A few words on Michael...

There's a scene that takes place in Jabba the Hutt’s palace in the movie Return of the Jedi, when this huge monster called the Rancor is unleashed on Luke Skywalker but Luke turns the table and kills the Rancor instead. Then its caretakers, two huge shirtless, hairy men embrace each other and sob uncontrollably over the loss of their pet.

The Michael Jackson coverage for the first day or so has teetered on uncomfortable and bizarre.

I saw this one dude in California, an uber fan, one of those guys that gets the operation to look like Michael Jackson but didn’t realize that Mike would go on to have several more operations and this guy couldn’t keep up financially with Michael so now he’s stuck in 2009 looking like the Michael Jackson from the Bad album?

That guy.

He was standing on some street in a pose like he wanted to break out in the Billie Jean routine but was just too distraught to perform so he just stood frozen in the first move of the routine: hand on his hat, glove hand extended, legs spread apart. And he just stood there. And people were coming from all directions just to console that guy. And the only emotion I could muster from the whole scene was "Seriously?"

Then of course every D lister has to be interviewed about how they felt about the passing of Michael Jackson. Thank you CNN. I was very moved and interested to hear how Spencer from The Hills was coping with his grief. It seems he will recover. Your interview with singer Aaron Neville was equally embarrassing:

“So when was the last time you saw Michael?”

“We never actually met…” Aaron Neville then admitted. "But I felt like I knew him. I loved his music sooo much…”

I never owned a Beat It jacket. Never wore one white glove. Never had a Jheri Curl or tried to dance like him. Well, not in public. I am what I consider to be a "regular" fan. Someone that really appreciated Michael Jackson's music and artistry since childhood. As kids, we'd rent the Jackson Five albums from the library. Record players didn’t have a rewind button so we'd have to literally pick up the needle and put it back to the part of the song where you didn't understand the lyrics until you got them.

In an interview a few years back Michael Jackson referred to Stevie Wonder as a "musical prophet." I believe the same could be said of him. His genius was seemingly effortless though you know he worked hard to attain his goal of perfection.

True story: I saw someone last week in a club all decked out like Jody Watley: the huge hoop earrings, the skirt over black leggings, big hair, and denim jacket. Very "Don't You Want Me."

“Hey Ms. Watley," I said.

"Excuse me?”

“Hey Jody Watley,” I said again, this time louder over the music.

“My name’s Evelyn. Who’s Jody Watley?”

“What year were you born?”

“1988.”

“Never mind.”

I couldn’t explain Thriller to you if you weren’t there. The album was a monster that took off on a life of its own like no other album before or after by ANYONE. Even the B sides were hits. It seemed like a new song from Thriller was released like every 6 months keeping the album itself on the charts for years.

The Police came out with their classic album Synchronicity which included the hit single "Every Breath You Take" the same year Thriller was released.

Sorry, Sting.

That’s the equivalent of someone, another famous person perhaps, dying the same day as Michael.

Sorry, Farrah.

Farrah Fawcett's passing, sadly, became a mere footnote in the whole MJ brouhaha. CNN's Larry King had a whole show dedicated to her, with interviews lined up with close friends and family, and cancelled that whole show and dedicated it instead to the passing of Michael Jackson. Farrah’s death was relegated to being mentioned as a mere afterthought.

“Oh, and 70’s icon Farrah Fawcett died earlier today too…”

But that's what happens when a person could say in all seriousness they were going to perform a sold out concert in Bucharest. Where exactly is Bucharest and what language do they speak there?

What is it about a single soul that could touch over a billion people? What kind of gift is that? Or is it a curse? To be sure, both sides have valid arguments. It was reported that the internet traffic searching news of his death on Twitter, Facebook and Google caused the internet to crash.

Who else would demand that kind of attention?

You know the old adage there’s a thin line between genius and insanity? I’m sure I was a minority but I always considered Michael Jackson somewhat normal in a genius kind of way. How many geniuses were considered “normal?” The eternally sockless Albert Einstein certainly wasn’t considered “normal” in his time. Neither was van Gogh or the child prodigy Amadeus.

How “normal” is Prince?

Michael Jackson gets a pass for hanging with the likes of Macauley Culkin, Emmanuel Lewis and Brooke Shields; other child stars who traded in their childhood for fame.

Generous to a fault, I believe he became an all too easy target. If your son’s virginity was taken by another man wouldn’t you want your pound of flesh? Or would you rather negotiate to have a screenplay you wrote made into a movie like one father or to have a mall in Vegas shut down so you can have a Versace shopping spree like another parent demanded?

Part of his legacy is that his music touched all generations and was timeless. He made songs you could dance to with your grandmother at a wedding; songs you don’t mind your preteen daughter uploading to her Ipod. True creative artists with career longevity don’t make songs called Birthday Sex.

Unfortunately, though, even in death nothing about Michael Jackson is Black and White. The first autopsy was inconclusive, another one was ordered and the speculation will continue even after that.

The only known facts seem to be he leaves behind three children, had a mother who adored him, a family that loved him and fans worldwide that worshipped him.

And that Michael Jackson is Gone too Soon.

The Artist's Life

Are you a born writer? Were you put on earth to be a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace? In the end the question can only be answered by action.
Do it or don't do it.
It may help to think of it this way. If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don't do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself. You hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet.
You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite the almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter farther along its path back to God.
Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It's a gift to the world and every being in it. Don't cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you've got.

- Steven Pressfield

The Crazy Meter

I just wanted a hot dog. A chili dog to be exact. Innocent enough, right?

After dropping off my daughter to her Junior High School prom, I found myself around the corner from the original Nathan’s in Coney Island, Brooklyn. So naturally I had to stop there. Anything else would be tantamount to sacrilege. I promised myself that I’d only get something if the line wasn’t ridiculous. We pull up and it was practically empty.

