參孫邁克爾•傑克遜：美國流行音樂時代的落幕

 

作者：巴里·邁克爾·庫珀

來源：MJJCN 翻譯：七七 ilmj1314 校對：keepthefaith

Michael Jackson Agonistes: The Final Act of an American Pop'era

Friday, 11 September 2009 09:20
by Barry Michael Cooper

（注：參孫指力士參孫，以色列的大力士參孫被妻子腓力斯人大利出賣，以色列人的統治者是腓力斯人，他們弄瞎了他的雙眼。參孫念念不望復仇。後腓力斯人逼迫參孫演武，參孫推倒廟宇，與敵人同歸於盡。參孫充滿獻身精神，輕率的婚姻導致了不幸，雖雙目失明卻毫不屈服。）
作者：巴里•邁克爾•庫珀

邁克爾•傑克遜過早的逝世加深了世人對他的瞭解。美國發現了他對世界的仁愛之心、他的精神、他的言論連接著整個世界。他從來不會攻擊那些無憑無據控告他的人。他拒絕跟醜化他的人打口水戰。邁克爾•傑克遜並沒有死於奢華淫非的生活。邁克爾熱愛地球上所有的孩子和人們，他與我們分享他的愛、他的痛，在他的謝幕演出中向我們傳達愛可以戰勝一切，他告訴我們愛無處不在，儘管他忍受著巨大的痛苦，但他卻超越一切，向全世界——而不是向哪一個宗教或種族傳達愛。邁克爾•傑克遜讓世界團結起來，他的存在都是關於愛和治癒這個世界，而不是仇恨。”
——卡爾S•泰勒 社會學博士，密歇根州立大學（傑克遜一家1979年命運巡演邁克爾的保鏢）

週五- 2009年9月11日親愛的邁克爾：
上周的昨天你終於下葬了，你終於得到安息。遠離媒體的追逐，遠離罪惡製造者和靈魂侵蝕者，你也遠離了這個活生生的，無恥的“瘋狂的名利地獄”，這裏充滿了犯罪高手，散發著墮落天使欲望的惡臭，他們竊竊私語的謊言，從牙齒縫裏蹦出，這些使你每晚哭泣。但是，你再也不需要擔心了，那種痛苦，已經停止。
邁克，現在你得到了上帝的眷顧，正如才華橫溢，真誠地不惜以真話傷人的崔西•摩根所說：“世界正在變化，如今的世界沒有了邁克。但是有件事我們可以確定，他此刻正在天上為亞伯拉罕，為基督唱歌。他此刻也正在為上帝歌唱呢。就像我們需要他那樣，上帝更需要他”。
兩周前在曼哈頓布魯克林希望公園（2009年8月29日，星期天），由斯派克李和Keistar公司發起了一個活動。
那是為你慶祝51歲生日，邁克，超過2萬人冒雨參加了這次活動，他們把Nethermead的小山丘當成城市裏的Neverland。他們到這裏不是為了搞清楚在你生命中最後數小時、數分鐘、數秒鐘，在何時何地何因發生了什麼。

2萬歌迷，邁克，不論黑人、白人、拉丁裔、瘦的胖的、老的少的、異性戀的同性戀，他們的生命都被你的音樂感動了近半個世紀，他們都來感謝你帶來的音樂，你的才華，你的慷慨，感謝你帶給我們的快樂和振奮，即使有時你有時甚至處在死亡之穀的陰影下。
就像夏普頓牧師那天在公園裏激動人心的演說一樣，“為邁克爾慶祝，就是為我們最美好的一面慶祝”， 夏普頓牧師得到了人群激烈的掌聲。他繼續說道：“當他出生時，那時的等級制度和種族主義沒人能打破，當他離開後，他打破了這些界限，他重新定義了音樂的意義，他改變了階級，跨越了種族，他很“飆（Bad）”，他“閃開”（Beat It），他就是邁克爾傑克遜。”

