Where Were You When...
the Thriller video mini-movie came on the tele?
"What are we doing? Where are we going? Why do I have to wear THIS?"
All very valid questions from an eleven year old. It was December, 1983. We were putting on after-five casual for a dinner party over one of my uncle's now forgotten girlfriend's homes. I remember I did NOT like this woman's daughter- she was jealous of me and always tried to pull my hair!- and did not understand why we could not watch the premier at home. I understood later that this was a history making event to be shared with as many as possible. Sort of like when I was in my freshman year and big army trucks pulled up and took my friends away who thought the chance of a war during a time when they were active reservists was slim-to-none. I cried when I emerged from the shock of them waving themselves out of class and asking us to hold on to their books. "How long will you guys be gone?" I naively questioned. Just long enough for there to be a syndrome, is how history answered.
This time I would cry for a different reason. We were reminded to behave as young ladies and gentlemen and not to block the television if we should feel an uncontrollable urge to dance. I felt this comment was more so directed at moi, since I was the only one of the children that tended to break out in free form dance sequences. Who KNEW it would be the adults that yelled the loudest and broke a crystal wine glass by the end of the evening? The men began a low chant of "Ola Ray, Ola Ray!-" My uncle's girlfriend mumbled, "NASTY girl!" I didn't find out until I was nineteen, that Ola Ray had been a Playmate. I found a new respect for John Landis then; it was like I knew one of his secrets. I just remembered not caring for her capri pants. The choreography was entrancing! "My niece can watch this video ONE MORE TIME and get this down pat!", my uncle bragged. His girlfriend's daughter began moving closer to get a grip on my hair. by the end of the group sequence the men had graduated from their lascivious whispers to cheers and shouts of Michael's (and his choreographers and dancers and director's) triumphs and the women were cheering in their softer voices and doing cute-from-Cleveland dances in their respective areas.
Unfortunately, wine was served with dinner and dessert; in my uncle's buzzed exurberance, he slammed a wineglass down on the coffee table and when it shattered, my mother's leg was cut through her stockings, albeit superficially. "Owwh!" was her response, my uncle babbled apologies to his older sister until she waved him away. His girlfriend's daughter took advantage of everyone's distraction and gave the back of my hair a good yank! It brought tears to my eyes from the pain and the anger at being the object of her jealousy constantly. I waited until all the fanfare died down and the younger childen were asked to retire to the playroom...then I beat her like the tomboy I was! I was told I would be on punishment for a week for taking violence as the only answer. That's when I cried, because I would not be able to see Thriller again for a week!
I still remember having to wait almost two hours (what seemed an eternity at that age!) to ask my mother why there was a message about the occult on the screen before the video. My mother explained that it had to do with the Jehovah's Witnesses's dogma. In later years I would smirk to myself thinking, 'Michael Jackson the Phenonmenon is mystical enough for any religion'. I was mesmerized too! The way he moved...I think I first sprung my ankle being caught by surprise, attempting to moonwalk by the boys in our neighborhood in my backyard, on the broken concrete of our driveway. And the way I cried when my mother couldn't get me an 'authentic' Michael Jackson jacket. At least I never thought I was going to marry HIM like my older sister Tiffy; she almost got my uncle (yes the same uncle with the forgotten girlfriend) LYNCHED at a Michael Jackson concert during the seventies. When she misunderstood my uncle's exasperation over accompanying several post-toddlers to an evening concert to see a teenager, and said "You don't like Michael Jackson, Uncle Larry?" my uncle swears he has never been that nervous in his life again.
Now it is 2008, and we celebrate his accomplishments...not the man. His eccentricity has not taken away from his talent and contributions to musical history as well as our own. This attitude is the same reason Amy Winehouse still got her visa. We still cheer on entertainers that have sordid personal lives...I still jump up and do my best 'Brit Brit' bump-and-grind to any number of Mrs. Spears's songs. I remember all these things like it happened within the last few days. When will this stop? When will I have to call my siblings to remember like my mom does? For now, I will be happy just to recall when I feel like it.
This is my 'Remember when...?' conjured up by an episode of Celebrity Expose and the twenty-fifth anniversary of Thriller. Let's hope Will.I.Am, Akon and Fergie don't screw with it too much!
