R.I.P MJ

The first Michael Jackson song I ever truly loved was Man In The Mirror, with Smooth Criminal as a close second.

Seem like a strange combination? Not really.

I know exactly why it’s those two, and the reason has everything to do with one of my favorite people when I was 6 years old.

At the age of 6, the bus ride back from school was always horribly long – I think it took about an hour from school to our bus-stop. I was invariably exhausted, cranky and hungry by that point.

At 6 even 10 minutes in a bus when you get sort of motion sick is pretty horrible. And with school buses, somehow the trip back home always seems longer then the trip to school.

Anyway, what does this have to do with The King of Pop?

Well, as I said, it’s all because of AJ. AJ was the one who made bus rides bearable. Although when I do the math now I realize he was only about 16 or 17, at 6 he seemed all grown up.

And I had a major case of hero worship.

He was the coolest guy I knew. He would read to my class at nap time (“Marvin K Mooney, Will You PLEASE Go Now?”), he was never too busy to answer silly questions and he always took care of me on the bus.

So although I’m pretty sure the first MJ song I ever heard was way before school (since my dad still has his MJ LPs and some of them are older then me) - the first of his songs I ever loved, was the ones AJ used to sing on the bus.

He taught me all the words to Man In The Mirror, and he used to goof around acting it and Smooth Criminal out - doing funny voices, dramatic faces, and extremely amusing break dance attempts.

And despite the fact that my childhood is dotted with numerous Jackson related memories – my dad trying to sing Bad and failing miserably (and amusingly), watching thriller for the first time (how awesome was that video?), trying to moonwalk “just like MJ”… Those two songs are still my favorites.

Even if the last decade of MJs life has seemed to consist of one sad scandal after another, there’s no way any one can deny, there will probably never be another artiste and performer quite like Michael Jackson.