“我們不懼怕未來，我們是來改變未來的”
——美國總統巴拉克•奧巴馬，2009年9月9日在國會關注健康提議上的發言


26年前，在Thriller所向披靡，在美國銷量達到2千萬張之前，像“Thriller”這樣的巨擎沒有對未來任何的畏懼感，它塑造了我們今天的世界。換句話說，邁克，Thriller就像馬丁•路德金的夢想，它由你和昆西•鐘斯製作，EPIC公司包裝，MTV宣傳，並在7大洲被人們如饑似渴地吸收。
月球漫步不只是一部簡單的舞蹈片，比利珍的意義遠遠大於一首歌，Thriller帶有明顯的政治性，一個黑人賣出的唱片遠遠多於辛那提、貓王、披頭士、滾石，一個黑人向我們所有人心中的那顆仁慈之心訴說。

Thriller是對每一個非裔美國藝術家的賠償，他們的歌兒總是無償遭到竊取。就像一直夢想能有自己事業的山姆•庫克（上世紀50年代著名福音四重唱樂隊TheSoulStirrers的領銜男高音歌手）一樣，Triller的成就甚至遠遠超過了我們不著邊際夢想。

Thriller把平等的聲音向前推進了一步。雷根在任時，種族比例不均的情況下，它越過了華盛頓特區，走進了美國診治全世界的千家萬戶。我們不同膚色一起跳舞、那就是你設想的“天下一家”，也是你和小妹珍妮後來組成的“節奏王國”。
只有流行音樂之王能夠帶動這一切。

Thriller是80年代社會的、情感的和文化的起動器，它引領了奧普拉·溫弗瑞、邁克爾·喬丹、1988年的“跑，傑西傑克遜，快跑”、斯派克·李等一批黑人名人的出現，它幫助斯派克·李打開了通向好萊塢的大門，繼而為非裔美國人在好萊塢帶來了一個黃金時代（1986-1995），它引領了黑人劇作家喬治·尼爾森的富有爭議的書Post Soul Nation（2005）的出現。如果沒有Thriller的巨大成功，我們還會在2007選舉奧巴馬當美國總統？Thriller使這提前了20年。

“告訴我的權力哪里去了
你對我視而不見我就不存在了嗎？
你曾向我承諾自由
我已厭倦成為陰謀的受害者
他們對我進行肆意的譭謗
我無法相信這就是養育我的那片土地
我只是想說
他們真的不在乎我們”
——邁克爾•傑克遜，“They Don't Really Care About Us”，“歷史：過去、現在、獎勵，第一章（1996）

邁克，由斯派克•李是擔任為你在布魯克林舉行的生日會組織者、主持人是那麼恰當。二十世紀八十年代，當美國繼續掙扎種族關係惡化的漩渦中，你和斯派克都是世界娛樂業的變革人物。由此看來，讓斯派克為你那首最大膽的政治歌曲“They Don't Really Care About Us” 導演兩個版本的MV是多麼地合適。

我記得1996年，你歌唱中的“Jew me”以及“kike me”（我是猶太人的意思）引發的社會爭議。我不認為你是在侮辱猶太人。我相信你是試圖喚醒眾多心存愚蠢偏見的人。那段時間，我想如果你說：“nigger. trigger/native son/like Bigger（黑鬼。扳機/土著/喜歡大的）”，這是否也會在媒體上引起同樣激烈的憤怒。

在2009，這個重要的爭論點是：在斯派克導演的They Don't Really Care About Us兩部mv的一部中，你扮演一名普通的囚犯，單人牢房的牆壁上出現了羅德尼•金被打的可怕畫面，還有tam事件。另外一部mv--有關巴西里約熱內盧薩爾瓦多人的貧民區—正是你的版本的《為所應為》（斯派克李1989年的經典電影）。

1993年可怕的案件，指控你對兒童施以難以想像的虐待。那個案件試圖剝去你的尊嚴，儘管因為證據不足你的罪名從未成立，但是給你敲響了警鐘，邁克。它喚醒你，以及我們所有人，告訴我們一個嚴酷的現實即使是唱片銷量傲視群雄的流行音樂之王——世界上最大的流行歌星也仍然被作為一個“黑鬼”對待。

邁克，因此你在歌詞中用“猶太人”代替“黑鬼”，因為“種族”這個話題在我們國家的言論中將永遠是第三等，這意味著用一個醜陋的詞在社會上引起喧嘩。邁克，你也可以輕易在歌詞中使用諸如濕背人（墨西哥偷渡者）、愛爾蘭人、男同性戀、女同性戀、中國佬、美國南歐移民、窮白人，或頭裹爛布的傢伙一類的詞語。

