Holy smokes! Literally! It's inching up towards 110 degrees here in Yuma this afternoon. For the third day in a row, everyone has been shuttered up in their hotels room, drapes drawn and air-conditioning blasting. I don't see how the Outlaws took batting practice yesterday around the 5pm hour. Way too warm. Maybe all this desert heat will make Chico feel that much more tolerable. We'll have to wait and see.
If you listened last night, you heard we played Michael Jackson music during our inning breaks. Of course, this is also the third day in a row I've sat in my room and watched all the music videos and documentaries they are playing of the man. However morbidly or selfishly it may sound, we all can say we were in Los Angeles the day the unexpected happened. Team bus rolling through LA between the 7 and 8 hours in the morning.
But...besides being a huge fan, Michael Jackson taught me a great broadcasting lesson. The only time I ever got into hot water in my career was by making a MJ joke that people reacted to in fits. It was going past midnight (puck didn't drop until 9:30 pm), in the third period of a San Diego State-Northern Arizona University hockey game that was 12-2 in favor of the good guys, and I made an MJ joke as we talked about Southern California. A tsunami of emails followed, not to me, but to all reaches of authority at the university (President, Athletic Director, School of Communications honcho, and on and on).
Now, the remark/joke was probably uncalled for. But, I believe to this day it wasn't amazingly offensive of provocative. And I can guarantee, much more off-color things were said during the afternoon shows on our student radio station. But the reaction was an example of how people responded to all things Michael Jackson, both positive and negative.
I learned a valuable lesson. No matter how many hours you're on the air doing sports, people aren't there for your morning-show style commentary. They're tuning in for the baseball, or for the hockey. I was suspended until they couldn't find anyone to do the women's basketball game later that week, and I was reinstated with a valuable lesson learned and I've been a better broadcaster since that day forth.
And now since the unexpected has happened with Michael, I think everyone can appreciate the talent he displayed as an entertainer and put his spectacle of a personal life to the side a little bit. The Jackson 5 Motown recording "I Want You Back" is one of greatest three minutes of recorded history. The performance from an 11 year old Michael absolutely frames the future the musical prodigy would create. Further, "Billie Jean" more so than any other MJ single is an absolute ballpark music staple.
My older siblings were huge Michael Jackson fans. They used to play the spooky laughing part at the end of "Thriller" to make me cry scared when I was young. We also all watched the "Captain EO" movie together at Disney World long ago. My brother John got an opportunity to meet Michael when the King of Pop made an appearance at John's air station in Japan a few years back. My brother was very looking forward to going to England later this year to visit my sister and take in an MJ concert in London.
Unfortunately, none of that will happen. But, Michael has both taught me a valuable lesson as a broadcaster and also given me and the entire world catalogues of pure pop gold to remember him by from here on out. R.I.P - The Gloved One.
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