We are the world: 25 years later

The song remains the same, though the cause, the year, and the singers are different -- except for the resurrection of (gasp) Michael Jackson!

Donate to Haiti by downloading the song from iTunes, willya?

Michael Jackson's Dancing Inmates soon on DVD/Blu Ray!

Got this in my inbox this morning: the Cebu Dancing Inmates do a Michael Jackson medley with MJ's choreographer Travis Payne and dancers Daniel Celebre and Dres Reid. The routine was supposedly designed for the This is It tour with MJ planning to take to the dance floor with the inmates. (How that would have been possible is anybody's guess!)





In any case, the inmates are back and they're fitted out with new shirts, pants and shoes -- and a spanking brand new routine. It's pretty slick and the inmates outdid themselves this time. 


MJ would have been proud.

This is Michael Jackson's Last Song

This is it, literally.

Michael Jackson, Tinikling-Style

Here's a video from 2004, pre-dating the Cebu Inmates' Thriller extravaganza by several years.

Here's "They Don't Really Care About Us" -- performed by UC San Diego's Kaibigang Pilipino.

No prisoners were harmed in the making of this video. Several performers suffered bruised shins and egos in practice however. (I don't really know. I'm guessing.)

Thanks to Art Silva for sharing this!

Michael Jackson Beats It

Michael Jackson
August 29, 1958 - June 26, 2009

The King of Pop is gone.

Yes, it's been years since he last had a real hit.
Yes, he's never really been the same Michael Jackson who broke into the big-time with the brilliant videos for Thriller and Beat It and so on.
Yes, he was severely damaged by the child molestation charges against him.
Yes, he often seemed more caricature rather than singer.
Yes, he was probably the weirdest superstar of our time, or anyone's time, for that matter.

But he will still be missed. Not because we actually still want to hear more from him in song, but more because "Ben", "Thriller", "The Girl is Mine", "Bad" and many others really don't work if it's someone else singing them. He owned them and, for a while, he owned Pop music.

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However, it's not really totally implausible that he's just hiding out somewhere in the Nevada desert or wherever ala Howard Hughes. Or Elvis.