I was at work at UCLA where they brought him. It was madness on campus...helicopters EVERYWHERE. My friend's hubby is a higher-up on the campus police force and he sat with the body until the helicopter came to take it away.
I remember seeing it on the news and thinking of poor Farrah Fawcett - she was sick for so long and was finally at peace and her death was completely ignored because it was the same day MJ died!
Yup! I was in the midst of my "Now I'm gonna get fit" psychosis...er, commitment and just before I left the house to work out, heard that he'd been taken to the hospital. By the time it took me to get to the gym and start on the machines (all of 10 mins or so), they declared him dead.
No, because MJ wasn't big enough news for me to have one of those "omg, I'll always remember where I was" moments. He was a musical legend, but his child molestation had long overshadowed his talent. His death at a young age wasn't that shocking, given how he lived his life.
I had just finished sending someone a rather long-winded email and when I logged out of Yahoo Mail, there was a banner headline on the main Yahoo page.
My family and I were visiting our house in Puerto Vallarta in Mexico and I happened to turn on the radio when we were driving to the beach and we heard the announcer say that he'd died. We thought it was some joke, but once we were on the beach and passed by some bar everyone was glued the TV watching the coverage at UCLA.
A friend called and told me. I was just getting in from the office and didn't even have the tv on. Needless to say I was glued to CNN for the next few hours. Love him and don't care!
Nope. I wasn't paying attention to anything at that time. I think three celebrities died in the same couple of weeks as MJ and I found out about all of them at once. Farrah? John Ritter?
I was in my "cube" at that time. I heard the news from a customer I was speaking to (reason for the conversation was the customer was wholesaling M.J. T-Shirts and needed immediate credit expansion......)
Your cubes eventually become memories.Hang in there!
I was in Spokane. My mom and I first heard he had been taken to the hospital and she made the comment "What'd they have to take him to the hospital to have his hand removed from some little boys penis"?? She thought she was real funny. We went shopping and heard the news he had died when we returned to our Motel. I have never let he live that one down!!!
I was super excited, we had just finished watching the Braves and Yankees batting practice. Joba had thrown me a ball, so I was on cloud nine. I got a call from a life-long friend and she said that she had always wanted to share huge news w/me before it broke. He had gone into. The news was just releasing that he had been rushed to the hospital at that moment, but he was already dead.
You could have heard a pin drop. This 10 year old, computer fanatic w/me was finally excited. Forget meeting baseball players and getting autographed balls, this was his exciting event of the day - he had heard before anyone else.
As we sat there enjoying the game, he came up to me and said something I will never forget. "Wow, these COMMONERS are just getting the news. I have known for HOURS now!!!" What the heck?!? Who taught him that word?!? Lol Part of me wanted to crack up laughing, but I still remember it like it was yesterday, and he still regards it as one of the best days ever - I think he has forgotten that he was even at a baseball game that day...lol
I wish we could edit our posts after we post them. Somehow a couple of sentences got deleted.
My friend was at a local CBS affiliate and the news stations were trying to seperate fact from fiction at the time, before releasing that he was in fact, dead...
I was leaving work standing in front of the elevator when my phone rang. A friend called and the first thing she said was "Did you hear". I didn't believe her, she has flair for drama, so I said "I'm sure you misheard".
Yes, I do. I was at work, and could hear people talking about Michael Jackson, but couldn't hear exactly what they were saying (it was a call center). Finally I went out for a smoke break and people were still talking about him. He hadn't been in the news much, so there was really no other reason people would be talking the way they were, so I just said, "Is Michael Jackson dead?" And they said yes. I was at that same place when Heath Ledger died. My friend Steve just turned around in his chair and said, "Heath Ledger died." Thought it was a joke.
I was at work. It hit me kind of hard. I wasn't thrilled with the adult Michael, but I still love the child/young man Michael. Once he started morphing, I believe he lost his mind.
At home. Heard it on the television. First saw the announcement he was hospitilized and then remember being shocked when they said he had died. I thought it was some minor thing.
