to remain in touch with reality, a sort of devil’s advocate, not idolisers who worship the ground they walk on.

People who take all you say unquestioningly and uncritically are most dangerous.

The world ended up owning MJ.

He was no longer — if ever he was — his own man.

I remember seeing Lazarus "Gringo" Boora determinedly refusing to fall into the bait of entertaining the public as he walked in the city centre on private business a few years ago at the prime of his popularity.

Initially I thought that he was being extremely rude by ignoring his fans, but I later came to the realisation that the message he was sending was: "Gringo is not Boora; Boora is not Gringo! It’s out of working hours! I don’t carry work home or on the streets for that matter!"

He was drawing a firm line that he has his own private life like everybody else.

Stars, if not careful, end up acting their lives instead of living them if they dont make this distinction.

It is the proverbial tale of life imitating art instead of vice versa.

They should resist from being consumed in and by stardom.

Acclaimed British guitarist Eric "Slow Hand" Clapton has been to "hell and back" after recovering from drug and alcohol addiction.

Legendary African-American blues guitarist and singer BB King is still going strong on the demanding live performance circuit well into his 80s.

Was MJ living in the fantasy of Neverland, some super-talented Peter Pan who did not hear the curtain call? It was sad to see how MJ had become a caricature of his vibrant, charming past.

Maybe the most honest summation of MJ’s life is that by his long-time friend Rev Sharplton: "I didn’t always agree with Michael, but he was a strong historical force."

Rest in peace, MJ. You were great, warts and all.

conway.tutani@zimpapers.co.zw

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