Rest In Peace, Michael

I was having a wonderful dinner at Sushi Samba in midtown. The food was exquisite. The drinks were flowing. And the company was endearing. All was a picture-perfect New York moment when suddenly my phone began blowing up with text message after text message. I couldn't believe what I was reading: Michael Jackson passed away!

And it wasn't just my phone. It seemed everyone's phones were going crazy with random jingles and buzzes. The effect was immediate. Cries of outrage and sadness. The whole rhythm of the restaurant was heightened with confusion and denial.

I left shortly after, walking home in shock. All of these memories came flooding back to me. Humming "Man in the Mirror" with my dad while fixing something in the garage. Roller skating hand-in-hand with my elementary school girlfriend to "Bad." My entire 4th-grade class singing "We are the World" for our parents in the gym. Memories of raw reflection, unadulterated fun and hope-spirited togetherness. Michael had the kind of music that you knew was really good, but that would later sneak up on you in the most poignant ways. You'd realized, "he knew what I was feeling then before I did."

Years later, I had the honored privilege of actually going to the Neverland Ranch. It was truly a paradise for anyone with the spirit of a child. Cotton candy, ice cream, any sweet treat you could imagine was there for the taking. The carnival rides lasted five times longer than you thought they would. There was even a yellow-brick road there, which a client and I skipped down, arm-in-arm singing at the top of our longs, "Come on and...ease on down, ease on down the rooooaaaad." And then at the end of the day, there was Michael himself less than ten feet away from me. We sang happy birthday to him and he, in a fit of passion, shoved both hands into his cake and threw fistfuls of icing right onto us. No walls, no pretensions, just silly, crazy fun.

So it's no wonder than when my friend Yogen texted me telling me to get my ass down to Union Square, an impromptu MJ celebration was happening, that I immediately hopped the closest train there. What I came upon was a group of kids, really. Oh we were across all ages, but we all had the spirit of children within us that night. People were playing whatever Michael songs they had on their phones and we would all sing as loud as we could and dance, dance, dance. And when we ran out of cell phone songs, we sang from memory. Inspiration coming from the back of the ever-growing crowd in the form of, "Where did you come from baby?" Then someone else from a separate corner would shout back, "And ooooh won't you take me there" and off we'd go, the song being passed round and round until the entire square was singing "Pretty Young Thing" in unison. And when we lost the thread of that song's lyrics, we'd simply move on to the next one as someone shouted, "Share that beat of loooove..."

It started out with the classics, the dance songs. But as the energy of the crowd surged there was a decided shift in tone. "Heal the World," "You Are Not Alone," and finally, one that we all shouted over the others. One that made us look at each other, notices the differences in our skin tones and facial features, accept them and embrace them all as one, "If you're thinkin of being my brother, it don't matter if your BLACK OR WHITE!" That's when arms were wrapped around strangers and we swayed as one, hands high in the air, keeping the beat by nothing but the clapping of our hands. Because everything we needed we had already with us: our memories, our voices, our hands and our love. Towards the end I started to get hoarse from all the singing. I turned to the girl next to me and said, "I'm losing my voice!." And she looked at me, smiled and said simply, "It don't matter...Michael can still hear you. Keep singing!"

New York is a city filled with preoccupied people, typically living in isolation among the multitudes. But what you realize is when the important moments happen, they let all that go and reach for one another. And boy how we make up for it then. It's a kind of brotherhood I have very rarely experienced in my life. But one that is powered by an incredible force of humanity that only such a condensed city as this can express.

On that night, Michael gave us that experience again. He went beyond age, beyond race, beyond gender. He was often terribly misunderstood, but I think he understood something we didn't. Something he was trying to tell us all those years with all of those wonderful songs. Something that continues to be impossible to articulate even as this blogger ends this post with a sigh of peace. So I'll just end it with a message from Michael, sung by the people who loved him: We are not alone.