There is a 'celebration of musical light' moving around the world!
Hi, it's Jeannie Fitzsimmons, with both a post/commentary here, and my Hollywood videos on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame this week so look for them to 'appear' this coming July 4th weekend!
It is a global gathering of witnesses to one soul's life--a life whose contribution we cannot ignore.
IN THIS COMMENTARY/POST I, too, am celebrating my own experience of having met Michael Jackson and The Jackson 5 and sharing my view of this phenomenal event in our musical culture!
Not since the passing of Princess Diana in the United Kingdom, have we had the feeling of the passing of Royalty. This time, the man and his music is not Frank Sinatra or Elvis. Now it is MICHAEL JACKSON!
I believe Michael Jackson represents 'our joy factor'!
Beginning this week of July in 2009, it is a week where people can be heard asking a question not asked since the passing of JFK, Elvis or Princess Diana.
The question? Where were YOU when Michael died? What were you doing when Michael passed away? Where were you when you heard the news that 'the music died'? Why is it such a shock around the world?
Yes it is that much of a global impact in the world of music, of Pop, and in the African American communities. Youngsters around the world will forever be idolizing this young Jackson 5 breakout, this global celebrity. Jackson had friends around the world, loved the classic beauty of women and had Dame Elizabeth and powerful Diana Ross as two of his finest friends. The world of music was awed by his surprises, his wisdom, and his innocence. He was a shrewd businessman, and yet created an entire village, as OPRAH would say, to care for him and fulfill his every whim. Have any of you ever wished you could be the GENIE and command that kind of power with the wave of your hand.
This is a great responsibility he had, as well as express his gifts, radiate his love, his music, and his mastery in manifestation in this world. He was rather like a teacher/master who could manifest at the speed of his thought. Another man who was like this is Uri Geller. I met Uri on a trip to London for he was a dear friend of the European advertising executive I went to visit. We sloshed through the muddy English countryside while getting to know each other.
Uri loved Michael Jackson, and spoke of him in glowing terms Uri's family was a bright, shining beacon as we spent the day together, and his ability to manifest before one's eyes was impressive...much like Michaels.
I walked into the kitchen with Uri, as he pulled that famous 'spoon bending' demonstration, signed it for me. I had to laugh. We had teach and then we sat is his webcam-ready room with the most beautiful crystals I had ever seen.
My experience of Uri was as a magical man with much of the same energy, love, and ability to 'see', coming from the heart of love. He is a very straight- shooter, and straight-talker so not much gets by him. We had very frank discussions, jousted a bit, and laughed a lot. He put Michael Jackson's music on in one of the rooms after he discovered I was also a singer/songwriter, and he had met many of the people I had worked with over the years.
As I saw him on the interview following Michael's passing, he was that same direct, high-integrity and mystical man. He warned Michael, and fought for his life when he saw something that was not healthy and appropriate.
What is it about Michael that so elicits love from people's heart? What is it that awakens the joy and makes people smile and dance, feel uplifted?
It is simply love.
To
honor him--straight from the heart of the child within, regardless of
age, cultures, race, or religion, people with tears in their eyes are
placing teddy bears, candles, flowers, and heartfelt messages that
cover walls, gates, hedges, and sidewalks around the world.
It is the fans of Michael Jackson that are fanning the flame of his light and somehow it seems that the child in all of us has suffered a loss!
How could this have happened, and of all times now...people are asking?
After selling 750,000 tickets to his sold out THIS IS IT London, England concert series...ah to leave at the very height of anticipation and his 'return'. Brilliant, sad, odd, and in the Divine Play--right on time. There couldn't be a more dramatic turn of events to accentuate his presence and to make us fall in love with his music all over again.
WHAT AN EXIT! This is well beyond the 'Elvis has left the building' statement that has been spoken for decades. This is drama, shock, and remembrance for a celebrated entertainer that has never been seen before. Now add the modern technology and the world collapses immediately--right in the middle of the love people have for Michael Jackson and the family, who has been part of our lives for nearly 5 decades.
I share my perspective in a commentary here for I met him when he was a part of The Jackson 5. During that time I was a singer on a hit show at CBS-TV. He was about 8 years old, and I was just 19, when this group and amazing performer came on the scene, as they made the rounds onto variety television shows of the 1970s.
I worked, traveled or sang with classics like Cher, Anne Murray, Glen Campbell, Tom Jones, Julie Andrews, Jerry Reed, Waylon Jennings, Dottie West, Johnny Cash, Linda Ronstadt, Engelbert Humperdink, Dionne, Johnny Mathis, and dozens of others as I sang, did acting comedy sketches and backed up some of the most famous musical talents of the 'music of our lives'. Dottie West, Anne Murray, and Dionne Warwick have recorded my songs, too.
