The Man in My Mirror

I wrote this article on June 25th, 2009. It's a historic, first-hand account of the moment that fundamentally changed how I perceive human nature, fame, media, power, and America itself.

This past weekend, a friend asked me to see the Michael movie with him. I have tickets, where do we meet? This is a friend I usually go to the theater with; we don’t ask each other what we want to see, one of us buys the tickets and tells the other where to show up. When I told him I couldn’t go, he casually asked — busy today, what day can you go? No, I can’t see this movie. Ever.

I spent about 45 minutes on the phone explaining to one of my closest friends why I can’t see a Michael Jackson biopic, and probably never will, and he just wasn’t getting it. Miranda, you’ve been obsessed with Michael for 4 decades, what the fuck, let’s go see a fucking movie.

I figured out during that phone call that I’ll never be able to explain why my body physically can’t walk into that theater and watch that movie unless I give you the full picture. And that picture begins on June 25, 2009 — the day Michael Jackson died. I was there, ten minutes from his house. When the news broke, I went to his home. I went to UCLA Medical Center to wait for confirmation of death. Then I went home and wrote a piece about the entire day.

Five days later, after watching the aftermath of his death unfold — his family, the media, and the people around him who had played a role in his demise — I wrote another piece. That was 17 years ago. These two articles are relics, firsthand historical accounts of one of the biggest cultural events of my lifetime, and of the moment that fundamentally shaped how I perceive humanity, fame, media, power, and America itself.

And more importantly, they became firsthand accounts of what Michael Jackson revealed about human nature itself: how society treats people who embody sensitivity, honesty, genius, and transcendence, and how quickly those same people are consumed by forces built on the exact opposite of everything they represented.

The forces you see at play today.

It’s a full circle. It all connects.

People who are profiting from this movie are the people who participated in removing him from this earth, and who robbed us of him.

I’m haunted by this man. His life, legacy, and the way he ended.

I’m haunted by the fact that he left this earth believing people hated him.

I’m happy that the revival of his image has pushed younger generations to dig deeper into understanding him — one more step toward a greater awakening.

Michael is completing the work, even from the grave.

He warned us then about the systems. The hierarchy. And for me to properly review and write honestly about the renewed interest in Michael’s legacy that this film has reignited, I need to revisit the past and walk that entire circle with you.

Michael Jackson has been a crucial part of my own self-construction. I owe him this series.

Michael, Part One

I wrote this piece on June 25th, 2009, on the day Michael Jackson died, 10 minutes from the house he died in. All the images were taken by me, in front of his house, in front of the UCLA Medical Center, where he was presumed dead, and in front of the morgue in Boyle Heights, where he was finally taken on that day. The pictures are blurry; smartphones weren’t then what they are now — they were taken with my BlackBerry. I have never read this piece since the day I wrote it. It’s been 17 years since I’ve looked at it.

In front of the UCLA Medical Center

A surreal, surreal day.

I still don’t know what to make of it. I honestly don’t even know what to write about today. What can I write? What is it to say?

Michael Jackson just died.

I can’t even digest that sentence. It just looks wrong. Wrong isn’t the right word; it doesn’t look anything. It just doesn’t look at all. Those four words don't go together; why would anybody say or write that?

I sat down to write what I feel about this entire day, and I just can’t. I’m staring at the blank screen. What kind of poetic justice could ever do justice to someone like Michael Jackson?

Nothing I can say sounds gratifying enough. An Icon? A King? A Legend? It just doesn’t sound enough. But why does this specific death mean more to me than other deaths of the public people I loved, who also crumbled my world?

The fact that this is the first time I was at the place where it happened.

Every time someone I loved died, someone who defined my childhood or teenage years, I heard about it on TV or read about it in the press. And it was always the same ritual: hearing the news, the shock, watching television around the clock, absorbing every detail I could find, refusing to sleep in case I missed something. Watching the stretcher carry out the body of someone who had shaped my life, as if a piece of my own life was being carried away with it.

At those prodigious times, I remember frantically calling my friends who lived where it happened, pestering them with questions, as if knowing every detail would make my grief bearable.

This time, it was the most surreal day. I was there. I live 10 minutes away from the house he died in. First, I woke up to the news that Farrah Fawcett died. Terrible news, but Farrah Fawcett was an icon of another generation, not so much mine; I knew a lot about her, but I didn’t feel that death, other than being sad for this probably very lovely lady.

I left the house shortly and went to the bank. I realized one of the bank tellers is my neighbor; I chatted with him, laughed, gossiped about all the tenants we don’t like, laughed some more, and left. I finished some other chores, came back to my bank again, waited in line to make a deposit, when my banker/neighbor approached me from behind and said:

“Did you hear? I just found out; it’s still unofficial”. And I said: “Yeah, I know, I heard this morning, terrible news”. And he goes: “You couldn’t hear this morning, because it’s 2 pm, and I just heard it. It’s not even official; someone from the Fire Department just leaked it”. And I said: “Well, I did hear this morning that Farrah died; I don’t know what to tell you”. And he goes: “No, not Farrah, that was this morning, but Michael Jackson…Michael Jackson JUST died”…

Come again?

“Michael Jackson just died”.

“Sorry, got to go back to work”.

And he went back behind the counter.

I was spinning. The city was spinning.

I walked to the car where my boyfriend was waiting for me, and I couldn’t speak, couldn’t tell him, his face was spinning, everything was spinning.

The City of Los Angeles, in the next couple of minutes and hours, was just indescribable. A lot of huge people died here, but nothing of this magnitude. Surreal atmosphere. Before it was even official, people were whispering on the streets. Instantly, Michael Jackson’s music was playing from just about every passing car, every store, every house.

