In 1984 I was sitting in the Silverdome when Tommy Hearns, Isiah Thomas and Magic Johnson walked by me.  For those of you who are sports challenged, those three guys were some of the biggest stars of their era back in 1984.  Hearns was a championship boxer, Thomas  was my favorite professional basketball player and Johnson was a basketball icon who is still popular today as a color commentator.  Of course the question is “what was I doing in 1984 “for those famous people to be present?

For those of you who are scratching your head let me cut to the chase.  In 1984 I attended the “victory tour” of the Jackson five, of course featuring Michael Jackson.  I cannot even remember how much tickets were back then but something tells me $40 rings a bell.  I was not a big fan of Michael Jackson but I was accompanying my former sister-in-law who was too young to go by herself.  So there I was driving over to the Silverdome in my then new Dodge pickup to take part in the media event of 1984. At the time it couldn’t have gotten much bigger.

Today of course by the time you read this the world will have witnessed the memorial service for the King of Pop, Michael Jackson.  I think it came as a shock to everybody that somebody who represented a generation and still relatively young could pass so quickly.  I heard the news on the radio, something about a website quoting another source that Michael Jackson was dead.  It had me shaking my head.  Way back in 1984 we thought a website was something with the spider in it.

Yes it was shocking and my memory went back to the time of my youth.  I was 16 years old and driving a tractor north of Dresden when the news came over CKLW that “the king was dead”.  My first thought was who was the king?  However in the next few sentences the disk jockey said that Elvis Pressley was dead.  He had died in his Memphis home.  So now at 50 I was hearing about the death of another king of music, Michael Jackson.  I guess there is benchmarks in your life that stick with you forever.

I am not a big music fan and I certainly wasn’t a big fan of Michael Jackson.  Simply put he had his problems and some of those problems were more than bizarre.   In fact you could make the argument over the last few years he was so weird it made you uncomfortable when you saw him on television.  Needless to say if you can get past that he had all kinds of talent.  Nobody could sing and dance like him.

I say that because I saw him in person sing and dance like never before.  In 1984 when he did the moonwalk across the stage of the Silverdome I thought the house was going to come down.  It was a different time then.  We didn’t have all the video and upfront entertainment gratification that we have today.  Amid all the fireworks and pyrotechnics, he danced up a storm and sang songs like never before.  At the end of the evening I knew I had attended a happening.  He was big then but he wasn’t quite a legend.  Of course now we know that he was one of the biggest of the big in the entertainment industry.

Fast forward to 1994.  I found myself in Hawaii that year enjoying the vestiges of a well-earned vacation.  When I wasn’t on Waikiki Beach I found myself back in the hotel room with the news on.  There he was Michael Jackson being accused of all kinds of bad things with children.  At the time it said he had retreated to Singapore to get away from the media spotlight.  So you could imagine my amazement when the elevator door opened and there he was, Michael Jackson in person right in front of me.  He got on the elevator rode up a few floors and then got off.  All of us on the elevator were too shocked to say anything.

Of course we all thought later that it was a Michael Jackson impersonator but I was never comfortable with that rationalization.  This guy looked too real to me and I thought it would be great cover for Jackson to say Singapore but really be in Hawaii.  Needless to say it probably was an impersonator but that doubt in my mind will always be there.

Parallels between Michael Jackson and me are about as far as you can get.  For instance he was one of the most gifted entertainers of our time.  I spend a lot of time writing about commodities and economics.  So as he is being memorialized this week, I thought it appropriate I bring you my time with Michael Jackson.   As an entertainer he has surely left his mark on this world.