"What are we doing? Where are we going? Why do I have to wear THIS?"
All very valid questions from an eleven year old. It was December, 1983. We were putting on after-five casual for a dinner party over one of my uncle's now forgotten girlfriend's homes. I remember I did NOT like this woman's daughter- she was jealous of me and always tried to pull my hair!- and did not understand why we could not watch the premier at home. I understood later that this was a history making event to be shared with as many as possible. Sort of like when I was in my freshman year and big army trucks pulled up and took my friends away who thought the chance of a war during a time when they were active reservists was slim-to-none. I cried when I emerged from the shock of them waving themselves out of class and asking us to hold on to their books. "How long will you guys be gone?" I naively questioned. Just long enough for there to be a syndrome, is how history answered.
This time I would cry for a different reason. We were reminded to behave as young ladies and gentlemen and not to block the television if we should feel an uncontrollable urge to dance. I felt this comment was more so directed at moi, since I was the only one of the children that tended to break out in free form dance sequences. Who KNEW it would be the adults that yelled the loudest and broke a crystal wine glass by the end of the evening? The men began a low chant of "Ola Ray, Ola Ray!-" My uncle's girlfriend mumbled, "NASTY girl!" I didn't find out until I was nineteen, that Ola Ray had been a Playmate. I found a new respect for John Landis then; it was like I knew one of his secrets. I just remembered not caring for her capri pants. The choreography was entrancing! "My niece can watch this video ONE MORE TIME and get this down pat!", my uncle bragged. His girlfriend's daughter began moving closer to get a grip on my hair. by the end of the group sequence the men had graduated from their lascivious whispers to cheers and shouts of Michael's (and his choreographers and dancers and director's) triumphs and the women were cheering in their softer voices and doing cute-from-Cleveland dances in their respective areas.
Unfortunately, wine was served with dinner and dessert; in my uncle's buzzed exurberance, he slammed a wineglass down on the coffee table and when it shattered, my mother's leg was cut through her stockings, albeit superficially. "Owwh!" was her response, my uncle babbled apologies to his older sister until she waved him away. His girlfriend's daughter took advantage of everyone's distraction and gave the back of my hair a good yank! It brought tears to my eyes from the pain and the anger at being the object of her jealousy constantly. I waited until all the fanfare died down and the younger childen were asked to retire to the playroom...then I beat her like the tomboy I was! I was told I would be on punishment for a week for taking violence as the only answer. That's when I cried, because I would not be able to see Thriller again for a week!
I still remember having to wait almost two hours (what seemed an eternity at that age!) to ask my mother why there was a message about the occult on the screen before the video. My mother explained that it had to do with the Jehovah's Witnesses's dogma. In later years I would smirk to myself thinking, 'Michael Jackson the Phenonmenon is mystical enough for any religion'. I was mesmerized too! The way he moved...I think I first sprung my ankle being caught by surprise, attempting to moonwalk by the boys in our neighborhood in my backyard, on the broken concrete of our driveway. And the way I cried when my mother couldn't get me an 'authentic' Michael Jackson jacket. At least I never thought I was going to marry HIM like my older sister Tiffy; she almost got my uncle (yes the same uncle with the forgotten girlfriend) LYNCHED at a Michael Jackson concert during the seventies. When she misunderstood my uncle's exasperation over accompanying several post-toddlers to an evening concert to see a teenager, and said "You don't like Michael Jackson, Uncle Larry?" my uncle swears he has never been that nervous in his life again.
Now it is 2008, and we celebrate his accomplishments...not the man. His eccentricity has not taken away from his talent and contributions to musical history as well as our own. This attitude is the same reason Amy Winehouse still got her visa. We still cheer on entertainers that have sordid personal lives...I still jump up and do my best 'Brit Brit' bump-and-grind to any number of Mrs. Spears's songs. I remember all these things like it happened within the last few days. When will this stop? When will I have to call my siblings to remember like my mom does? For now, I will be happy just to recall when I feel like it.
This is my 'Remember when...?' conjured up by an episode of Celebrity Expose and the twenty-fifth anniversary of Thriller. Let's hope Will.I.Am, Akon and Fergie don't screw with it too much!
Labels: Michael Jackson, nostalgia
posted by ScreenGoddessComplex at 3:21 PM
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