One of the Fire Department guys who drove MJ from his house to the hospital told someone right away, before it was even official, and the word spread like a damn plague.

In front of Michael’s house in Bel Air

I was driving down Beverly Blvd with my boyfriend, both of us abashed, when the calls started to pour in. Managers, agents, publicists, all the Hollywood people were just perplexed — “Oh my god, did you guys hear, I just heard, did you hear?”

It was minutes, and everybody already knew.

It felt like a dark plague had descended on the city. Sadness isn’t even the word. I don’t have to tell you; you felt it too, if you’re here. Being so close to it made it all the more spellbinding. I felt as if being there, at the place where it happened, at ground zero, might somehow give me a sense of control over the grief.

I couldn’t work that afternoon. If he died 10 minutes from my house, I want to be where it happened, as if I needed to grab a piece of his soul, before it migrates somewhere else.

In all my affliction, I did feel good about something. I felt good about Los Angeles. The same city that often shows attributes I can’t quite fathom, or even stand — today, the city was just amazing. People dropped the act for one day and showed a genuine, colossal sadness everywhere you turned. I have never seen people in this city be authentic about anything, and I finally did today.

In front of the UCLA Medical Center

There was something so ethereal about Angelenos’ determination to follow Michael through every final stop his body would make, as if letting go were simply unacceptable. Everyone was on the same page. We will follow him. Every step they move him, we’ll follow.

People came to his house in Bel Air, then went to UCLA Medical Center, where he died, then they moved to the morgue in Boyle Heights, and just stayed there all night as if they wanted to guard his body and his soul.

I wanted to be where he died. Even though they say he might have even died in his house, I wanted to be where he was presumed dead. I didn’t want to listen to the news just yet. I didn’t want to make sense out of it at this moment. I didn’t want to know what exactly happened. I just wanted to be where he was going to be last, as if that fixes anything. As if that is going to make it better.

Above the UCLA Medical Center

UCLA Medical Center looked like it was under siege. News trucks everywhere, helicopters flying overhead, reporters speaking in a million different languages, Jermaine Jackson going in and out of the hospital crying, it was just surreal.

I will never forget those hordes of people. Thousands of them. People walking out of work, doctors’ offices, grocery stores. I spoke to people at every stop we followed, and whatever they had been doing at that moment, they dropped it and just came. The city froze to a standstill.

I will never forget those faces at every stop. Crying. Confusion. Disbelief. Anger. But something transcendent happened all of a sudden — the grief began to turn into dance, Moonwalk face-offs, singing, and a strange kind of comradeship.

The crowd was at the hospital for about 5–6 hours; nobody was moving, nobody was leaving; everybody was waiting for his body to be taken out of the hospital and put into a helicopter that was supposed to take him to a morgue in Downtown LA. It seemed like everyone was waiting to be absolutely, positively sure he died.

In front of the UCLA Medical Center

My feelings today shifted from anger, confusion, and disbelief to lethargy, then to a strange sense of solitude, as if I felt he might finally be relieved of the unbelievable lies, smear campaigns, and pressures that had plagued his life.

Some Swedish reporter snapped me out of my thoughts when she approached us outside of the UCLA Medical Center with a question — “What did MJ and his music mean to you?”

God.

How does a person of my generation even answer that question?

I pulled myself together for a few seconds to give her a coherent answer, but instead just fell into a sort of spell of a memory, the recollection of my life that led me here, at this spot, the UCLA Medical Center, where Michael Jackson was presumed dead.

I wasn’t born in this country; he brought me here, at this spot, and left me here, at this spot.

In front of the morgue in Boyle Heights

Michel Jackson was more than just a musician to me. He was the personification and the embodiment of America in my eyes. He represented what America meant in my small, adolescent life back in Europe, and he became the trigger that shaped the path my life would take.

I was extremely Americanized as a child, much to the detriment of everyone around me. I absorbed everything that came out of the US: the music, movies, magazines, TV shows, and it was never just entertainment to me; it felt like a mission, a plot.

Seeing Michael for the first time — yes, I saw Thriller first, but I was too young to comprehend its cultural significance, the moment it truly clicked for me was the Dirty Diana video. I was about 12 or 13, and I watched it the way people study a science project. That was the moment I decided I wanted to live in the place where that kind of artistry and dedication could exist.

I knew the names of every single actor, actress, singer, and group from the ’80s and ’90s, and I knew the lyrics to every song. I remembered lines from all my favorite movies. It was a hobby of mine, something I enjoyed. But Michael was different. Michael was a job. A plan, a determination, an endgame. I studied him like one studies survival.

In front of the morgue in Boyle Heights

How do I explain all this to a reporter from Stockholm? I lifted my head, she was still looking at me, and said just that — Michael was a survival to me. Existential component that carried everything I felt I needed to inhale to become who I needed to be.

The word started to spread around the crowd in front of the UCLA, that Michael died from some sort of overdose. I wasn’t ready for the cause of death, and to take a path on that road just yet. I ignored it and talked to anyone and everyone outside, but my mind couldn’t avoid it. No one’s mind could avoid it.

I started to get angry again. Wait for the confirmation, I kept telling myself. I couldn’t. I felt betrayed.

How could he be so reckless?

Didn’t he know how much he means to us?

I forced myself to forget the latter. I don’t want to listen to any noise. I walked to the group that was still moonwalking and practicing the tilt. Someone brought the white gloves. I took one. Let’s take a picture, someone said. We didn’t need anyone to coordinate us. We all did it at the same time, same hand.

We just knew.

My boyfriend called me over to show me an article that just came out. The cause of death. I declined to read.

I choose to remember how he made me feel.

At least for today.