A surreal, surreal day.

Don’t know what to make of it, still. I just honestly don’t even know what to write about today. What can I write? What is it to say?

Michael Jackson just died.

I can’t even digest that sentence. It just looks wrong. Wrong isn’t the word even, it doesn’t look anything. It just doesn’t look at all. Those words are just not going together, why would anybody say that, or write that?

I sat down to write what I feel about the whole thing, and I just can’t. What poetic justice can you put down in words to justify the like of Michael Jackson?

Nothing I can say sounds gratifying enough. An Icon? A King? A Legend? It just doesn’t sound satiable enough. But why this specific death means more to me than some other death that also crumbled my world, is the fact this is the first time I was at the place where it happened.

Every time someone famous I loved died, someone that defined my childhood, or teen-dom, I always heard about it on TV or read about it. I remember the same scenario — watching television around the clock, sucking up all the info I could get, not sleeping for a minute in order not to miss anything, watching the stretcher carrying out the body that circumscribed my life; as if that piece of my life was being carried away with the body.

At those prodigious times, I also remember calling my friends frantically, the ones that happened to be where it happened, pestering them with all the questions that I could come up with, as if knowing every single detail is going to make it all feel better.

This time, it was the most surreal day. I was there. I live 10 mins away from the house he died in. First, I woke up with the news that Farrah died. Terrible news, but Farrah Fawcett was an icon of another generation, not so much mine; I knew a lot about her, but I just didn’t feel that death, other than being sad for this lovely lady.

Then I left the house and went to the bank, realized one of the bankers is my neighbor, chatted with him, laughed, gossiped about all the other tenants we don’t like, laughed some more, and left. Finished some other chores, came back to my bank again, waited in line to make a deposit, when my banker/neighbor approaches me from the back and says:

“Did you hear? I just found out, it's still unofficial”. And I say: “Yeah, I know, I heard this morning, terrible news”. And he goes: “You couldn’t hear this morning, because now it’s 2 o’clock, and I just heard it, it’s not even official, someone from the Fire Department just leaked it”. And I say: “Well I did hear this morning that Farrah died, I don’t know what to tell you”. And he goes: “No, not Farrah, that was this morning, but Michael Jackson…Michael Jackson JUST died”…

Come again?

“Michael Jackson just died”.

“Sorry, got to go back to work”.

The City of Los Angeles in the next couple of minutes, hours was just indescribable. The most surreal atmosphere. Almost instantly, before it was even official, people were whispering on the streets. Almost instantly, the MJ music was played from just about every car passing by, every store, every house. It wasn’t even official yet.

That’s Hollywood, right then and there. One of the Fire Dept guys that drove MJ from his house to the hospital, just told someone right away, before it was even official, and the word spread out like a damn plague.

I was driving down Beverly Blvd with my boyfriend, both of us abashed, when the calls started to pour in. Managers, agents, publicists, all the Hollywood people were just perplexed — “O my god, did you guys hear, I just heard, did you hear?”.

Literally, it was minutes, and everybody knew already.

Sadness is not even the word. I don’t have to tell you, you felt the same. Just, being so close to it, it was that much more spellbound. I felt as if being at the place where it happened, being at the ground zero would somehow make me feel like I have some control over the sadness.

I was supposed to do something else that afternoon, and I couldn’t. If he died 10 minutes from my house, I, for once want to be where it happened, as if I wanted to grab a piece of his soul, before it migrates somewhere else.

In all my affliction, I did feel good about something. I felt good about the city of LA. The same city that often shows attributes I can’t quite fathom, on this day, the city was just amazing. People dropped the act for one day and showed a genuine colossal sadness everywhere you turned.

There was something so particular about Los Angelinos’ exigency and determination to follow Michael through every last stop his body will take as if saying goodbye is simply just unacceptable. Everyone was on the same page, we will follow him.

People came to his house in Bel Air, then went to UCLA Medical Center where he died, then they moved to the morgue in Boyle Heights, and just stayed there all night as if they wanted to guard his body and his soul.

I wanted to be where he died. Even though they say he might have even died in his house, I wanted to be where he was presumed dead. I didn’t want to listen to the news just jet, I didn’t want to make sense out of it just yet, I didn’t want to know what exactly happened, I just wanted to be where he was going to be last, as if that fixes anything.

As if that is going to make it better.

The UCLA Medical Center looked like it was under siege. Million news trucks, helicopters flying above, news reporters talking in million different languages, Jermaine Jackson going in and out of the hospital crying, it was just surreal.

I will never forget all those hordes of people. Thousands of people. Everybody walking out of work, doctor's office, grocery stores; whatever they were doing at the time, and just came.

Everybody’s faces. Crying. Confusion. Disbelief. Anger. The grief later exceeded to dance, the Moonwalk face-offs, the singing, and some kind of strange comradeship.

The crowd was at the hospital for about 5–6 hours, nobody was moving, nobody was leaving; everybody was waiting for his body to be taken out from the hospital and put into a helicopter that was supposed to take him to a morgue in Downtown LA. It seemed like everyone was waiting to be absolutely positively sure he died.

The thought of Michael Jackson dying, as unthinkable, was something every single person out there had in common. Nobody wanted to let go. As if he’s taking a piece of everyone’s life with him.

My feelings transitioned from mad and confused, kind of lethargic even, to some strange solitude, as if I felt he might be relieved now from all the pressures, and all the gossip that plagued all his life.

Solitude mixed with anger. Why am I so mad? Did I expect he’s never going to die? Did I think Michael Jackson could never die?

Some Swedish reporter snapped me out of my thoughts when she approached us outside of UCLA with a question — “What did MJ and his music mean to you?”. I pulled myself together for a few seconds to give her a coherent answer, and realized — it wasn’t just the fact I listened to Michael Jackson’s music since I know my own name, it wasn’t just the fact that Pop music makes me feel unbelievably joyful and his songs are the greatest ones side by side with The Beatles; it’s the fact that for me, Michael Jackson is THE personification and the embodiment of America.

Ever since I was very young, I was obsessed with American Pop Culture. I was extremely Americanized, I absorbed everything that came from the US — the music, movies, magazines, tv-shows — just about everything.

I moved to States when I was about 20, but ever since I was 12–13 I dreamt about living here one day; and when I was 15 I learned the exact way TuPac was talking, I learned all about rap wars between East and West, I knew the names of every single actor/actress, singers, groups of the ’80s and ’90s, and knew the lyrics of every song, I remembered all the lines from my favorite movies, yeah, you could tell I was a bit obsessed.

America was more than a dreamland for me, it was the way of life. There are 6 people that are the embodiment of America, in my opinion.

Michael Jackson, Cindy Crawford, Johnny Depp, Brooke Shields, Madonna, and Michael Jordan. They were not just embodiments, they were the visualization of America for me. Michael with Billie Jean and Thriller, Cindy in House Of Style, Johnny in 21 Jump Street, Brooke in Blue Lagoon, Madonna with Like a Prayer, and Jordan in Bulls; these people didn’t just circumscribe my early youth, but they become the symbols of where I wanted to exist.