It was meant to be.

So I’m waiting on the relatively short line with my nephew in tow and I hear a steady beeping. I immediately recognize it as my Crazy Radar, or CrayDar, that’s set off when a crazy person (hereafter referred to as a “Crazy”) is within 10 meters. It’s dude ahead of me in the line.

Now, it had nothing to do with the fact that he had only one strand of hair "styled" in a comb-over"; didn’t matter so much that he was wearing open toe Birkenstock sandals showcasing yellow toenails practically scraping the ground; wasn’t even because of his Capri-like army fatigue pants topped off with a Hawaiian shirt so small and tight it could be mistaken for his daughter's midriff. Nothing to do with any of those things, per se.

He just reeked crazy.

So after attempting to order something off the menu - like Beef Wellington or something equally absurd - does he just wait for his food in silence? No. Crazy doesn't do that.

“They profiled Nathan’s on Food Network yesterday so I just had to get here tonight,” says prospective Crazy Person, attempting to make conversation. It started off sanely enough, you know, something to reel you in to question if your CrayDar might have been set off accidentally.

The Golden Rule with how to treat a Crazy is the same when dealing with a rabietic dog: Don’t make eye contact.

For a millisecond I break the rule and sure enough Crazy launches into some absurd, unrelated, irrelevant - “how the hell did we get here?” - tirade about his Battleship being sunk and the price of pomegranates in Sheepshead Bay.

Rule #2: Don’t ever answer back.

So now it’s clear what I’m up against so I just totally ignore him, cross my arms and start tapping my forefinger against my pursed lips and stare at the wall menu as if in deep contemplation.

Should I get the hot dog…or…the…hot…dog…?

It’s working - as the How to Deal with a Crazy manual implies it would - dude gets his order and is about to leave when I hear my nephew offer “I love pomegranate juice!” thereby encouraging the Crazy.

“I guess you don’t have one of these,” I say to my nephew motioning to my internal CrayDar as we’re getting back into the car. “You can’t buy one. You kinda like, just have to have one. It’s hard to explain. Either you have one or you don’t.”

I think you have to be born with one.

My daughter has it, the older one. The younger one might be a Crazy herself but that’s the topic of another conversation.

When my elder daughter was about 4, she’d point out peculiarities in people.

“Daddy, that man is talking to himself.”
“Of course he is, sweetheart,” I’d say, “he’s a crazy person.”

I know Crazy; been around it all my life. When I was a kid, there was local guy named Marty that was a known Crazy.

A Crazy so crazy other Crazies called him crazy, Marty was known to shout out at unsuspecting passersby “You don’t tell me what to do!”

When his second floor apartment caught fire, Marty went out to his window ledge in an apparent attempt to jump to safety - nothing wrong with that. The problem was he used the window ledge as leverage to jump upward, making his head parallel to the third floor, thereby adding an extra 10 feet to the drop. So then a 20 foot leap turned into a 30 foot plunge.

“Of course he did,” I said to myself as Marty plummeted to the ground breaking both ankles.

While I may have a successful CrayDar, I’m also a very potent magnet, as well.

A Crazy person on the train will shimmy their way through a crowded, rush-hour subway car to find me and ask me some insane question; a Crazy on a packed sidewalk in London will stop only me and ask me for the time - even as we stand in front of Big Ben.

I’m not even safe in the hospital.

During my only ever hospital stay, I’m IV’d up and enjoying that I at least had my own room. That is until the third night. At about 2AM they wheel him into the room. He’s a young guy, late 20s probably and he’s hunched down low in the wheelchair reminding me of when Tupac got shot and still showed up to his trial a couple days later, albeit wheelchair bound.

Anyway, so he gets to his bed and belying the pathetic figure he was less than a second ago, he suddenly leaps out of the wheelchair and dives into his bed. Then he just lays there in a fetal position and starts moaning until the nurse puts the covers over him and draws the curtain closed between us.

“OK. Borderline batty,” I say to myself as the nurse leaves the room shaking her head.

About an hour and a half later, I’m awakened by CrayDar and look up to find Crazy standing over me.

“Did I wake you?” he asks holding two 8x11 frames. I look at my watch and it’s 3:30am.

“What can I do for you, Crazy?” I ask politely.

“I want to show you my Degrees,” he says.

I wasn’t the least bit angry or upset. Nor was I surprised or taken aback that a total stranger would want to show me his Degrees in a dark hospital room past 3 in the morning. Of course he’d do that. Anything less would be out of character for a Crazy.

The next day, he’s visited by a beautiful woman. This girl was breathtaking. I assumed it was his cousin or some relative until she grabbed his face and kissed him long and hard. Then he gave me this “I bet you want to know how I pulled this one off” grin while slowly closing the curtain, not breaking eye contact with me until the curtain was fully drawn.

And I did want to know.

So I asked him.

“I was suing someone for stealing this patent I created for this video game and needed a lawyer to represent me,” he explained. “I contacted her firm, she represented my case and the rest, as they say, is history.”

Of course he pulled that bad, successful chick.

One thing about Crazy people - they have absolutely no fear of failure. Other guys would see this beautiful and seemingly successful woman and be paralyzed with fear to approach her. But Mr. Crazy… he just comes by and probably starts in on the middle of some far-fetched bizarro conversation, she thinks he’s funny, he invites her to a comic book convention or something and the rest, as they say, is history. And she’s about to be history too, I assumed. She was probably vulnerable at the time. Crazy charmed her, she came to visit him out of a false sense of duty, but soon she’ll tire of all his absurdity and be done with him.

“So how long have you guys been together?” I ask my new crazy friend.

“Me and my fiancé? Hmmm…about…”

Of course she’s gonna marry him, I think to myself.

Of course!