The Anti-Niche Blog

I am a child of the 80’s.

I belong to Madonna and Michael Jackson’s music generation.  So since I learned about his death in an online forum I was really devastated.

Not that I cried my eyes out, or downed my sorrows on a bottle of beer, none of that sort.  Instead, I kept my sadness to myself, completely forgot about my work for an entire day to read every news updates on TMZ or CNN, and deeply immersed myself in searching online for and viewing videos of MJ’s performances.  Thank goodness for YouTube, I found myself  zapped back to memories of watching with much admiration and intensity MJ’s iconic performances on TV.

The Death of the King of Pop. Immensely saddening.  It feels like mourning the death of a childhood friend.  The odds of me meeting him in person was once in a billion, but like others who are affected by the news of his death, I found consolation in his music and his dance.  Watching again the videos of his concerts held in different parts of the world such as Germany, Malaysia, Russia and even Japan gave me an awesome realization that while many popular artists came after him, no one can ever take his place as the King of Pop. As someone who loves to dance  I totally admire younger dance and song artists of today like Britney, Justin, T., and Usher.  But I must say that none of them comes close to MJ’s trailblazing performances.  From that Motown 25 performance where he introduced his signature dance “moonwalk” to the world in 1983, to his perpetually sold-out world tour concerts for his album History, the power of his voice and the electrifying energy of his dance steps  would simply leave you in awe.   I don’t know if it was just me, but reading and uttering the phrase “King of Pop” after his death takes on a more revered tone.  I truly believe that he belongs up there with Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley.

The Music. Ahhh, who would ever forget Thriller, the album that not only sold millions of copies around the world, but also paved the way for the MTV era and shaped pop music culture as we know it today.  My personal favorites are I Just Can’t Stop Loving You, You Are Not Alone, She’s Out of My Life, and Gone Too Soon.  I was one of those billions of people  around the world who would dance at the sound of Black and White, Remember The Time,  and Smooth Criminal.  Too bad, he didn’t make it to his much anticipated comeback next month in a series of sold-out concerts in London.

Here’s one of my favorite MJ performances.

His Legacy. My father worked as a a radio “announcer” (similar to today’s radio DJ’s)  when I was a child and I remember how he would often play every Sunday  his favorite Elvis Presley songs that were then in long playing albums or 45 vinyl records, along with the songs of great oldies such as Frank Sinatra, Connie Francis, and many others.  My sisters and I would complain at the marathon of albums played one after another, but it was only when I was in my late 20’s and wondered why I had such affinity for oldies music that I realized that it was my father’s way of sharing with us the legacy of these singing legends of his time.  In fact, after my father’s death, one of the first things that I looked for was his collection of old music albums which he lovingly bought, collected and shared with us throughout his years of working in the radio industry.  But since I didn’t have a turntable to play it with, I chose to take some of his music CD collections of oldies music.  Now that the music legend of my lifetime has died, it’s now my turn to see to it that my children would come to know about the music and the moves of MJ.

The controversies. Not that I chose to be indifferent because I am such a huge fan, but as a mother of 4 kids I chose not to dwell on this anymore.  One question I would like to ask aloud though is that why would the parents of the alleged victims succumb to alleged pressures to settle out of court?  Of course, I am not in a position to question or even speculate on the reasons behind another parents’ decision, but I am in a position to believe that once you’ve set out to seek justice for any wrongdoing against your child it should be a fight to the finish.  These questions could go on and on and I think his death would revive motives to milk whatever is left to a pulp,  but I would rather remember the man through his awesome music and dance moves. And judging on news accounts of people mourning all over the world, it’s exactly how millions of  other would like to remember him. Maybe this is the kind of comeback that he needed, a final act where people selectively wipe out the bad, and opt to remember only the good things.

Setting New Blockbuster Hits. On a side note, it’s a amazing to read new accounts of sudden burst of renewed interest on anything about Michael Jackson, offline or online.  There are news reports of people flocking to record stores to grab CD or DVD’s of Michael’s albums and concerts.  And the same is happening online.  Michael Jackson dominating iTunes, Amazon and  YouTube, MJ’s death roils Wikipedia, Google thought MJ traffic was an attack and set a record on Yahoo for unique visitors in a single day with 16.4 million visitors,  and news sites swamped following Michael Jackson’s death.

MJ is a blockbuster phenomenon even in his death.

