Thrillers

The untimely and tragic death of the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, has people all over the world in a virtual daze; many of us almost expect to wake up and find that this was a bad dream, and Michael will live on, sing on and moonwalk on.  In the midst of this, within my own daze, I began to think about 1987, and the retirement of another regal individual, Julius Erving.

How is it that my mind happened to connect these two totally different people and events? I doubt that I had ever thought about this MJ and Dr. J concurrently, except perhaps on the nights I went to see the Jacksons' Victory Tour in Philadelphia at a venue across the street from where the Philadelphia 76ers played at that time.  

Perhaps the connection was that they were both "Thrillers" within the context of their respective art forms.  And yes, I can use the phrase "art forms" because the Doctor's flights through the air were really "poetry in motion," much more so than the typical player's shots in the lane.  The grace and beauty - and power, as well - that Dr. J played the game with led people who were casual fans or less to become his fans, and made people like me virtually addicted to seeing him.  Doc would get the ball during a Sixers game - or better yet, a New York Nets game in the old ABA days - and I would be on the edge of my seat until he shot, passed, or whatever...and if that "whatever" was a dunk, there was nothing like it - except for Michael's moves and spins and moonwalks.  When these guys did what they did, you never wanted to take your eyes off of them for fear of missing something absolutely magical.

Or perhaps the connection was that each of them almost singlehandedly changed their respective industries.  Dr. J was the biggest star in the ABA, a league with great young talented players - such as future Hall-of-Famers David Thompson, George Gervin, and Dan Issel - but without the financial resources or media coverage of the established NBA.  The NBA had the media, the tradition, Red Auerbach and the Celtics - but it didn't have the Doctor.  As a result, Dr. J's presence in the ABA led to the merger of the two leagues.

Meanwhile, the music business was about to change with the proliferation of cable television.  MTV came on the scene, and record companies rightly saw channels like that as providing opportunities to showcase their artists' songs - but Michael changed the industry in two ways.   First, his vision of the music video was that of a story or a mini-movie as opposed to a general performance video, which changed the way artists and companies conceptualized videos.  Secondly, the aforementioned MTV viewed itself as a rock-oriented channel which was not going to play other genres - but the unheard-of popularity of Michael Jackson's music, especially "Billie Jean" and "Beat It" from the "Thriller" album, forced MTV to give in...which led to Michael taking MTV to new heights and paving the way for BET and others.

But that said, I think my connection came from something else.  1987 was to be Dr. J's final season, and we knew this all along.  Naturally those of us who loved watching Doc hoped the Sixers would win this one more title, or at the very least have a long run through the playoffs - so on the day I was watching the Sixers get eliminated from the playoffs, I was overcome with some real sadness, in that Dr. J would be playing no more.  I shared this with another big fan of the Doctor, and he - having felt the same way that I did - attributed it to sadness over not only the departure of Dr. J, but the departure of our youth.  We had grown up watching Doc, and so his retirement signaled the conclusion of our youth.  And so the other day, when thinking about Michael's death, I thought of how we had grown up following and listening to and idolizing the Jackson 5, and Michael in particular.  

Despite the fact that we know better, we sometimes want to think that we will live forever and/or find the proverbial "fountain of youth, " a la Ponce DeLeon.  The death of Michael Jackson certainly seems to slam the final door shut on our youth - but fortunately his youth and vibrance and energy will in fact live on forever through his recordings, his videos, and our memories.

R.I.P.

All Things Work Together

If the Orlando Magic do not win the NBA championship...and I don't think it's over yet...they may very well look back on the missed alley-oop at the end of Game 2 as being a turning point in the series.  Often an outcome winds up the way it does as a result of little things, or seemingly unrelated items.  Here, from November, is my take on Election '08.

________________________________________________________________________

There is a Biblical verse that states, in part, that all things work together for good.  On the other hand, there is a misconception that the Chinese word for "crisis" contains the characters that symbolize "danger" and "opportunity."  That being said, I would submit that both of these concepts were in place and a part of what took place on November 4th.

First, let's hit the rewind button and return to the year 2000.  The presidential candidates were Al Gore, the vice-president during the generally successful Clinton presidency, and Texas governor George W. Bush, known largely for presiding over an unbelievable number of executions during his two terms.  After a month-long battle over Florida, the foreign policy-inexperienced Texan was the winner...of sorts.  More on that later.

Before long came the events of September 11th, 2001 which shocked the nation and the world.  Even generally peace-loving people were supportive of going after Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden...but strangely enough, it took just a matter of hours before adminstration people were tossing around the name of Iraq's president Saddam Hussein and his "weapons of mass destruction."

So while we went into Afghanistan supposedly in search of Al-Qaeda, President Bush and other continued to talk Iraq, and the president asked for Congressional authorization to use force against Iraq "if necessary."  In October of 2002 that authorization was granted.  You know the rest of the story...Bush blew off the United Nations, we invaded Iraq, toppled Saddam's statue, mission accomplished.

Except for the fact that our soldiers kept dying, and then there was the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, and the Guantanamo Bay prison scandal, and mission NOT accomplished...and by the way, what was the mission, anyway - since Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11?

Meanwhile, on the home front, Hurricane Katrina forced as many as 30,000 people to head to the Superdome, not to see their often-mediocre Saints but to hope that some saints would help keep them alive.  The sight of President Bush telling FEMA's Michael Brown that he was doing a "heck of a job" left many with either the thought that Kanye West was right in saying George Bush didn't care about Black people, or that this was a tremendously incompetent administration...or both.

So what would have happened had the votes been properly counted in Florida, or if Black voters had not been kept from voting through purging and election-day shenanigans?  Almost certainly the 537 vote difference between Bush and Gore would have been more than eliminated, and Gore would have won the presidency.  Or what would have happened if Gore had been less concerned about distancing himself from Bill Clinton, and used him to campaign in his home state of Arkansas, which then went to Bush?  Or if Gore had put in time to ensure he carried his own home state of Tennessee?

In each of these states, the swing to Gore would have won him the presidency.  Let's just say he had won, and didn't invade Iraq, and used his presidency to promote his environmental concerns.  He probably would have been a relatively successful two-term president, and there would have been no real call for change in 2008.  Instead, the country's mood was clearly for change.

Iraq remains a most dangerous place, and the Iraq war was and is a crisis, but the 2002 authorization vote which preceeded the war in Iraq provided an opportunity, in the 2008 campaign, for someone to point out that many Democrats had, in fact, supported this authorization.  What would have happened if Senators Clinton and Edwards, among others, had voted against the authorization?  Such a vote would have enabled them to position themselves as the anti-war, anti-Bush policies candidates - which they were unable to do.

Barack Obama presented himself as the agent of change, and the others never recovered from the effects of their vote during the primaries.  But then came the general election campaign against an American hero who would certainly be a formidable foe...until his vice-presidential pick.  What would have happened if McCain had selected Joe Lieberman, Tom Ridge, or even Condoleezza Rice?  We'll never know - but we do know his pick hurt more than helped.

Though we could not have envisioned it during an incredibly hard eight-year period, all of these things worked together for good.  And Barack Obama is the President of the United States.