I don't remember what I was doing when MJ passed, but it will forever be burned on my brain where I was when Princess Diana died, the O.J. verdict got read and of course September 11th. I don't mean that to be disrespectful of his death, but he just looked so unhealthy and lost in those final years. His demise seemed to be imminent
No. I do remember where I was and what I was doing when Tim Russert died. Oh yeah, and Elvis. And John Lennon. And Tony Snow. And JFK and RFK and MLK and LBJ. And Natalie Wood. Geez I'm old.
Saw it on TMZ, I think. I was at my desk in my living room. It hit me hard too, I felt like part of my childhood had died. Still love most of his music. For the record, I read the court transcripts, and it read like an extortion case. I don't believe he was a molester.
John Ritter, Johnny cash and Warren Zevon all died within a few days of each other, maybe even the week of 9-11 or maybe the first anniversary of it. I remember these deaths the most. I was so bummed.
@nunaurbiz, thank you. You're probably right with the Ed guess.
(I don't know why it made me so sad when John Ritter died, but it did. More than Michael Jackson. I think it's because he seemed like SUCH a nice guy, and he was dorky-funny. Guys like that should live, and make us laugh, forever.)
Yes. I am embarrassed to say I was reading Perez Hilton who had the balls to infer that Michael had staged the ambulance visit in order to get publicity. Once the truth came out that MJ had died, I vowed never to read PH again, since he was so nasty and wrong. And I'm pleased to say, I've never visited his site since. And I'm sorry MJ is gone.
When MJ Died i was at the grocery store and i read it on twitter.. just dumbfounded... So said for his 3 children.. i raced home and watched tv and drank beer the rest of the day
When diana died i was making pancakes.. I was a kid and cried
When John Ritter died i was soo very sad.. I really liked him.
As I live in the town NEVERLAND is in, we have been on FREAK-A-ZOID watch for days now...there is already a huge gathering at the gates..we went out last year and there were alot of geniune fans there...I have some great photos I can share on Entys page.
I was probably at work. Didn't really matter to me. I couldn't stand MJ. He was creepy. I did feel sorry for his kids, but that's about it. I think one of my first thoughts was "Oh great - media circus, everyone crying about what a great guy he was, blah blah blah." Oh and that everyone was going to milk it for as much as money as they could. I was right on everything.
I'd met up w/my best friend, and we were in a brand-new, just-barely-opened restaurant in Chinatown for dinner and chichat; I'd gotten up to use the restroom, and as I was going back to the table, I happened to see the big-screen TV on the other side of the restaurant (there was a partial wall in the middle of the joint) that was tuned to CNN. Not sure, but I probably blurted out something like "Holy shit!" and ran back to my table to tell my friend. We already knew about Farrah, but this was totally out of the blue.
I remember a lot of those "where were you?" moments, including the Special Report breaking through whatever ABC show we were watching to announce that MLK had been shot; I still get nervous when I see any kind of "special report" notice on TV.
Nope, because I wasn't affected much by the news. According to my calendar the next day I had dinner at a friends house and went to San Mo pier the day after that. Exciting stuff!
We were on our way to Washington, D.C. for a vacation. My younger son was fascinated by all the coverage. He'd just "discovered" CNN and was amazed that so many people were grief-stricken over a singer.
I had just left my home in Los Angeles for vacation. I did get to go to the funeral though. Now that was an experience! Crazy day all around. Had to take the subway downtown because of the traffic. It was weird inside because some people acted like it was a concert yelling and such. There were also random "I love you Michael!" shout outs throughout the ceremony. But when his daughter spoke everyone got quiet and everyone cried after.
Just got out of a long board meeting and pulled up the news on my phone as I was heading back to my office on the 15th floor. I was in shock. I left for an East Coast trip the day after, and in every hotel lobby and eating area they had TVs on and all anyone talked about was Michael. By the end of the trip I was really sick of hearing about him.
omg Crystal, I was in Spokane too! I was in grad school and shopping for some supplies for a client I had that afternoon... I heard people talking about it in an aisle in the store and then on the radio! It was crazy.
I was in line getting a beer at a New Kids On The Block concert with all of my childhood girlfriends. Felt strange that we would hear that news as we were spending the evening acting like 13 year olds. I loved MJ as a kid.
