
RonPrice
Novice

Feb 4, 2010, 2:48 AM
Post #3 of 3
(103 views)
Shortcut
|
|
Re: [liza20005] Exaggeration: Michael Jackson
[In reply to]
|
Can't Post
|
|
Thanks, liza20005. Here are some more reflections on MJ.-Ron in Tasmania ----------------------------- THE PETER-PAN JUGGERNAUT Michael Jackson's memorial service was broadcast live on every major American network television station yesterday on 7 July 2009. It was the largest gathering for a deceased person in world history. In Australia there was a TV special: “Michael Jackson--The King of Pop,” premiered on June 27 at 7.30 p.m. and replayed at 1:30 a.m. on 8 July 2009. I watched the piece for about ten minutes before going to bed. After midnight I usually watch a little TV as a sort of sedative to help me sleep, to turn my brain off after a day of reading and writing, of what I have come to call independent scholarship. Given the immense publicity surrounding Jackson’s death on 25 June two weeks ago, Jackson’s life seemed to warrant a prose-poem from my pen, from this word processor-computer-keyboard, this 65 year old brain. I felt the need, the desire, to write about him on the day after his funeral. Several critics have observed that Jackson’s songs were crafted from combinations of: funk, disco-pop, soul, soft rock, jazz and pop ballads. Jackson was born when I was in my early teens, the year before I joined the Bahá'í Faith. He sang from his middle childhood, from the 1960s. I was 15 and a student in 1960 and 25 and a teacher in 1970 in Canada. One writer summed-up Jackson’s vocal style as one which possessed: a grace, an aggression, a growling, a natural boyishness, a falsetto, a smoothness--a combination of elements to marked him as one of this era’s major vocalists. His sale of over 750 million records worldwide made him the world's best-selling male solo pop artist.-Ron Price with thanks to Wikipedia, 8 July 2009. An unstoppable juggernaut, instantly identifiable voice, eye-popping dance moves, stunning musical versatility, loads of sheer star power..... The hottest single phenomenon since Elvis Presley.......the most popular artist in show business- history, part of popular culture.. since my pioneering-life began on Canada’s homefront and in Australia-some call him genius genius and others a man with a Peter Pan syndrome---a term from pop-psychology used to describe a socially immature adult who never grew up...one of many descriptions of Jackson I have heard in the last fourteen days before which I hardly knew the man at all...sadly, so sadly. Ron Price 8 July 2009
married for 41 years, a teacher for 35 and a Baha'i for 49.
|