你和斯派克•李所要表達的觀點（就像斯派克在《為所應為》中設計的一個場景，這個場景中每個布魯克林區的附近的民族成員都打破第四堵牆，直接對觀眾背誦種族主義的辱駡，這就如同我們無知的恐懼形成了一面扭曲的鏡子）是那種邊緣化—不論冠以何種名稱—對人類精神都有一種毀滅的力量。



邁克，在你的51歲生日的派對上看到的卻是相反的事情， 2萬多名歌迷——你的大家庭——聚集在希望公園。這巨大力量來自於我們感受到你的愛，這就像一個小型的伍斯托克音樂節。我敢說，這是第一個邁克托克（Mike-Stock）音樂節。（作者根據Woodstock創作出來的詞）
邁克，你在我們之中，慶祝聚會進行到一半的時候太陽出來了，碰巧得是這正好是斯派克建議DJ斯賓娜演奏披頭士的Here Comes The Sun（我知道你喜歡這樣諷刺的巧合，太陽的光亮穿過雲層，以及保羅•麥卡特尼和ATV曲目的聯繫）



在斯派克的記者招待會上，你音容宛在，當我問他你對美國意味著什麼，斯派克回答：“邁克爾對全球文化的意義重大，他的偉大不僅僅限於美國。”當“30 Rock”（電視劇）的裏的崔錫摩根（Tracy Morgan）走上舞臺，滑稽的模仿了你的一個舞蹈動作的時候，你的音容宛在。當Ed Lover和Free帶領大家唱起”你能感覺到麼”（Can You Feel It），當藝術家Lemon在你生日那天用他的稱頌之詞極大地調動起聽眾情緒的時候，你的音容宛在。

“我記得有個時期謀殺率降下來了
因為那個時候街頭混混們都等在家裏看邁克爾和艾迪•墨菲，一起表演《你還記著此刻麼？》”

邁克，你就在那兒，當記者、激進分子以及未來的布魯克林國會議員凱文•鮑威爾告訴我當你在1983年的摩城25周年晚會上表演時，你是如何成為他的第一位黑人美國英雄的。你就在那兒，當我們瘋狂的高唱Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'的mama say/mama sah/mama/ma cusa時（既然說道這裏，我想你在這個合聲肯定是狡猾地向Manu Dibango的 Soul Makossa致敬）。
最後，邁克，在這不吉利的一天9月11日，我想感謝斯派克以及布魯克林區及所有人，還有你，邁克爾•約瑟夫•傑克遜，那是一個幸福的星期六。我永生都 不會忘記那一天。這就是我想要在博客上和你們分享。這個慶祝我可以一遍一遍地看。
神的恩賜，2萬歌迷聚在一起， 唱歌，跳舞，大笑， 哭泣。500多名的紐約員警也在那兒，但唯一能捕獲的是由你天才的音樂帶給我們的心跳。幾周後，我頭腦裏一直迴響著一句話，可以完美的總結那一天，那來自“和你一起舞動”（Rock With You）

雖然音樂
漸漸消失的時候，
你知道真愛還在
我們將永遠一起舞動下去
靜享天賜安眠吧，我的朋友

你忠誠的
巴里•邁克爾•庫珀

Michael Jackson Agonistes: The Final Act of an American Pop'era




Friday, 11 September 2009 09:20
by Barry Michael Cooper

"Michael Jackson rose above it all in his untimely transition. America found his heart, spirit and words connected around the world. He never used any harsh words, nor actions against his accusers. He refused to engage those who were and still are attempting to define him as ugly. Michael Jackson did not die in the way many in Babylon have wished. Hardly, Michael Jackson loved all the children, people of this world. He shared his love, shared his pain, showed us in this final performance that love does conqueror. He shows us that love is everywhere, Michael Jackson--despite all of his travails--transcended to show the world love, not any one religion, race or creed. Michael Jackson brought the world together; his transition is about love and healing in the world. Not hating."


Dr. Carl S. Taylor,
Professor of Sociology
Michigan State University
(and a bodyguard for Michael Jackson
on the Jacksons 1979 Destiny Tour)

Friday - 11. September. 2009.

Dear Michael:
One week ago yesterday, your corpus was finally laid to rest. Away from the digital vultures. Away from the sin feeders and soul eaters. Away from the living, grinning Hell of a Mad Fame populated by smooth criminals--soiled in the reeking, dead stank of lost angel lust--whose whispered lies cast in gnashing teeth, made you weep every night. But you don't have to worry about that anymore. That agony for you, has ceased.