I was in line getting a beer at a New Kids On The Block concert with all of my childhood girlfriends. Felt strange that we would hear that news as we were spending the evening acting like 13 year olds. I loved MJ as a kid.
Honestly don't remember. And when I was told I was like "eh, and??". Guess cause I was born in the 80's and raised on Madonna and Paula Abdul with some bop skinny bop bop thrown in it didn't phase me.
To all of us sitting at our desks, I say we all break free from the chains that are binding us here and live free - of course you will have to beg for your food and housing but hey at least we will be free.......
About 6 years ago I was at the checkout in the grocery store. I was on the phone with my father. This nice 50-something lady was checking, and a twentysomething guy was bagging.
My father said "Did you know Michael Jackson died??" I said "WHAT!? No way , seriously?" He was dead serious. I continued to proclaim to the checker and the bagger that he had died.
We were all in awe, when my father says "Yeah, he died of botulism.... he ate some ten year old nuts!"
I was mortified trying to explain to this older woman that it was a joke and what the punchline was.
So when the real news hit, all I could think of was that horrible joke, "what did he eat some ten year old nuts??"
My brother lives in Santa Barbara County not far from Neverland Ranch and when I visited him in 2005 he took me flying over the ranch and even then it was looking rather derelict. There was a pond or pool or something in front of the house and it looked all green and nasty. My thoughts?
"He must not have the money for upkeep" and "Gee, this place is REMOTE, I bet so no one can hear the screams." Overimaginative, I know, but there is NOTHING remotely near that place. It was his own little fiefdom.
I was sitting in my front yard, trying to catch a breeze and cool down with one of those misting fans we'd just bought. You know, the big mamas that attach to the garden hose.
My friend, who's constantly glued to FoxNews or CNN, called with the news because she knew we'd be clueless. And she also said she felt sorry for Farrah that her day was being overshadowed by MJ!
Thankfully, post-911 we'd kind of sworn off the 24-hour news cycle, so I didn't have to endure much MJ follow up news.
My PSA for the day - life is sooo much better if you don't get emotionally involved with a bunch of worldwide bullshit news that 1. doesn't really affect your life at all, and 2. you can't do anything about it even if you wanted to.
I do and I felt sort of bad for Farrah Fawcett. What was weird is when it happened, I was saying how surprising it was and my son said "Who's Michael Jackson?" Felt weird explaining.
In my country the news broke late at night, so since I was at home surfing the net it took me a couple of clicks to find out. What a shock, when I bumped into those big, BIG headlines on a local online news site: "Michael Jackson is dead". I couldn´t keep it to myself, so I immediately woke up my mum (sorry mum!). Needless to say, she was as shocked as I!
Nope. I was very surprised by the adulation too. The dude was seriously weird. He was millions in debt, some of it to people who paid him in advance for previous failed comeback attempts. The thing that really got me though, when he walked away from Neverland. The keepers were paying for food out of their own pockets and caring for them for free. I dont know if he deliberately walked away from them assuming someone else would take care of it, or if he was so self absorbed it never crossed his mind.
I was at the beach with my friends so we did not have access to TV or radio. Some of us were on Facebook on our phones and saw people starting to post statuses like RIP Michael Jackson and we could not believe it. Immediately opened my TMZ app on my phone.....
I was at the airport. When I got on my first flight, they were talking about Farrah on the news. By the time we'd landed and I was getting on my connect it was all about Michael. Very unsurprising, he was quite a mess.
Don't recall that day, but on the 26th I was at the OAB event (BAR association of Brazil) getting my lawyer's ID card and they kept playing MJ songs before it started... Kinda ridiculous for this type of event..
So MJ passed in one day and I In the next one! Hahahaa!!
I honestly don't remember what I was doing this time last year. But I will never forget standing in the checkout line when the National Enquirer ran photos of him sleeping in the hyperbaric oxygen chamber. That was the first real WTF?!? Michael Jackson moment -- it was soooo weird, and he was not at that time known for being strange but at the height of his superstardom.
