dj brad, moontribe

Congratulations to my dad who enjoyed his first official day of retirement today - I don't think the weekend counts since he wouldn't normally be working on a weekend anyway. Also he would not be working in the summer holidays either, so I guess his retirement could really start in September.

Hmmm. Anyway.

My dad has been working my whole life. I am sure that supporting a family of 6 on one income is no small feat, and he did it. At age 64, he has retired from teaching grades 3 and 4 at Oaklands Elementary for well over 2 decades. Before that, he was supporting the family on a substitute teacher income. I don't know how that is even possible. He deserves a bit of a rest, though I am sure he will not be idle for very long, if at all.

I thought it would be somewhat appropriate to give this mid 80's Michael Jackson a newspaper-esque halftone treatment. As everyone's probably already told you, Michael Jackson died this afternoon.

I confess that I am not the biggest Michael Jackson fan. I own zero of his albums, but that is kind of why I am posting this. Even though I would not consider myself a big fan, or even a medium size one, this still seems significant. Maybe it would seem less significant if I read it in the paper the next day, but this just happened. Earlier today he was alive.

Not too many pop artists were able to create the widespread excitement that MJ did through his focus on entertainment. Video link from Keith:

You'll notice that this video's title is "BILLIE JEANS BEST EVER MOONWALK" - as Adam and Graham pointed out, this video shows him doing the Backslide. It's a popular misconception that I shared until this afternoon, as shown in this video - How Michael Jackson Learned the Backslide and Mislabeled it the Moonwalk. I would embed it but the amount of advertising done on the 5min video service is totally over the top .. but I digress. It is a fascinating video with some good commentary on the before and after of a pretty significant night for MJ in 1983.