Mike, Providence now rocks you in the arms of eternal love. As the brilliant and brutally honest Tracy Morgan told me recently, "The world is changing, and it's a world without Mike. But one thing we can be assured of, he's up there singing to Abraham right now, and to Jesus. He's up there singing to GOD right now. As much as we needed him here, GOD needed him more."

Two weeks ago in Prospect Park (on Saturday, 29. August. 2009) in the urban galaxy known as Brooklyn--third rock from the concrete and steel sun known as money-makin' Manhattan--in a spiral galaxy in the constellation called the American Dream, there was a love-in sponsored by Spike Lee and Keistar Promotions.

It was your 51st birthday celebration, Mike. More than 20,000 people came out in the rain, transforming the Nethermead's green knoll into an urban Neverland; not to figure out who gave you what, and when, and how, and where, and why, during your last hours, minutes, and seconds, of your final day above ground.

Twenty-thousand fans, Mike; Black, White, Latino, Straight, Gay, Skinny, Fat, Young, and Old. Twenty thousand people--whose lives you have touched for almost half a century--came to thank you for your music. For your talent. For your generosity of spirit. For your willingness to entertain us and lift us to a limn of a higher vibration, even when it seemed at times, that you were being surveilled by shadows in the valley of death.

However, as Rev. Al Sharpton stated in his stirring invocation that day in Prospect Park , "To celebrate Michael, is to celebrate the best in us," which got a rousing cheer from the crowd.

Rev. Sharpton continued: "When he was born, they said he was of a class and a race, that couldn't break through. When he left, he had broke down all the barriers, he had redefined music, he had transformed class, he stepped over race, he was Bad, he Beat It, he was Michael!"

"We did not come here to fear the future.
We came here to shape it."

President Barack Obama,
The Health Care Address to Congress
9. September. 2009

Twenty-six years and twenty millions albums ago, the colossus known as Thriller had no fear of the future, and shaped the world we live in now. In other words Mike, Thriller was Dr. King's Dream, produced by you and Quincy Jones, packaged by Epic Records, disseminated by MTV, and absorbed on seven continents.

The Moonwalk was bigger than choreography, and Billie Jean was deeper than a hypnotic chorus and hook. Thriller was political; a Black Man who sold more records than Sinatra, Elvis, The Beatles, and The Stones. A Black Man who spoke to the soul-powered goodness in all of us.

Thriller was music bidness reparations for every single African-American artist up to that point, who had songs stolen without compensation. Mike, Thriller was the hope-come-to-fruition of artists like Sam Cooke--who dreamed of owning his own career--realized beyond our wildest dreams.

Thriller moved the conversation of equality forward; beyond the DC beltway, and into living rooms all over the country (and all over the world, for that matter), in the midst of the Reagan Era's racial asymmetry, that Mourning In America for black folk. We were dancing in unison as a unified, multi-cultural and colorful Race of One, what you envisioned as We Are The World, and what baby sis Janet later assembled into a Rhythm Nation.

Only The King of Pop could pull that off.

Thriller was the social, emotional and cultural trigger for the '80s ascension of an Oprah Winfrey, a Michael Jordan, a 1988 Run, Jesse Jackson, Run!, and a Spike Lee kicking in the doors of Hollywood, and ushering in a decade long Golden Era of a serious African-American presence in Hollywood (1986-1995), a phenomenon discussed in author-filmmaker Nelson George's compelling book, Post Soul Nation (2005). And would we even be talking about a the possibility of a President Barack Obama in 2007, without the mega-success of Thriller, two decades earlier?

"Tell me what has become of my rights
Am I invisible because you ignore me?
your proclamation promised me free liberty
I'm tired of being the victim of shame
they're throwing me in a class with a bad name
I can't believe this is the land from whence I came...
all I wanna say is that
they don't really care about us"

Michael Jackson,
They Don't Really Care About Us
HIStory: Past, Present, and Future,
Book I (1996)

Mike, it was apropos that Spike Lee was the organizer, host, and MC for your Brooklyn birthday celebration. You and Spike were two of the most transformative figures in the world of entertainment, as a 1980s America continued to struggle with the transgressive nature of its failed race relations. It made sense that Spike directed both versions of your most blatantly political song to date, They Don't Really Care About Us.