I happened to be standing in Times Square waiting for the light to change. It was scrolling on the ticker and people were getting out of their cars to read the crawl. A little kid asked,"Is Michael Jackson really dead?" His mum replied, "No, honey, he just had a boo boo on his heart. I'm sure he'll be just fine."
I had to go into a store to have it confirmed. I traveled back to the hotel where I was staying and I noticed that there was no moment without a Michael Jackson song playing. It was coming from cars and stores and people singing on the street. I just got transferred from one song to another all the way home.
I was at UCLA in the middle of a meeting with my Ph.D. advisor and he got a phone call from a friend at the hospital. I remember being so confused because I could tell from my advisor's side of the conversation that someone had died. He hung up the phone and since he's my mentor I say Me: Are you okay? It sounds like you got bad news from a friend? Do you need to go? Him: Michael Jackson died! Me: You're friends with Michael Jackson? Him: A friend just called me from the hospital telling me he just died. Me(in shock): I'm so sorry. How did you know Michael Jackson? Him: I don't. My friend works at the UCLA hospital and just called me. He's here and news hasn't broken yet, so we might want to leave campus before it hits. Me: Ohhhh. I was confused. I was wondering how you knew Michael!?
Funny i was just mentioning to the hubs yestrdy that its always the highpoint of a night when youre at a club or party and mj comes on. Theres something about the intro to billie jean that always makes me yell out" woo hoo this is my song! "Like all us girls do when we are buzzed I guess.
I was in South Korea and woke up to the CNN Breaking News email. Had to read it about 12 times before I actually understood what it said.
ReplyDeleteI was at work at UCLA where they brought him. It was madness on campus...helicopters EVERYWHERE. My friend's hubby is a higher-up on the campus police force and he sat with the body until the helicopter came to take it away.
ReplyDeleteNo clue. Didnt care then, dont care now.
ReplyDeleteYes, I was sitting at my crappy desk - as a matter of fact I am still sitting here! *Sigh* I hate this desk!!
ReplyDeleteLol! I couldn't have said it any better. I was daydreaming at my desk when everyone started saying he was dead.
DeleteOn my way to a Def Leppard concert. Heard the news on the radio during the drive.
ReplyDeleteI remember seeing it on the news and thinking of poor Farrah Fawcett - she was sick for so long and was finally at peace and her death was completely ignored because it was the same day MJ died!
ReplyDeleteYup! I was in the midst of my "Now I'm gonna get fit" psychosis...er, commitment and just before I left the house to work out, heard that he'd been taken to the hospital. By the time it took me to get to the gym and start on the machines (all of 10 mins or so), they declared him dead.
ReplyDeleteLife went on.
yup at work..love him
ReplyDelete@ Roman Holiday - I'm right there with you. Still sitting at the same crappy desk.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea.
ReplyDeleteAt home. It was a shock to hear it happened, but I wasn't surprised that he died.
ReplyDeleteI sure didn't mourn his loss - he was a perverted pedo imo.
No, because MJ wasn't big enough news for me to have one of those "omg, I'll always remember where I was" moments. He was a musical legend, but his child molestation had long overshadowed his talent. His death at a young age wasn't that shocking, given how he lived his life.
ReplyDeleteNow Princess Diana, I'll always remember that.
I had just finished sending someone a rather long-winded email and when I logged out of Yahoo Mail, there was a banner headline on the main Yahoo page.
ReplyDeleteMy family and I were visiting our house in Puerto Vallarta in Mexico and I happened to turn on the radio when we were driving to the beach and we heard the announcer say that he'd died. We thought it was some joke, but once we were on the beach and passed by some bar everyone was glued the TV watching the coverage at UCLA.
ReplyDeleteA friend called and told me. I was just getting in from the office and didn't even have the tv on. Needless to say I was glued to CNN for the next few hours. Love him and don't care!
ReplyDeleteNope. I wasn't paying attention to anything at that time. I think three celebrities died in the same couple of weeks as MJ and I found out about all of them at once. Farrah? John Ritter?
