For 24 hours you can have
Michael Jackson’s
talent, fame & fortune,
but if you accept it,
you will know
everything he ever did.
You won’t be able
to share this information
with anyone.
Do you say yes?
Growing up in the early ‘80’s, there was no greater talent than Michael Jackson’s.
With a shimmy, the man could turn throngs of people into quivering messes. When he sang, my mother took pride in the fact that she was one of the early adopters of his talent, loving the fact that one of her childhood crushes had made so damned good.
The man was obviously talented and that talent stretched across generations, you couldn’t turn on a radio or go to a family gathering without hearing the “Thriller” album.
You just couldn’t. In many black households, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” was as ubiquitous as a painting of Jesus or Martin Luther King.
He was that big.
And then, somewhere along the lines, things got… weird.
“That boy went and bought himself a monkey.”
“Did you see the “Bad” video? He’s white now.”
“He needs to leave those young boys alone.”
That last one was the one everyone had the hardest time accepting. Not Michael. Not the guy we had let into our homes. Not our guy. We wanted to keep dancing to our guy.
Despite the lawsuits, despite the non-disclosure settlements, we so wanted, maybe even needed, to believe that our guy could never have done what he was accused of doing.
To this day, no one really, truly knows or can actually speak on it, so the question is this…
What if for 24 hours you wake up with all of Michael Jackson’s talent. You are immediately signed to a one-day contract where you will do a concert that will earn you millions.
One catch: At the end of the 24 hours, you would know whether or not he did the things he was accused of doing but you’ll never be able to tell a single soul or profit any further beyond the millions you had made.
NOPE NOPE NOPE. All that talent and all that money never seemed to buy him one bit of happiness or peace, so I’ll stick to my own problems.
I sure would enjoy the opportunity to simultaneously enjoy that money AND peace, and happiness, at the same time!
Get paid millions to keep a secret? SIGN ME UP. I admit, I’m not the greatest secret keeper. I think of secret keeping as artificial layers of bullshit that inhibit how life would play out if people weren’t being deceived. I don’t generally believe that deception is productive. I think whistle blowing is the best. But I really couldn’t turn down a few million dollars at this point, and if all it took was “keeping it in the closet” (i’m sorry), then I’ll have to say yes. Here’s what I would do to further humanity. Upon my death, I will… Read more »
That will would be rendered invalid–these secrets must go with you to the grave.
I wrote the danged piece and the more I chew on it, I just cannot come up with a clear-cut answer. The ability to draw an income from your talent is a true blessing but the knowing part would be the thing I’d have a problem with but hey, a few cool million to rest my weary head upon could ease that pain in certain moments.
Yeah, like I said, for me the knowing would be secondary to not being able to tell. If I could talk about it, I could probably use the knowledge for good–either to clear his name or warn about the dangers of letting fame and money get in the way of justice.
I HAVE TO KNOW, DAMMIT. If it’s bad, I’ll do charity work for the rest of my life to make karmic amends…
God no!!!!!
For me the hardest part would be not being able to tell anyone what I knew. I hate the thought of hearing someone else saying something I knew was a lie and not being able to correct them. But I think I could probably sooth that pretty easily by bathing in my money and remembering the one night where I sang and danced better than anyone else in the whole world.