What was a rush, and I was fortunate to see and be on the stage with Michael Jackson when he was the embodiment of that innocent, young, overflowing and blooming performer that was fearless, joyous, and riveting. After their rehearsal on stage, we singers had the opportunity to meet and mingle with the family. Their father was off side giving them direction, and notes. I had a few minutes to talk with Michael, a very old Soul as they say. He was deep, yet innocent, funny and shy, yet solid and approachable. He was the lead singer, and he knew his role with the Jackson 5. The brothers were gracious, fun, and respectful, soft-spoken.
Since I had been on this TV show for a couple of years already, there were several guest stars, singers or musicians each week. Most seemed to have 'that charisma' and it was in an energy around them--a 'look' is what I called it.
Michael HAD IT!
I had seen that special look before in the face of another young actress who often came to do some acting sketches on our show...Jodie Foster. In both intuitions, I was right they simply 'had it'...that charisma that every performer would dearly love to bottle!
Well, someone HAS captured light in a bottle-his name? Michael Jackson!
His vision and innovative pop music spans several generations and amidst controversy, confusion, pain, and rumor, the electricity of his heart's flowering lives on, and is rippling around the planet this week.
How do we know? Record stores are sold out, downloads of his albums have been crashing websites, and people are flocking to both his beloved NEVERLAND estate in Los Olivos, California, and the Jackson home in Los Angeles, as well as thousands visiting in front of the Chinese Theater, on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame to adorn his star--right next to the famous Kodak Theater. American Idol final events, andd the Academy Awards grace this Hollywood street with red carpet covering the street and stars dripping with diamonds and glamor walking and sharing with people viewing around the world.
Half a billion people went to the STAPLES CENTER site to join in the global lottery, hoping to get into the last-minute memorial.
This is where we saw the Academy Awards being bestowed on those whom we love in the entertainment industry. This is also the place where AMERICAN IDOL judges and our country chose Kris as its 2009 American Idol! (More on previous POSTS for more information and commentary.) This is a street of much beloved history!
These fans simply want to cover that star with their love. Teddy bears, flowers, tears, photographs, signs, candles, and more, literally cover the street messages of love and missing and are hung of the protective gates surrounding this Michael Jackson star.
Note: I show you on the video as well from the Hollywood Walk of Fame on my YouTube Channel: www.Showbizlady.tv I will be uploading a series of webisodes, over July 4th Weekend! LINK to be provided later.
It is the time of True Freedom for all of us on this celebration Fourth of July Weekend. Michael is liberated from this physical life, however we will miss his King Of Pop form.
So what was it that cause his spirit to take flight?
How did he die, what caused it? These questions will be answered as forensic and science do their CSI best. This past week revealed, what many people would say is the untimely passing of a musical icon, a musical child prodigy, a visionary, and a passionate lover of humanity. All of this, in the person of someone called Michael Jackson. Truly, like everyone, we are spirits soaring through this life. Michael simply left when many were not ready for him to be gone. The perfume of life, wafts over our experience and to the people we meet. Life is fleeting, but love is enduring and eternal.
I describe our personalities that cover over our spirit or soul in this way, for that was simply his 'covering', as the global superstar he lived during this life. This was his destiny. There is much more to this story and event during this time and is like a rose unfolding in the news.
Like many entertainers, he 'altered' his covering, his skin, his face, his nose, and no doubt, he simply didn't eat much or did use drugs--his body too, in a much deeper way.
There is a reverberation, and an ignition that his life, as well as his death have as an impact on millions in our world. And, like Jackson, we also all have a 'covering' and a name that was given to us don't we? We alter it in whatever way we do during our lives. Gain, lose weight, and color our hair, tan our skin, and either keep the body well and healthy, or cause it from our habits contrary to optimal health, to be ill. We can do much to keep our body well--or not.
The same is true with our spirit. We can walk through this life asleep or awake, Loving or wanting it--all the while pushing it away. We can look at life from eyes of love, or look at it from the view of lacking, a victim, or not loving. What would you rather have?
Michael, in his spirit, and no doubt his inherent wisdom and journey through this life as a Pied Piper and Peter Pan kind of energy. He was a subtle kind of master--of both hearts and illusion, creativity and expression that mesmerized touched that heart of a child...that heart that is within everyone. Regardless of his own childhood, he had that thorn in his own heart driven there perhaps by the role his father played no doubt, to make him continue to stay in touch with the child in himself and all people. His personality appeared to crave innocence.