ReplyDelete@ Roman Holiday and @FSP
ReplyDeleteI was in my "cube" at that time. I heard the news from a customer I was speaking to (reason for the conversation was the customer was wholesaling M.J. T-Shirts and needed immediate credit expansion......)
Your cubes eventually become memories.Hang in there!
I was in Spokane. My mom and I first heard he had been taken to the hospital and she made the comment "What'd they have to take him to the hospital to have his hand removed from some little boys penis"?? She thought she was real funny. We went shopping and heard the news he had died when we returned to our Motel. I have never let he live that one down!!!
ReplyDeleteI was super excited, we had just finished watching the Braves and Yankees batting practice. Joba had thrown me a ball, so I was on cloud nine. I got a call from a life-long friend and she said that she had always wanted to share huge news w/me before it broke. He had gone into. The news was just releasing that he had been rushed to the hospital at that moment, but he was already dead.
ReplyDeleteYou could have heard a pin drop. This 10 year old, computer fanatic w/me was finally excited. Forget meeting baseball players and getting autographed balls, this was his exciting event of the day - he had heard before anyone else.
As we sat there enjoying the game, he came up to me and said something I will never forget. "Wow, these COMMONERS are just getting the news. I have known for HOURS now!!!" What the heck?!? Who taught him that word?!? Lol Part of me wanted to crack up laughing, but I still remember it like it was yesterday, and he still regards it as one of the best days ever - I think he has forgotten that he was even at a baseball game that day...lol
I wish we could edit our posts after we post them. Somehow a couple of sentences got deleted.
DeleteMy friend was at a local CBS affiliate and the news stations were trying to seperate fact from fiction at the time, before releasing that he was in fact, dead...
I was leaving work standing in front of the elevator when my phone rang. A friend called and the first thing she said was "Did you hear". I didn't believe her, she has flair for drama, so I said "I'm sure you misheard".
ReplyDeleteYes, I do. I was at work, and could hear people talking about Michael Jackson, but couldn't hear exactly what they were saying (it was a call center). Finally I went out for a smoke break and people were still talking about him. He hadn't been in the news much, so there was really no other reason people would be talking the way they were, so I just said, "Is Michael Jackson dead?" And they said yes.
ReplyDeleteI was at that same place when Heath Ledger died. My friend Steve just turned around in his chair and said, "Heath Ledger died." Thought it was a joke.
@Roman Holiday...me too.
ReplyDeleteAt work, settling in and the news hit.
ReplyDeleteReaction was pretty much OMG's and "turn on CNN to find out if it's true".
I was at work. It hit me kind of hard. I wasn't thrilled with the adult Michael, but I still love the child/young man Michael. Once he started morphing, I believe he lost his mind.
ReplyDeleteAt home. Heard it on the television. First saw the announcement he was hospitilized and then remember being shocked when they said he had died. I thought it was some minor thing.
ReplyDelete@Em: John Ritter died in 2003. Ed McMahon died around that time, was he the other in the celebrity death trifecta you were thinking of?
ReplyDelete@Crystal: LOL at your mom's comment!
I was browsing 4chan.
ReplyDeleteI think that's where I get most of my breaking celebrity death news anymore.
I don't remember what I was doing when MJ passed, but it will forever be burned on my brain where I was when Princess Diana died, the O.J. verdict got read and of course September 11th. I don't mean that to be disrespectful of his death, but he just looked so unhealthy and lost in those final years. His demise seemed to be imminent
ReplyDeleteNo. I do remember where I was and what I was doing when Tim Russert died. Oh yeah, and Elvis. And John Lennon. And Tony Snow. And JFK and RFK and MLK and LBJ. And Natalie Wood. Geez I'm old.
ReplyDeleteSaw it on TMZ, I think. I was at my desk in my living room. It hit me hard too, I felt like part of my childhood had died. Still love most of his music. For the record, I read the court transcripts, and it read like an extortion case. I don't believe he was a molester.
ReplyDeleteJohn Ritter, Johnny cash and Warren Zevon all died within a few days of each other, maybe even the week of 9-11 or maybe the first anniversary of it. I remember these deaths the most. I was so bummed.
ReplyDelete@nunaurbiz, thank you. You're probably right with the Ed guess.
