whatever happens » michael jackson

76

[Bad era]

The work was extensive, expensive, and all around exhausting.

We'd wake up at 9 AM, decent enough I'd say, then we'd begin by warming up for around an hour at the least, making sure our voices were well enough to rehearse this day, then we'd rehearse individually in our own rooms with our personal coaches for around two hours, then as soon as midday strikes we'd be at it again, scurrying around as we try our best to be on time with the makeup artists and stylists, prepping us up as much as they possibly could in such little time, and then, the most dreaded moment of all, we'd be hopping on stage in our designated places, awaiting the king of pop, Michael Jackson, to appear in front of us and begin to amaze us as we sang backup for him.

Now you'd think it would be an incredible and awe-inspiring experience to work alongside him, but in reality, it was the nastiest thing you could probably do in your career.

This man wasn't just a perfectionist, he was deadly perfectionist. He'd make you stand up for three hours, singing your heart out, only to stop fifteen minutes before it all ends, just cause he felt like it didn't sound right, and get you to re-rehearse the entire thing all over again.

He'd stop singing abruptly and start waving his hands in disagreement just because someone went slightly off key, and then he'd make us all repeat the entire mini-concert.

Someone would fumble on his words, forgetting the lyrics once, and he'd have you restart from the beginning. Some people found it admirable, but I found it plain annoying. However, I found him incredibly pleasant as a person, once you're offstage, and that kept me going for a decent while.

So you'd imagine how I felt when all of the above had happened on the same day, and we extended our rehearsals to 12 hours. My throat was hurting, my legs were aching, I hadn't eaten since the morning, and I felt like steam was rising out of my ears. Of course, none of my colleagues wanted to speak up, being the ridiculous kiss-asses they were.

I was finally beginning to dream of my bed, when I suddenly went off key due to my parched throat. I prayed that he wouldn't notice, but alas, the man had a keen ear for that stuff. He whipped around, met my guilty eyes, and waved at Greg and the musicians to stop.

"What's wrong Mike?" Greg asked in a concerned tone.

"Can we repeat the whole thing? Someone went off key," he pointed to the back, leaving me concealed.

My blood grew hot and I held myself back from smacking him, so I did the second most irrational thing.

"Are you freaking serious?" I yelled into the mic, my eyes wide in disbelief, causing him to whip around in shock to my cracking voice.

I really needed some water.

"Girl, just drop it," one of the guys whispered in my ear, "You'll lose your job."

"Does this look like someone who cares?" I croaked out, pointing at myself sarcastically as the entire crew heard me, "This man is insane, we've been at this for 13 and a half hours and he wants us to comply to his every need? Now that is being a douchebag, not a perfectionist," I snorted a little, looking to my right to find a rather hurt-looking Michael.

I instantly felt bad, but not for long, because he should consider others before caring about his needs and wants.

"Am I really that much of a bad person?" he asked in his soft sweet accent, causing me to sweat a little at that question.

Now in all honesty, I've always admired his brilliant personality, and his sweet demeanor, but that doesn't prevent the fact that he'd been a pain in the behind for the past while. So you could say that I had a bit of a predicament while answering his question.