People aren't used to acknowledging it as they grow into adulthood. We follow the leader, forget our hearts, leap up into our heads, and bury our childlike spirit for it isn't 'convenient' when we are supposed to be adults, act our age, or 'grow up'. We work, accomplish and wonder why we are unhappy, Does any of this sound familiar to you or someone you know?
In addition to Michael Jackson, each of US has a destiny as well--and we are right on track regardless of what it may look like right now.
Michael Jackson was and will remain, music royalty.
The USA doesn't have Kings and Queens, except those who are either self-described or whose lives are larger than life and they receive what I would coin a 'media-moniker' as such, by others.
In Michael Jackson's case, all people had to do is hear a couple of bars of the droning, deliberate beat of the rhythmic dancing music to know what was about to come. People's joy-factor would rev up, their heart would be alerted, at a very primal level, and they would know there were to get ready to dance!
Yes this wiry, fluid energy, elfin-like lover of Peter Pan has passed from our physical plane. He would probably say that Peter Pan passed away, for he so identified with his Peter Pan-like 'NEVERLAND' ranch. It was his place of safety, beauty, and fueled that magical quality of the child never growing up, growing old, or losing that spark in the heart of one's self.
I say this because his radiating joy and loving energy, along with the dust of love he sprinkled through his music, heart, presence and passion...let alone his destiny, will continue to ignite like time-release capsules into the musical world, well past his life here on earth.
WHY DID HE COME AND GO IN THIS WAY?
We have needed his sparkle, his grandness, his musical vision, his courage to reinvent how music is danced, written, expressed and presented--for there was an energetic joy-drought in our world. We needed to be jump-started back to our own childhood, and much of Jackson's music was that bridge back.
Michael Jackson lived an unlimited style of expressing his joy and gifts. Glitzy, excessive, outrageous, beyond belief events, moments, moves, costumes, and professions of his humanitarian vision caused people to reach further beyond themselves. Musicians and dancers emulated, modeled, and copied his style. His dedication and commitment to the art of music and entertainment will be his legacy.
He is a global entertainment role-model of musical genius regardless of the oddities of his eccentric personality, rumors of his sexual exploits or possible misdeeds, and the various macabre behaviors that have been shown on a repeating loop of video, in the media over the past 2 decades.
Something to Remember:
His personality is not the spirit of this soul, and none of ours are either. We often forget that we are not the roles we play, but the soul, energy, spirit, love, and source that flows us as this individual in this life. We have a role to play and it is always perfectly timed.
Michael was fearless, innovative, talented, and had individual leadership with his eccentric twist and uncompromising perfection driven personality. Yet, he was fearful, rigid, and controlling about most aspects of his life, driven by his own dreams and visions.
He is the most revered maestro of pop. Often called the King of Pop, he is the new generation's ELVIS, and MARILYN MONROE combined. He wanted it all, wanted to recover what he felt he lost, wanted to express from every pour, wanted to do what he could to heal the entire planet, and wanted to be loved by all who gazed upon him. He gave it, and he wanted it back. He often said so in the recent reruns of interviews. Raw, open, and honest.
THE EVENT in JULY 2009, is the lottery-style ticket marketing to the MEMORIAL SERVICE TO MICHAEL JACKSON here in Los Angeles, California. This leveled the playing field for world-wide fans. Although only USA citizens can purchase them, no doubt the TV's and streaming events will be around the world.
Well I did register to have the opportunity to join in this added event here in LA---one huge witnessing and celebration as a global event of the passing of a light!
Regardless of anyone's opinion, the facts of the love for this pop superstar is a fact. Separating fact from fiction is what fans do, regardless of why. They simply love. We need to do the same with everyone in our own lives.
Have a wonderful July 4th Weekend! Have a happy and a blessed time loving your family, and friends, and sharing your heart with those you love, for we never know when they may simply disappear from our life, our eyes, and our arms.
Jeannie Fitzsimmons, ASCAP, SAG May all Beings be Happy and Free!
Gentle Flute and Keyboard Music: www.HealingHeartMusic.com
Song by Dionne Warwick 'My Everlasting Love' by Jeannie Fitzsimmons, Ric Sandler and Connell Cowan. DIONNE Produced by Barry Manilow
(C) Copyright 2009 Jeannie Fitzsimmons All Rights Reserved. Videos to go up to YouTube this weekend! My walking tour on the Hollywood Walk of Fame to share with you, Michael Jackson's Star! Love to all of you and set your love FREE while you are still here and able to love those who are in your life right now!
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