ReplyDelete(I don't know why it made me so sad when John Ritter died, but it did. More than Michael Jackson. I think it's because he seemed like SUCH a nice guy, and he was dorky-funny. Guys like that should live, and make us laugh, forever.)
I only remember princess diana, 9/11 and that's it anyone else not so much
ReplyDeleteSure do...I was in the hospital, having had my daughter one day before. Will never forget that.
ReplyDeleteYes. I am embarrassed to say I was reading Perez Hilton who had the balls to infer that Michael had staged the ambulance visit in order to get publicity. Once the truth came out that MJ had died, I vowed never to read PH again, since he was so nasty and wrong. And I'm pleased to say, I've never visited his site since. And I'm sorry MJ is gone.
ReplyDeleteWhen MJ Died i was at the grocery store and i read it on twitter.. just dumbfounded... So said for his 3 children.. i raced home and watched tv and drank beer the rest of the day
ReplyDeleteWhen diana died i was making pancakes.. I was a kid and cried
When John Ritter died i was soo very sad.. I really liked him.
Ed McMahon had died days earlier i belive
As I live in the town NEVERLAND is in, we have been on FREAK-A-ZOID watch for days now...there is already a huge gathering at the gates..we went out last year and there were alot of geniune fans there...I have some great photos I can share on Entys page.
ReplyDeleteI was probably at work. Didn't really matter to me. I couldn't stand MJ. He was creepy. I did feel sorry for his kids, but that's about it. I think one of my first thoughts was "Oh great - media circus, everyone crying about what a great guy he was, blah blah blah." Oh and that everyone was going to milk it for as much as money as they could. I was right on everything.
ReplyDeleteTo tell you the truth, no. But when I did hear, it was hardly a surprise. I mean, the guy was very creepy and had issues.
ReplyDeleteI'd met up w/my best friend, and we were in a brand-new, just-barely-opened restaurant in Chinatown for dinner and chichat; I'd gotten up to use the restroom, and as I was going back to the table, I happened to see the big-screen TV on the other side of the restaurant (there was a partial wall in the middle of the joint) that was tuned to CNN. Not sure, but I probably blurted out something like "Holy shit!" and ran back to my table to tell my friend. We already knew about Farrah, but this was totally out of the blue.
ReplyDeleteI remember a lot of those "where were you?" moments, including the Special Report breaking through whatever ABC show we were watching to announce that MLK had been shot; I still get nervous when I see any kind of "special report" notice on TV.
Nope, because I wasn't affected much by the news. According to my calendar the next day I had dinner at a friends house and went to San Mo pier the day after that. Exciting stuff!
ReplyDeleteWe were on our way to Washington, D.C. for a vacation. My younger son was fascinated by all the coverage. He'd just "discovered" CNN and was amazed that so many people were grief-stricken over a singer.
ReplyDeleteDon't remember it, but do remember feeling bad for Farrah Fawcett who died the same day. Even now she's not mentioned.
ReplyDeleteI had just left my home in Los Angeles for vacation. I did get to go to the funeral though. Now that was an experience! Crazy day all around. Had to take the subway downtown because of the traffic. It was weird inside because some people acted like it was a concert yelling and such. There were also random "I love you Michael!" shout outs throughout the ceremony. But when his daughter spoke everyone got quiet and everyone cried after.
ReplyDeleteJust got out of a long board meeting and pulled up the news on my phone as I was heading back to my office on the 15th floor. I was in shock. I left for an East Coast trip the day after, and in every hotel lobby and eating area they had TVs on and all anyone talked about was Michael. By the end of the trip I was really sick of hearing about him.
ReplyDeleteomg Crystal, I was in Spokane too! I was in grad school and shopping for some supplies for a client I had that afternoon... I heard people talking about it in an aisle in the store and then on the radio! It was crazy.
ReplyDeleteOn the train on the way to work. My friend texted me bellyaching about everything "Jackson" on tv.
ReplyDeletein the lobby of the movie theater about to start work in the concessions stand. it was all everyone talked about.
