Category: Looking Back

Flashdance, a monthly dance-party-in-public-places, here in San Francisco, decided to hold an honorary dance in memory of Michael Jackson the day after his passing. Deep Jawa, Flashdance's founder and host is a major fan.

As evening fell, he set up shop at the south end of Justin Herman Plaza , twittered his coordinates and started the music playing.

I showed a little after 9 in my best approximation of a Michael Jackson outfit.

Unexpectedly ran into my friend Heather. Wherein we danced. Because what else can one do to remember a wing-footed wonder like Michael Jackson?

It seems, at least in this country, that white folk mourn the dead with blinked-back tears and bitten lips, black folk mourn and are mourned through singing, dancing, outpourings equal in joy and sorrow. I'm reminded of the New Orleans tradition of Jazz funerals and the "second line" where the deceased are played to on their way home to G-d by trumpets and drums, in beauty as well as sadness.

Indeed that is precisely what New Orleans did for Michael Jackson…

The woman who opens that video just breaks my heart. She reminds me that all that die no matter how outsized their accomplishments leave behind someone who will miss them.

On my way to the car at the end of the evening, I heard the strains of Man in the Mirror and ran back to the party. A few hundred dancers, swayed and hollered along. Many, including me, cried. I turned to two women, who I had chatted with during the party and hugged them both.

I never got their names.

I then called my fiancee to tell her that "Man in the Mirror", her favorite Michael Jackson song, was playing. I told her how much I loved her, how lucky I felt that we found each other and that I'd be home soon.
The day Michael Jackson died, my fiancee remarked "I hope he has found a better life for himself. Starting today."

May we all find our own. Hopefully sooner than that.

You don't have to tell me he was a deeply-troubled man. I know that. But he was capable of great things, including bringing joy to roughly half the world's population through his music.

Say what you want about the rest of it. His is an unmatched achievement.

This is how I like to remember him. And how I know he is gone.

25 years ago today, during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII, the commercial you see above ran a single time. Created by the Chiat/Day ad agency, directed by Ridley Scott (fresh off Blade Runner) and costing a lavish $900,000, it introduced the Apple Macintosh computer for the first time.

At the time, Apple was in big trouble. The Mac's predeccesor, the Lisa, had bombed. Rumor had it that the company had about one more hand to play or the present and future of computer would be dominated by putty-colored boxes that ran the cryptic DOS operating system and were about as sexy as a toaster oven.

The commercial was that hand. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and CEO John Scully showed showed the ad to the company's board who begged them to not let it run. Jobs and Scully pushed on anyway. The commercial ran in movie theatres for a few weeks in early January then once, its birth and death, during the Superbowl.

It is now considered one of the greatest triumphs in the history of advertising. "1984" was the lead story on many nightly news broadcasts and early sales of the Macintosh were leagues beyond expectations. Advertising Age named it "Commercial of the Decade" and #12 advertising spot of all time. and several now legendary figures in Silicon Valley cite the 1984 ad as the beginning of their careers in computing. The commercial has been parodied numerous times including, recently and infamously, during Hilary Clinton's presidental campaign. 

Me, I saw it first in high school as a lead-in to the local showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It was only a few years ago that learned what it actually meant.

And speaking of Sesame Street, I bawled like a baby at the above episode, "Farewell, Mr. Hooper," about the beloved shopkeeper’s real-life death. It seems that when actor Will Lee, who played Mr. Hooper, died in the winter of 1983, the producers of Sesame Street debated how to address his absence before deciding to have the character of Mr. Hooper die as well. Will Lee, a member of the Federal Theater Project and James Earl Jones’s teacher at The American Theater Wing, was blacklisted in the 1950s and had been acting for over 30 years when he took the role of Mr. Hooper.

"Episode 1839" aired on Thanksgiving Day 1983 and is now considered one of the most important moments in the history of children’s television. I watched it again and, despite or because of a facefull of tears, I concur. The medium doesn’t get any better than this. 

A few thoughts as we begin this historic year. Let us make the most of it together.

MP3 File

Previous Year-End Posts:

• 2007
• 2006

Wherein we discuss triumphal events, conquerable sorrows and chipping away at the stone.

MP3 File

Wherein we discuss nostalgia, its joys and pitfalls.

MP3 File

I used to love Billy Joe Jive, boy detective, and his partner Smart Susie Sunset when I was a kid. I may have even had a few books about them.

Looking at some old clips, I think the characters were Sesame Street’s early attempt at multiculturalism. But it doesn’t strike me as particularly naive of ham-handed.
What do you think?

The 80s on 8 channel of XM Radio has begun broadcasting, in their entirety, Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 episodes from 1980-19888. Since you can stream XM online for 3 bucks a month, on Sunday morning I can now live much as I did when was 12, trying to guess what song had "climbed 5 notches" or "slipped 3 spots", memorizing dorky trivia about REO Speedwagon and promising to "keep my feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars."

This may be the happiest discovery of my adult life.