The Time I Almost Killed Myself Trying to Do Michael Jackson’s Lean
I’m a huge Michael Jackson fan. Huge. Nowadays, being a “huge” Michael Jackson fan just means being a literal fatass listening to “Billie Jean” while eating Cool Ranch Doritos — but back in the day when I was like nine years old “huge” meant me literally trying to sing his songs and perform his moves and me completely fucking it up.
This is not exclusive to me.
Who didn't try to dance like Michael? Who didn’t throw on a pair of church socks, run to the kitchen, and then slip & slide backward trying their damnedest to emulate the GOAT? And mom, just in case you were wondering why my socks had so many damn holes in them — that is why. I burned holes in them doing half-ass Moonwalks in the kitchen and on the wooden dining room floor while I waited for my Ramen Noodles to cook.
Sorry!
Anyway, most of my uncoordinated ass dancing was harmless stuff but in the fall of 1988, I damn near met my maker trying to be like Michael Joseph Jackson. The music video for “Smooth Criminal” came on. And as usual, Michael Jackson…almost always the weirdest MFcker in the room…once again managed to also be the coolest MFcker in the room.
My eyes were big and the butterflies in my stomach did backflips off my liver as I watched the Man in the Mirror deliver the smoothest damn dance choreography I have ever seen. Dressed in a white suit & tie with a blue blood pressure armband around his arm, he kicked and screamed and gyrated in pants that were like 4 sizes too short. It just amazed me how he could dress like a thrift shop mannequin and still manage to be one baddest fucking dudes around. And up until that point, I was content with all the moves. I was storing every little thing in my memory bank for me to try in the kitchen later in my church socks while heating up my Pop-Tarts.
…but then he did the lean.
And remember, I’m only nine damn years old. I’m not knowing this dude got like some secret shoes on that enabled him to do this shit. All I see is this crispy, cleanly dressed dude dancing his ass off with sequenced socks and THEN shutting the whole gawd damn game down with this incredible gravity-defying lean. It was amazing!
Immediately in my incredibly naive mind filled with terrible ideas, I conjured up the worst idea of them all. Right there, in the front room, the room my mama told me to stay my little ass out of, I danced and spun around trying to recall from memory every move I saw Michael hit in that video. I mimicked the beat with my mouth like, “Dum-dum-dada-dumdum…dada-dumdum…dada-dum-dum!” I sang the only damn part I knew like, “Eddie are you ok! Are you ok, Eddie?” Only to realize years later that he wasn’t saying Eddie at all. It was some chick Annie who clearly must’ve been injured. How she hurt herself? I dunno. Maybe from dancing like my dumb ass.
Regardless. Everything was going well. Or well enough. Then I went into the lean.
I leaned forward slowly. I was already top-heavy from having a big ass head and an afro that hadn’t been cut in like two months. And the further I leaned, the more I realized that this was not how it looked in the video. Yet, I couldn’t stop myself — I just had to keep going. And so I did. I leaned. And leaned. Until I lost my center of gravity…slipped…and went crashing headfirst into the wooden floor model TV sitting on the floor watching me make a gawd damn fool of myself.
And mind you, those of age recall how big these damn TVs were. They weren’t no little rinky-dink Vizio smart TV from Walmart that you could pick up with one hand. These big MFckin floor model TVs had weight, dawg. I meant it took two people and a crossing guard just to get these damn things into the house.
Needless to say, I busted my damn lip something fierce. Luckily, that’s all I did. Had my dumb, uncoordinated ass leaned a little further right, I would have hit the corner of that TV head on and I would most certainly not be here typing this story to you right now. Instead, I’d be dead…haunting some innocent Taco Bell restaurant for eternity or something.
But my injuries were minimal. My pride was bruised. And the TV? That big ass TV was fine. But my short life flashed before my eyes that day…and I will never forget it. I wish I could say I never attempted to do the lean again. But I did. Sometimes my persistence can be my worst enemy. And to this day, dad bod and all, I can't seem to resist myself when I hear “Smooth Criminal” come on — I just HAVE to do the lean.
The only difference is instead of the TV almost killing me, I’d probably kill the TV.
