_{Photo: Popkrazy}

I know that I haven’t updated this blog in months. Without taking time to get into a lengthy explanation as to why, the death of Michael Jackson has given me a reason to update. While I don’t know what the future of Loudersoft is right now, it was important to me to share this with you now.

It has taken me days to sit down and write these thoughts to share with you, and I still don’t even know where to begin. I expect any number of you who read this to simply not understand where my mind is. He meant something different to nearly everyone, no matter what part or parts of his life you’ve been affected by or how.

I have laid awake nights thinking to myself how beautiful heaven must be today now that Michael’s pain is at an end. Those of us here on Earth, we are left to consider the many gifts Michael bestowed upon the world, and, in spite of his eccentric and at times inexplicable behavior, how insensitively the media treated him throughout the last years of his life.

Michael Jackson lived in a world that combined fantasy and reality, a world that was filled with spectacle and, at times, a horror. In spite of the terrible things I’ve heard time and again, there is no part of me that has ever been more fascinated by what people said than the good things which he actually did. How can this be, you might say? There was always something about Michael to me that defied description, some quality about Michael Jackson which I believe makes each of us want to look for and find something pure, to seek out the goodness in ourselves and in our own hearts.

This world did not deserve you, Michael. It was never meant for one as beautiful as you. They did not, and do not, understand you. I believe deep down in my soul that you were driven by and filled with a goodness that was far too often mistaken for something sinister. But no matter what they say about you, no matter how they characterize you, this world cannot hurt you anymore.

Michael’s inspiration to me has been nothing if not profound, not only his music and his performances but in the admirable examples he exhibited in his extensive philanthropy. His tremendous generosity juxtaposed against the loneliness he clearly lived in was something which I relate to on a very personal level. He entertained me, he educated me, and he constantly raised the bar of excellence even in the face of adversity, self-actualized or otherwise.

He was a magician, a man who struggled tirelessly at his craft, tortured by his desire to perfect himself and to make a difference in the lives of those around him. He was a consummate performer who approached each challenge with a kind of dignity that goes mostly unseen in today’s performers, taking on complicated works and making their creation seem effortless. In his death, I am haunted by these qualities, finding myself constantly comparing his brilliance to the lackluster celebrity and acceptable mediocrity by which we seem surrounded today.

I will always be struck by the irony that Michael gave up his childhood that he might bring joy to so many of us in our own childhood, that we could have the opportunity to revel in his talents. I think of the thousands of people whom his charitable work has helped, from his efforts at famine relief in Africa to those suffering from AIDS to scholarships which allowed those who might not otherwise be able to attend college. It staggers my mind and numbs my senses when I have to think that this man, this good man with a heart bigger than any could know, is gone.

To his family and close friends, I mourn with you, empowered by a feeling that you and I may share an unseen bond in our understanding of what drove Michael to at once reach unfathomable heights and breach the precipice of confounding emptiness and sorrows.

May the society and culture which spawned the celebrity of and ultimately destroyed this man take a long, hard look at itself, learning to accept its cloak of shame through the celebration of his life. And Michael, may you rest in peace. God bless you, and thank you for making some of the best days of my life so much better through your works.