That title was to paraphrase Kanye West's verse from Keri Hilson's "Knock you Down" single, which to me, might be this summer's anthem.
On Monday night I missed two of the rarest telecasts in the history of television. A replay of Game 6 of the 2000 NBA Finals between the Indiana Pacers and the Los Angeles Lakers and Wall Street on the Fox Movie channel. Starting with the Game 6 repeat. ESPN Classic used to be a venue where you can watch classic NBA games and vintage NFL Films programs like NFL Films Presents, The NFL Game of the Week, and highlights of some team's season in a particular. This was like back when I was in high school some 5 years ago. Now with the advent of NBA TV and the NFL Network (which is a travesty to get in the San Fernando Valley unless you have satellite) ESPN Classic became a display of Poker World Series, RECENT, not classic, recent NCAA games, AWA Wrestling, and countless, countless, countless hours of professional Boxing which they hold endless marathons every weekend. Nowadays they rarely show the REAL good vintage sports that they used to show, and I do mean rarely. In fact, that NBA Finals game came in a heartbeat. It was the actual NBA on NBC telecast with the John Tesh "Roundball Rock" theme music, Bob Costas and Ahmad Rashad getting airtime with the peacock logo on their blazers, Chick Hearn still calling the shots, the then newly built Staples Center when the 300s section and the rest of the damn arena was lit up and a just barely legal 21-year-old Kobe Bryant rocking the Afro with his signature Adidas sneakers. This was the last finals game where they won at home court. The next 3 they won at Philadelphia, New Jersey, and Orlando. Confetti was flying and riots were all abroad outside at Figueroa St. and downtown Los Angeles (I don't know whether to compare that years riots to this past years riots). You won't find that game ever played again on a network, unless if you have a friend who's been a devoted Laker's fan since Elgin Baylor and Jerry West played in the Sports Arena before going to the Forum that taped that game. The only other alternative to watch that game is the internet, which is fine but I can't dig the slow frame rate there.
Wall Street is another film that I've been wanting to see for the past two months. Michael Douglas plays the antagonist in the film along with Charlie and Martin Sheen as the Co-stars. You can't find it on the internet. I couln't find it at Target or the Best Buys in my area. But I'll just keep looking and I'll get it once I'll see it. Again they rarely show that movie on TV.
So today I was supposed to be at a meeting with a couple of job developers to find out why I haven't been working for the past year around 10:00AM. I ditched it because I wanted to see the Michael Jackson memorial, which SHOULD'VE took place at at larger venue like the Rose Bowl where he preformed at halftime during Super Bowl XXVII in 1993 or the Coliseum where 90,000 plus people filled the place for the Lakers championship rally after the parade last month.
And it was worth missing the meeting.
They had two memorials that day: a private one in Forest Lawn cemetery at Griffith Park and a public one at Staples Center. In order to get to the public one, you had to register for the tickets at the Staples Center website, and out of 1.6 million people that entered, they randomly selected 18,000 people to witness the event. I registered the second they announced the web address at last weeks press conference at LA Live. Knowing that there was gonna be a shitload of web traffic, I had to use two computers and my brothers Playstation Portable to get through. Unfortunately I didn't get selected, but those who did had this emotion as if their child was the first one in the family to graduate from college with honors or if Sir Richard Branson (the billionaire who owns Virgin) gave everyone in England a Jaguar or a C300. Hell that ticket is so powerful, that the bids for these on ebay went for more than a 2 room house in Arleta, and people bidded on them regardless of the price.
Every channel you can think of televised this special. This event was to honor and show support for a worldwide entertainer that shut down the internet for half an hour and had his albums literary sellout everywhere after his death was announced. Despite being held at a 20,000 seat venue, the memorial went very great. It was like going to church as I was watching. A lot of famous people came and gave their share of their experience with Michael.
-Magic Johnson's speech was the most amusing, along with Kobe Bryant who's speech was the only one I missed because I was upstairs. He left out Joe Jackson's name while he was thanking the family and plugged Kentucky Fried Chicken that shot up its stock in the New York Stock Exchange like crazy a few seconds later.
-Jennifer Hudson looked really fantastic, even though she's pregnant thanks to David "Punk" Acuna from VH1's I Love New York, and I haven't seen her performed since this years' Super Bowl.
-Brooke Shields should've brought Emmanuel Lewis on stage with her.
-Al Sharpton still did his thing.
-I'm surprised that Berry Gordy is still alive. He should buy Motown back from Universal Music Group and sign that kid from Britians got Talent.
-They threw every religious symbol on the same screen during the "We are the World" performance which I thought it was awkward.
The ending was where it really went down. Michael's daughter, 11 year old Paris Katherine Jackson, spoke publically for the first time ever. If I was there I would've brought out the waterworks after she thanked her father. Honestly that was very powerful, possibly the highlight of the whole show that pundits and critics are talk about for a long time. Again, the man is a very special entertainer. The last time I can recall an event this great was Princess Diana's memorial back in 1997. He's gonna be greatly missed.
No comments:
Post a Comment