In an interview Michael was asked a question about death and he said that he would like to live forever.  I am speaking for myself but I am sure that I speak for many others,  yes MJ,  your music will forever live in our hearts.

I almost blurted out this question when I reviewed my daughter, Denise on what she learned in school that day. She is on Kinder 1 class of a local Montessori school.

Here’s how it went:

Me: What did you learn today? Did teacher speak about the planets?

Denise : Oo ‘my (Yes ‘my)

Me: O sige, what are the nine planets?

Denise : Earth…Mars…Jupiter…Saturn…(and so on…)

Me : O, how about Pluto? Di mo sinabi yung Pluto (You didn’t mention Pluto)

Denise (looks puzzled) : Puto?

Me : PLUTO.

Denise : Wala man yang Pluto! (There’s no Pluto!)

Me : Ano’ng walang Pluto?  Pluto is the smallest planet, while Jupiter is the largest planet.

Denise : Wala lagi yang Pluto!

Enter Yaya Ging-ging, a high school drop out.

Yaya Ging-ging: Wala na man nang Pluto ‘te. Di na man daw na planet. (There is no more Pluto.  It is no longer a planet)

Me (shocked): Unsa? Murag kadungog ko ana pero wa ko nagtuo nga tinuod ni. ( What? I think I came across this some time ago, but I didn’t realize that it’s true! )

I am that shocked because well, from my kindergarten days until I had this conversation with Denise, I have always known that there are 9 planets and that Pluto is the smallest planet!  For me, it was like saying that A is no longer considered a vowel and is actually a consonant, that 1+1 is actually equal to 3, and that Humpty Dumpty didn’t really have an accidental fall but actually committed suicide.  Do you get my drift?

There have been a number of similar situations like this, where a complete reversal of the truth and fact of things and matters that I have always believed in happens in-my-face.  Sometimes, it’s a nice way of knowing new things, but most of the time it’s an irritating reminder that I have a LOT of catching up to do.

And with this Pluto-is-no-longer-a-planet thing, I guess I have a LOT of catching up to do with matters as simple as a Kindergarten Science lesson!

Don’t laugh now, but it’s true.  And I think that’s something I should seriously work on because now that my 2 kids are in pre-school I definitely wouldn’t want to be caught dead not being able to answer simple questions from my kids.

I turned to my husband and asked him if he knew that Pluto is no longer a planet, and no, he said he didn’t know about that.

Well, at least I’m not the only one from my generation who didn’t know that.

Sometimes, taking comfort in another person’s “clueless-ness” feels great.

Now, I ask you…which planet is the smallest?

Hands down…it’s With A Smile for me.  I was still in college at the height of their popularity.  I distinctly remember that casette tape of their album Ultraelectromagneticpop that I bought.

Too bad forever E-head main man Ely is battling health complications at a young age (he’s in his 30’s pa di ba?).

I do hope they could still get together for another Reunion.

I’m letting the images speak for themselves. =)

I don’t wear my wedding ring anymore.

It doesn’t fit any one of my fingers.   I can manage to squeeze it in, but it would be a pain to take it out, would either have to yank it out with the help of a soap or lotion, or just cut my finger to take it off.

The reason being that post pregnancy, it seems that my body has decided to take a new form of its own, you know, getting the curves in the WRONG PLACES.   My fingers included. They’ve become chubby at the base.  I won’t even begin to describe my tummy, its state of size and appearance put into proper perspective by Athea my niece who asked me if I was still pregnant.  And to think it’s been a month since a gave birth.

Hayy.

And my clothes! Or shall I say, where did all my clothes go?  My blouses don’t fit.  My jeans are nowhere to be found.  I am stuck with my leggings,  shorts and my one and only slim jeans.  The slim jeans that do not make me feel “slim” at all.  It takes a lot of wriggling, jumping, huffing and puffing just to get both legs inside my slim jeans.  And when I do manage to zip up and close the button, I then get sad and I pity myself while looking in front of the mirror.  And I feel even more sad when I see the Slenda ad on TV.

That’s why I get miserable whenever I have to go out of the house on rare occasions (rare because I also work at home so no need to dress up to go to work).

But then again, I know that this “misery” is gonna end soon, and can be remedied with exercise, proper diet and suppression of my daily addiction to sweets and cola.  Exercise?  That I am going to focus on a month or two from now.

Wish me luck, okay? =)