R.I.P Michael Jackson

I know, it's a bit late. Ah well. Better late than never.

I was born in the mid-90's, so I never really experienced the "Jackson phenomenon" as it were - I didn't really hear the music, just all the iffy things about him, like all those court cases and just how bizarre he was. I only fully started to appreciate his work last year.

In my old school we did this dancing programme every year - where we would all do a coordinated, cheographed dance to a popular pop hit from some point of time. In year seven, we did ours to "Smooth Criminal"

No one had actually heard and truly appreciated Michael Jackson at that point - at that time Michael Jackson was just some weirdo who dangled his newborn kids from balconies. But I loved Smooth Criminal. It had such a good feel to it, and it was really easy to dance with.

I've always been musical - music just runs through my blood. I'm no prodigy, and now that I've stopped playing full-time I'm not even very good - but it's still there - I still have my perfect pitch and everything. So dancing was easy as well - not super-complicated moves, but just simple things, like the dances we did at school.

My teacher said I was the best in the class - I only earned that title because I was one of the only people who was on beat - and instantly talk was up. I had a notorious reputation for being absolutely hopeless at sport - a well earned title, I think - and the dances were very strenuous. How the hell is she the best? She must have done something. Rumours ran riot.

This is the only part of Michael Jackson I will ever understand - having music 'flow' through you. The dances weren't that hard, because I was so into the music, it was like my shock-absorber - I only felt the stress and strain of it before and after the dance, never whilst I was actually dancing. Dancing is just so surreal.

I can never dance anything unchoreographed in front of a crowd though - I just can't break into super-cool moves without practice and advice. I wish I could. That's one of the trillions of things Michael Jackson can do that I can't.

Because I was born after the music hype, I've only ever known the cruelly-depicted image of a psychopath looney way past his expiry date. But now I see that Michael Jackson wasn't twisted - he was just weird, and terribly misunderstood. He's not normal, because he just can't be normal - he doesn't know what being normal is. And being normal is not Michael Jackson.

We are tough people - we only like something for a little while, then we start to abuse it. According to most, I was past my expiry date at the age of six and a half. I simply wasn't interesting anymore - or perhaps too interesting. So I got bullied. That's what happened to Michael Jackson.

And so a legend dies, trying to please a world that is never truly pleased. I always used to be jealous of child actors and people who got that big break early - but now I'm not. My big break will come - with time, patience, and with my own merit. But it will last, and it will die peacefully, timelessly.