the summer of michael jackson

That was the summer of 1963 - when everybody called me Baby, and it didn't occur to me to mind. That was before President Kennedy was shot, before the Beatles came, when I couldn't wait to join the Peace Corps, and I thought I'd never find a guy as great as my dad. That was the summer we went to Kellerman's.

This summer has felt a little bit Dirty Dancing to me. Radio stations have been playing Michael Jackson and Jackson 5 on frequent rotation, and the hot days of 2009 have melted a bit into the hot days of 1964 and 1971 and 1982 and 1991. Blasting oldies and disco out your car window has never been this cool. Michael has been re-embraced, with the nostalgia usually reserved for poodle skirts and letterman jackets. Gone is the creepy ghost who was not safe around kids. In his place is a cultural icon who broke down racial barriers and changed the history of music. This is the Michael Jackson of 1992, before the sexual abuse allegations, before he was more white than black, before he was reduced to a tabloid has-been. This is the Michael Jackson with stringy, shoulder length hair, with mocha skin, with shiny jackets and shortened black dancing pants, with contagious stage energy and a overwhelming desire to fix the world. You can see him on memorial and tribute pages around the internet and at newsstands. This is the Michael Jackson of 2009, remembered with reverence and humanity.

I have been a constant Michael Jackson fan, ever since my brother won the Dangerous album (cassette) at a Bar Mitvah party. (See here, here, here, here, and here.) I wasn't very depressed when he died or anything, because I don't know him personally and I was not holding my breath for another We Are The World or Thriller moment. His glory days are truly behind him.

I was just blasting my Jackson 5 CD while getting ready for a date, and my windows are wide open in the stuffy August heat. A neighbor I've never spoken to came by to introduce herself because she was sitting in her living room, rocking out to my tunes. She was so jazzed to hear "Mikey" that she just had to find out who was this other fan in the building!? We laughed, because it's cool to like him now.

I mean really, how can you not smile when you hear his sweet little boy voice confidently confiding, "I'll be there."