I remember the uproar in 1996, over your use of the terms "Jew me" and "**** me." I didn't think you were trying to slur Jewish people. I believe you were trying to draw attention to the enormous stupidity in prejudicial thinking. Period. I wonder if you had said, "nigger. trigger/native son/like Bigger", would there have been the same rush to indignation in the media?

In 2009, that's a moot point. Here's what's important: Spike's two memorable videos for They Don't Really Care About Us--one shot with you as a universal prisoner in a cell wallpapered with the grotesque holograms
of the Rodney King beating, the massacre in Tiananmen Square, and profane b-roll of the sour milk of man's-inhumanity-to-man; the other, a super-saturated Brazilian color-burst of a Salvadorian favela in Rio de Janeiro--was your version of Do The Right Thing, Mike.

That horrific 1993 trial, accusing you of unthinkable child abuse--a trial which attempted to strip you of all of your dignity, despite the fact that you were never charged, because of a lack of evidence--was a harsh alarm clock for you, Mike. It woke you--and all of us--up to the harsh light of the reality that the biggest pop star in the world--The King Of Pop!--who sold more records than any artist in history, could still be treated...like a nigger.

So instead of using nigger, Mike, you used the term ****. Because the subject of race will always be a third rail in our country's discourse, it was meant to electrify society with the shock of an ugly word. Mike, you could have just as easily used the term wetback, or mick, or fag, or dyke, or chink, or wop, or poor white trailer trash, or raghead.

The point that you and Spike Lee were (as Spike did with that great scene in Do The Right Thing, where each ethnic member of that Brooklyn neighborhood broke the fourth wall and recited racial slurs directly to the audience, as a warped mirror of our own ignorant fears) were trying to make, was that marginalization--by any name--has a destructively reductive power on the human spirit.

Mike, you would have seen just the opposite on your 51st birthday, in the gathering of those 20,000 fans--your extended family--in Prospect Park . The gigantism in the power of the love we feel for you and your work felt like a mini-Woodstock. Dare I say, it was the first Mike-Stock festival?

Mike, you were there among us, in the rain, and when the sun appeared midway through the celebration--as if on cue, right after Spike suggested to DJ Spinna to play The Beatles' Here Comes The Sun (and I know you appreciate the Providential irony of the sun actually shining through the clouds, and the connection to Paul McCartney and the ATV catalog, too).

You were there at Spike's press conference, when I asked him what did you mean to America , and Spike responded, "Michael meant a greater deal to global culture, he was bigger than just America ."

You were there when 30 Rock's Tracy Morgan took the stage and comically struck one of your dance poses. You were there when Ed Lover and Free led the crowd in a chorus of Can You Feel It, and when the spoken word artist Lemon electrified the crowd with his ode to you on your birthday:

"I remember when the killing rate
went down with the crime
Cause the whole Hood/Stood home
waiting to see Michael and Eddie Murphy
Do Remember The Time..."

Mike, you were there when the journalist, activist, and future Brooklyn congressman Kevin Powell, told me how you became his first Black American hero, when you performed on Motown 25 in 1983. You were there when we all went crazy singing the mama say/mama sah/mama/ma cusa chorus to Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' (and while I'm on the subject, I think you were definitely doing a sly nod to Manu Dibango's Soul Makossa with that chorus).

In closing, Mike, on this most ominous observance--9/11--I want to thank Spike, and Brooklyn , and most of all, you, Michael Joseph Jackson, for a most propitious Saturday. I will never forget that day, for as long as I live. I edited a four part, "mini-doc/groovy home moovy", of the event, that I am sharing with others on my blog. Something I can watch over, and over, and over.

By GOD's Grace, twenty-thousand people got together and sang songs, danced, laughed, and cried. NYPD was there, 500 strong, and the only thing that was arrested was the collective beat of our hearts, by the prolific genius of your music. There is a line that echoes in my head, weeks later, that sums up that day perfectly. It's from Rock With You:

And when the groove
is dead and gone, yeah
you know that love survives
and we can rock forever, on...

Sleep in Heavenly Peace, my friend.

Yours Truly,

Bmc
[Source: Hooked On The American Dream - Check Barry Michael Cooper's blog for video clips from the MJ event]

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