I USED TO LOVE HIM

Do you find Michael Jackson to be a disturbing figure? I do.

It's extra-disturbing for me because I grew up with Mike. No, I didn't live in Gary (not far, in Chicago actually). What I mean is that, from the moment my sister brought home "I Want You Back" for me when I was about six or seven years old, I was hooked. I lived Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5. I remember that I had a big poster of them in concert, and I discovered that if I stared at it long enough for my eyes to start watering, it looked like they were dancing. Get the picture? Obsession. Daydreaming about hanging out with Mike and his brothers. Having imaginary concerts in front of my parents' console stereo in which I was either Michael himself, or the Jackson's long-lost brother or cousin. That kind of thing, you know?

Around the age of twelve or so I began to get into rock - stuff like Aerosmith, Kiss, Rush, etc. The Jackson 5 began to lose their allure for me. As I experienced that phenomenon known as adolescence, Michael Jackson receded into the background of my consciousness, replaced by Ted Nugent. (I'm only half-kidding).

Then, in 1982, Mike blew up again. Actually he had started blowing up a few years earlier, with his "Off the Wall" album, but I was still too immersed in all things rock to notice. But by the time that "Thriller" came along I had finally returned from my rock n roll exile - besides, "Thriller" and its accompanying mania was hard to ignore. So, yeah, I got into my childhood "god" again, though not quite like before. Prince had taken the throne from Rush, who had seized it after Mike had been unseated. But, still, it was nice to have Mike back again.

Then things got weird. Actually, one main thing disturbed me - Mike's appearance. His features were changing. His nose got thinner and thinner. I think somebody got him in the chin with an axe. And there seemed to be other, less easily identifiable changes. The most disturbing was something that I thought that I was just imagining at first. By the time "Bad" came out, three years after "Thriller" took over the world, it was an unmistakable fact - Mike was getting lighter.

That was very troubling. It's hard to be proud of a black man who appears as if he doesn't want to be black. Sammy Davis was very suspect in the eyes of many black folks, and he never got a shade lighter! His metamorphosis was all done with mirrors. Mike actually was getting lighter in front of my very eyes! Scary!

When he came out with his last album, "Invincible," (which wasn't nearly as bad as people claimed it was) and I saw the video for his first single, I was barely able to watch it. He had ceased to look like a human being. I can't help but wonder what kind of incredible self-hatred would drive a person to deform themselves like that.

To see Michael Jackson now, and all of the nuttiness, real go-away-to-prison type nuttiness, is particularly poignant for me. To paraphrase Common, "I used to love him."