El día que murió Michael

Michael Joseph Jackson cried wolf. I take that back. Let's say the media hurricane and attention avalanche that always followed him (and here always is used really to mean from the day he was born to his sad passing yesterday, since he was pretty much on the spotlight ever minute of his career/life) cried wolf. Whenever something happened to him and he announced he had a medical condition or he was seen at a hospital, the rumors would start flying around radio, TV, news wires, and the Internet. Many times I head the words "Michael Jackson is dead." This was particularly frequent between 1990 and 1996, when I worked as entertainment editor and columnist for a newspaper in Mexico. During the Dangerous tour, and just when the first child molestation scandal started, Michael Jackson was in Mexico City. At that time I had a decent working relationship with Sony Music, and they sent me and my friend Alex Manrique (who probably is talking to Michael right now, if we are allowed to play with the idea of an afterlife just today). Alex and I flew to Mexico City and had our fancy tickets sponsored by Sony Music. We were big Michael Jackson fans, so it was hard to describe how exciting the whole situation was. Sadly, the scandal started and Michael cancelled the concerts. Liz Taylor rushed to Mexico City to be with him, and thousands of fans were left without seeing him in concert. Of course, that included Alex and me. Although the concerts were rescheduled a few days later, we had to fly back to Merida and because of work schedules we couldn't go back and we never got to see him in concert. In the worst days of the scandal, when he was hiding and nobody knew about his physical and mental condition, in the newsroom we were constantly attacked by those "Michael Jackson is dead" rumors. At one point, my boss told me to write an obituary "just in case." I did, and we kept that article in the system for a long time. Of course, Michael Jackson was not dead, and then my obituary became sort of an April Fool's joke that we would every now and then send on the internal wire and see who was gullible enough to fall for it.
That was then, and I wrote a long and detailed obituary for Michael. Today, when the rumors are actually true, even when it took CNN hours to confirm it, only when Jermaine finally addressed the press... I have nothing to say. The words are gone, and last night I was up until 2 am going from the radio to the TV to the computer to the iPods. I spent years of my professional life preparing for this day, and when it actually happened I have nothing to say. Well, I do. I have something to say.
Thank you, Michael.
To hear Michael's reply, click here.

Comments

[RW]

Wow. I don't know what to say, but I will give pause for a moment of silence.

[Carlos Evia snr]

Un comentario muy bonito y sentido. Aunque yo nunca fui fan de MJ, estuve ligado a él a través de ti. Cada que veia un video clip de él me acordaba de ti. Cuando murió Pedro Infante, leí: "Los elegidos de los dioses mueren jóvenes". MJ fue uno de ellos. Descanse en paz. Papá.