The passing of a music and television icons

For our special presentation on Straight from the Sky, we bring you a story on a Night of Heritage and Culture and a Talk about the Museums in Cebu. This is a report from Msgr. Carlito Puno, Dr. Jocelyn Gerra of the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. (RAFI; Dr. Librado Macaraya, manager of Ft. San Pedro; Dr. Eleazar Bersales of Museo Sugbo; and Louella Alix of the Cathedral Museum of the Gabi-i sa Kabilin last month when all the museums in Cebu were opened to the public for a single fee, and this was the first time it ever happened in this country. So watch this show on SkyCable’s channel 15 at 8:00 pm.

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The whole world is mourning the unexpected passing of Michael Jackson, a great music icon and a legend totally on his own who, when he was still a five-year old kid came into the world of music through the Jackson Five as one of Motown’s many great black song and dance group. This brought me back to memory lane when, eight years ago, I went to Detroit and visited the Motown Studios, which today is the Motown museum. From the outside, it looks like a row of middle-class American houses, but their recording studios were all underground right under those houses. It was there that Michael Jackson’s famous white glove was on display and the costumes of the Supremes and other Motown music greats. 

But as Berry Gordy, founder of Motown, pointed out during Larry King’s interview with him last Friday… in 1969, he had many kid acts and a lot more black singing groups, but no one would ever believe that Michael would be able to break away from the Jackson Five to become a great performer totally on his own and that’s exactly what the world saw in Michael Jackson, who became the penultimate song and dance performer that no one could imitate even today, except perhaps the dancers of Bollywood!

 From the late 60’s, Michael Jackson’s music was embraced by many generations from the 70’s to the 90’s with unforgettable songs like “Beat it, Billie Jean, Thriller” and my favorite “We are the World.” Only a Michael Jackson could resurrect an aging Beatle when he sang that beautiful duet with Paul McCartney “This Girl is Mine” or old favorites like “Ben” and when you split with your girlfriend, he had a song for that too entitled “She’s out of my life” songs that would live with the world forever.

 Michael’s dance routine was also a class in itself because he did a dance step that we thought only Fred Astaire could do. Yet he eclipsed Neil Armstrong who made the first moonwalk by a human when on the 25th anniversary of Motown, he sang “Billie Jean” and showed the world how to do a moonwalk! That dance put Michael Jackson’s act all by itself!

But suddenly last Friday, Michael Jackson passed away and just like the questions we raised when Elvis Presley died so suddenly, the world asks, “How and why did Michael die so young? Was he over-prescribed with prescription medicines or that his body couldn’t take the cocktail of drugs that he’d been using?” Perhaps we shall know the results of his autopsy soon.

While we acknowledge Michael Jackson as a one-of-a-kind music legend, he did have a lot of negatives… perhaps it is as what Liza Minnelli said that Michael never had a chance to enjoy his childhood. Strangely, his best friends in showbiz were oldies like Liz Taylor, Diana Ross and Liza Minnelli. While he was a very handsome black kid, he apparently had a fetish to become a white man and yes, he changed his nose so many times… he undoubtedly ruined it and of course he allegedly molested those kids in his Neverland Ranch. While he was not convicted of the charges of pedophilia, rumours persist that he paid all of his victims.

 In the end, what killed Michael Jackson was his own success! A truism in his life story is that money, despite having lots of it, doesn’t bring real happiness. Towards the end of his life, he accumulated only huge legal fees and the condemnation of the world. But in death, Michael Jackson achieved immortality because his songs continue to live with us today and this forgiving world mourns his loss. Perhaps we can listen to Michael’s not so big hit song, “Gone Too Soon” from his 1993 hit album “Dangerous” which was dedicated to AIDS victims… a song that we can now dedicate to him.

 Michael’s tragic death sort of overshadowed the death also of another 70’s icon, Farrah Fawcett of “Charlies Angel’s” fame who died of cancer also on the same day Michael Jackson died. For the young kids of my generation, Farrah Fawcett was the most wanted “Pin-up” girl. Who could forget the lion haired, braless Farrah Fawcett with her red skimmy dress that adorned the rooms of many of my friends? She was Television’s most beautiful celebrity. But there is a lesson for all of us to learn from the death of these two celebrities…that life is indeed very short and that fortune and fame is meaningless when we all pass to the great beyond. So let us pray for the repose of their souls to thank them for their contribution to this world.

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