ReplyDeleteI was in line getting a beer at a New Kids On The Block concert with all of my childhood girlfriends. Felt strange that we would hear that news as we were spending the evening acting like 13 year olds. I loved MJ as a kid.
ReplyDeleteI was in line getting a beer at a New Kids On The Block concert with all of my childhood girlfriends. Felt strange that we would hear that news as we were spending the evening acting like 13 year olds. I loved MJ as a kid.
ReplyDeleteI was at work. First saw online that he was hospitalized, went to lunch and he was dead by the time I came back.
ReplyDeleteDon't remember. It was not a life-altering occurrence for me. And he had been on everyone's Dead Pool list for years so it wasn't a surprise.
ReplyDeleteHonestly don't remember. And when I was told I was like "eh, and??". Guess cause I was born in the 80's and raised on Madonna and Paula Abdul with some bop skinny bop bop thrown in it didn't phase me.
ReplyDeleteI was on 72nd and Columbus on the upper east side. Will always remember that.
ReplyDeleteTo all of us sitting at our desks,
ReplyDeleteI say we all break free from the chains that are binding us here and live free - of course you will have to beg for your food and housing but hey at least we will be free.......
Funny story about this. Hang in there!
ReplyDeleteAbout 6 years ago I was at the checkout in the grocery store. I was on the phone with my father. This nice 50-something lady was checking, and a twentysomething guy was bagging.
My father said "Did you know Michael Jackson died??" I said "WHAT!? No way , seriously?" He was dead serious. I continued to proclaim to the checker and the bagger that he had died.
We were all in awe, when my father says "Yeah, he died of botulism.... he ate some ten year old nuts!"
I was mortified trying to explain to this older woman that it was a joke and what the punchline was.
So when the real news hit, all I could think of was that horrible joke, "what did he eat some ten year old nuts??"
@RomanHoliday, I have such EMPATHY for y'all that I'll cook you all a meal or two:)
ReplyDeleteI was at work. I was living vicariously through Green Wave Girl's UCLA status updates on Facebook...*L*
ReplyDeleteport hueneme ca
ReplyDeleteSeachica nailed it.
ReplyDeleteMy brother lives in Santa Barbara County not far from Neverland Ranch and when I visited him in 2005 he took me flying over the ranch and even then it was looking rather derelict. There was a pond or pool or something in front of the house and it looked all green and nasty. My thoughts?
"He must not have the money for upkeep" and "Gee, this place is REMOTE, I bet so no one can hear the screams." Overimaginative, I know, but there is NOTHING remotely near that place. It was his own little fiefdom.
@ Agent It, if people take my advice we will need it:) Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI was sitting in my front yard, trying to catch a breeze and cool down with one of those misting fans we'd just bought. You know, the big mamas that attach to the garden hose.
ReplyDeleteMy friend, who's constantly glued to FoxNews or CNN, called with the news because she knew we'd be clueless. And she also said she felt sorry for Farrah that her day was being overshadowed by MJ!
Thankfully, post-911 we'd kind of sworn off the 24-hour news cycle, so I didn't have to endure much MJ follow up news.
My PSA for the day - life is sooo much better if you don't get emotionally involved with a bunch of worldwide bullshit news that 1. doesn't really affect your life at all, and 2. you can't do anything about it even if you wanted to.
I was at work in my dingy cube when people were saying he died. It was rather shocking.
ReplyDeleteyes...and yes.
ReplyDeleteand I also remember where I was when I heard that his hair lit on fire during that pepsi shoot
I do and I felt sort of bad for Farrah Fawcett. What was weird is when it happened, I was saying how surprising it was and my son said "Who's Michael Jackson?" Felt weird explaining.
ReplyDeleteI was on my way to the SPCA to do pet therapy. Heard the news on the radio as I was getting out of the car.
ReplyDeleteIn my country the news broke late at night, so since I was at home surfing the net it took me a couple of clicks to find out. What a shock, when I bumped into those big, BIG headlines on a local online news site: "Michael Jackson is dead".
ReplyDeleteI couldn´t keep it to myself, so I immediately woke up my mum (sorry mum!). Needless to say, she was as shocked as I!
