TEEN YOUR ENTHUSIASM (13)
By:
May 8, 2023
One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of heartthrobs from our adolescences). Series edited by Heather Quinlan.
MICHAEL JACKSON
“I love Michael Jackson, Daddy. I’m going to marry him!”
“No, you’re not.”
Oh, the glory of late 1960’s–mid 1970’s Saturday mornings, when kids poured bowls of Alpha-Bits, King Vitaman or Lucky Charms and plunked down to watch Scooby Doo, Hong Kong Phooey, Fat Albert, The Harlem Globetrotters — and unique-to-the-time cartoons based on musicians real and fabricated: The Beatles, The Archies — and the Jackson Five.
The Jackson Five! In 1971 there was (arguably) no bigger pop/R&B group, and to my sixth-grade self its one and only star was Michael. Swoon! That voice, those dance moves, that smile — and the afro that was bigger than my uncle Fredy’s. In one of my first acts of defiance, I went to the neighborhood head shop — where I was not allowed to go because to my parents any music that was not salsa, gospel or Johnny Cash meant drugs, bought a Jackson Five poster, cut Michael out of it, and taped it to the wall of the bedroom I shared with my younger brother.
When no one protested, I went back to the head shop with money my abuela sent me, and bought my first 45s: “ABC,” “I Want You Back,” “The Love You Save,” and played them on our brand-new hi-fi, am/fm, 8-track, color TV console. I knew all the words to all the songs and always sang along. It might have been okay except for one thing… MJ’s voice was a lot higher than mine, and I totally remember seeing my father with hands on his ears more than once. To his credit, he did not forbid me to play the records, just to sing along. And then my father decided to paint the bedroom and build a false wall in-between (since my brother and I were approaching puberty), and he told me I had to take MJ down.
“I love Michael Jackson, Daddy. I’m going to marry him!”
“No, you’re not.”
My father was right. The picture disappeared and was never again found. The Jackson 5ive cartoon went off the air the following year and MJ and I went on to live our vastly different lives. But he was the first of many music crushes (Ozzy Osbourne would be next, which shows how my early teenage years went), and I’ll always remember dancing around my parents’ living room, singing along with “Maybe Tomorrow,” and imagining someday I’d be in the cartoon with him, too.
TEEN YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Heather Quinlan | Adam McGovern on ANDY GIBB | Crockett Doob on DREW BARRYMORE | Kathy Biehl on THE MONKEES | Josh Glenn on SHAUN CASSIDY | Catherine Christman on ELI WALLACH | Carlo Rotella on VALERIE BERTINELLI | Miranda Mellis on EDDIE VAN HALEN | Paul Finnegan on KIM WILDE | Heather Quinlan on MIKE PATTON | Mariane Cara on NKOTB | Mimi Lipson on ARLO GUTHRIE | Gabriela Pedranti on GUSTAVO CERATI | Michele Carlo on MICHAEL JACKSON | Ingrid Schorr on PAUL McCARTNEY | Carolyn Campbell on ROBERT REDFORD | Erin M. Routson on JOHNNY KNOXVILLE | Amy Keyishian on JIM MORRISON | Fran Pado on TONY DEFRANCO | Krista Margies Kunkle on LUKE PERRY | Lucy Sante on FRANÇOISE HARDY | Lynn Peril on DANNY BONADUCE | Jack Silbert on CHERYL TIEGS | Kelly Jean Fitzsimmons on CHRISTIAN SLATER | Cynthia Scott on LEONARD WHITING | Elizabeth Foy Larsen on OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN.
JACK KIRBY PANELS | CAPTAIN KIRK SCENES | OLD-SCHOOL HIP HOP | TYPEFACES | NEW WAVE | SQUADS | PUNK | NEO-NOIR MOVIES | COMICS | SCI-FI MOVIES | SIDEKICKS | CARTOONS | TV DEATHS | COUNTRY | PROTO-PUNK | METAL | & more enthusiasms!