‘This is it’ — a befitting time to honor the King of Pop

BY GEORGE LANG Comments 0
Published: October 28, 2009

Three months and one day before Michael Jackson died, I wrote a column about the 50 concert dates he had just scheduled at London’s O2 Arena. My key points:

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• It was unlikely a man who in recent years had problems performing a single song onstage would fulfill such an elephantine commitment.

• It was the kind of bogus, outsized gesture proving that ego was running the show. "What he needs is something less crazy and more ‘Off the Wall,’” I wrote.

I am officially sorry to have correctly predicted that the O2 dates would fall through, but Jackson’s situation had seemed precarious for so long. This is why I was not the least bit shocked June 25 when, as I sat on a bus in Los Angeles with a group of other entertainment writers, everyone’s smart phones started vibrating like miniature San Andreas Faults as word of Jackson’s death poured in.

We were on a movie assignment, and none of us could just say, "I’m sorry, but I have more pressing business.” We were there to do interviews and take part in a tour for "(500) Days of Summer,” and so we were locked into that story while the community around us hemorrhaged mournful outbursts over the death of an enormously famous resident in a town full of famous residents.

As I hiked through downtown Los Angeles, touring the neighborhood where "(500) Days” took place, old Jackson songs ranging from "Remember the Time” to "ABC” bounced out of open car windows. While we walked through the Edison Building near the US Bank tower, a security guard called out to my group, "Did you hear about Michael Jackson? It’s just so sad — first Ed McMahon, then Farrah Fawcett, and now Michael Jackson.”

At the Redwood Bar on Second Street, the hits just kept on coming: "Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough,” "Thriller,” "Rock With You,” "I Want You Back,” "Dancing Machine.” Radio stations ignored their ironclad formats — the smooth jazz stations even played nonstop Jackson. Even for those who hadn’t listened to his music for years or had written him off as a disaster, there was a sense of loss. He had been a major player in pop culture for 40 years, and from about 1979 to 1991, he was unquestionably the world’s biggest pop star.

Although I couldn’t tolerate Jackson’s nonstop psychotic cabaret of the past two decades, denying what got him there — the astounding first half of his musical life — would amount to entertainment journalism malpractice. Whether it was the lightning-in-a-bottle pop genius of the Jackson 5’s singles, the disco-soul perfection of Jackson’s "Off the Wall” album or the worldwide "Thriller” pandemic of the early ’80s, the music he created during that time continues to astound and influence.

And then, as comedian Wanda Sykes recently said in "I’ma Be Me,” her HBO special, "He died of being Michael Jackson.” So "This Is It,” opening today, will likely be the last pure document of the performer. Kenny Ortega, the choreographer-turned-director now known best for helming the "High School Musical” movies, assembled the film from hours of rehearsal footage shot at Los Angeles’ Staples Center. And even if it feels like a cash-grabbing consolation prize for concert promoters who lost a high-yield, high-risk bet, even it does not deliver Jackson at his absolute best, this is something to see.

In October 1977, CBS broadcast "Elvis in Concert,” a document of two concerts Elvis Presley performed the previous June, less than three months before he died. It has not been rebroadcast since 1978 or released on video, but I vividly remember watching this special. It goes without saying that Presley looked terrible — grossly overweight, puffy-eyed and going through the motions with difficulty. He died of being Elvis Presley, but there were times during the show — the set-closing "Can’t Help Falling in Love” comes to mind — when the power and magnetism that made him the King of Rock ’n’ Roll forced their way to the screen.

This week, now for the King of Pop, there is at least a chance that something worth remembering of a more recent pop culture disaster can be received and honored.