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ReplyDeleteNope. No clue. I can't care either.
ReplyDeleteNope. I was very surprised by the adulation too. The dude was seriously weird. He was millions in debt, some of it to people who paid him in advance for previous failed comeback attempts. The thing that really got me though, when he walked away from Neverland. The keepers were paying for food out of their own pockets and caring for them for free. I dont know if he deliberately walked away from them assuming someone else would take care of it, or if he was so self absorbed it never crossed his mind.
ReplyDeleteI was at the beach with my friends so we did not have access to TV or radio. Some of us were on Facebook on our phones and saw people starting to post statuses like RIP Michael Jackson and we could not believe it. Immediately opened my TMZ app on my phone.....
ReplyDeletea little in shock, kind of not.
Everybody has to die sometime or another right?
I was at the airport. When I got on my first flight, they were talking about Farrah on the news. By the time we'd landed and I was getting on my connect it was all about Michael. Very unsurprising, he was quite a mess.
ReplyDeleteDon't recall that day, but on the 26th I was at the OAB event (BAR association of Brazil) getting my lawyer's ID card and they kept playing MJ songs before it started... Kinda ridiculous for this type of event..
ReplyDeleteSo MJ passed in one day and I In the next one! Hahahaa!!
I honestly don't remember what I was doing this time last year. But I will never forget standing in the checkout line when the National Enquirer ran photos of him sleeping in the hyperbaric oxygen chamber. That was the first real WTF?!? Michael Jackson moment -- it was soooo weird, and he was not at that time known for being strange but at the height of his superstardom.
ReplyDeleteI was at work and got a weird joke about MJ texted by the guy I was seeing at the time. And then the courier came in and told me. So weird.
ReplyDeleteOn the T in Boston as soon as we got above ground everbodys phones went off.
ReplyDeleteSeriously? Michael Jackson? No, I don't remember. I know he was the king of pop and all, but it's not like it changed the world when he died. Really.
ReplyDeleteI was there. It sucked.
ReplyDeleteThe tasteless joke (that I'm repeating) goes:
ReplyDeleteEd McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson...celebrities die in threes...
But leave it to Billy Mays to throw in the fourth one for free!
(Billy Mays died that weekend.)
Sorry.
I happened to be standing in Times Square waiting for the light to change. It was scrolling on the ticker and people were getting out of their cars to read the crawl. A little kid asked,"Is Michael Jackson really dead?" His mum replied, "No, honey, he just had a boo boo on his heart. I'm sure he'll be just fine."
ReplyDeleteI had to go into a store to have it confirmed. I traveled back to the hotel where I was staying and I noticed that there was no moment without a Michael Jackson song playing. It was coming from cars and stores and people singing on the street. I just got transferred from one song to another all the way home.
I was at UCLA in the middle of a meeting with my Ph.D. advisor and he got a phone call from a friend at the hospital. I remember being so confused because I could tell from my advisor's side of the conversation that someone had died. He hung up the phone and since he's my mentor I say
ReplyDeleteMe: Are you okay? It sounds like you got bad news from a friend? Do you need to go?
Him: Michael Jackson died!
Me: You're friends with Michael Jackson?
Him: A friend just called me from the hospital telling me he just died.
Me(in shock): I'm so sorry. How did you know Michael Jackson?
Him: I don't. My friend works at the UCLA hospital and just called me. He's here and news hasn't broken yet, so we might want to leave campus before it hits.
Me: Ohhhh. I was confused. I was wondering how you knew Michael!?
@Maria-I got my PhD at UCLA also. What are you studying? You can private msg me if you want estolze711@gmail.com. :)
ReplyDeleteI was on vacation in Cuba. The entertainment staff told me. I was... and wasn't surprised.
ReplyDeleteFunny i was just mentioning to the hubs yestrdy that its always the highpoint of a night when youre at a club or party and mj comes on. Theres something about the intro to billie jean that always makes me yell out" woo hoo this is my song! "Like all us girls do when we are buzzed I guess.
ReplyDeleteI honestly don't remember, but probably in class or at home. I think I got it through a text alert.
ReplyDelete