TerikKing.com

As a creative person with a perfectionist streak, there are few things more daunting to me than the whiteness and space of the blank page. That is part of what keeps me from blogging – the gnawing anxiety surrounding the blankness of that page and whether or not I can fill it with something that communicates exactly what I wish to communicate in a manner which honors the time it takes for someone, anyone, to consume what I have created. This goes a long way toward explaining why this post, the first in over a year, and one which I promised to a couple of friends on my birthday (November 9^th), is finally seeing the light of day some 16 days later.

The fact is that it has taken me each and every one of those days to sort out and get a handle on exactly how I am feeling on this occasion, and the most effective way to express it. As it happens, it is a very wide mix of emotions.

First – don’t bother trying to count the candles on the cake.  The number is off. I won’t talk about my age. But I will say that it is an age that has cemented the idea for me of being “grown.” Complete, in a manner of speaking.

For the birthdays of the 13 years preceding this one, the day has caused a bit of trauma for me. It seemed to be this kinetically-driven, unstoppable occurrence that “happened to” me – completely involuntarily. The passage of the 13 years prior to this one have, in my most personal heart of hearts (although my “game face” has generally remained intact in public) felt like a freight train being pulled by a locomotive at full throttle heading downhill, helped along by gravity, dragging me behind it.  I wanted to stop it, to slow it down, to somehow get it moving at a speed that made me feel “comfortable,” and that didn’t make me feel as though I was somehow missing the beautiful vistas on the way because it was all just moving TOO DAMN FAST.  I was still gathering the building blocks of who I am, but that didn’t stop those pages from flipping off the calendar, I felt as though I were being told, “Hurry up. You’re getting farther along the route. You’re missing it.”  I, however, felt that I was still growing, developing, learning, “gestating.” In fact, when some people have said that they observe a Peter Pan-esque quality about me -- I “look younger” than I am, I “come off younger” – I never bothered to think about why that might be. Now it makes an odd sort of sense. Despite the numbers, I was still an entity under development. This year, this birthday, however, felt different.

For the first time in my life, I feel a complete sense of ownership over myself, my entire journey looking backward and my destiny looking forward. The pieces are in place; “development” is turning to actualization. I am not sure what brought this about. Perhaps it is the significance of the NUMBER of this birthday for me. Perhaps it is a delayed sense of pride and accomplishment in finishing the Master’s degree last year, despite all of the obstacles that could so easily have been prohibitive and gotten in the way.  Perhaps it has been the hard personal self-examination that I have undertaken in the last couple of years, underscored by certain personal interactions with certain individuals who not only effected a cognitive dissonance by undervaluing me personally, but also triggered enough of a disconnect from my own true essence as to cause me to question my OWN worth. Perhaps it is the evolution of my professional self that paralleled an evolution in my personal self, and the satisfaction and sense of pride and purpose that I derive from doing what I do. Perhaps it is all of these things, but one thing is clear: Terik, sir, you have ARRIVED. You are at full bloom. Congratulations. All things considered, getting here has been no small feat.  As someone I truly love said to me last month (before a public event I was very nervous about), “You are good. It’s time for you to OWN it.” I do. And I am thankful.

One of my favorite lines from Max Ehrmann’s “Desiderata” (the full text of which is posted on the wall near my bed so it is one of the first things I see when I awaken each day) is: “Take kindly the counsel of the years; gracefully surrendering the things of youth.” This year, in 2011, I surrender. And I am thankful.

I will continue to play the game of “How old do I Look?” with individuals who do not already KNOW the factual answer, and for that reason, I will not disclose my actual age on this website. (And I try not to on most others as well!) Many people whom I meet socially do not understand why I usually dodge the (seemingly simple) question “how old are you?” and often they react with suspicion, frustration and sometimes even contempt. What those people do not understand is that my formative years were spent firmly and totally under the influence of show business, in an era where a performer simply does NOT reveal his/her age. It simply wasn’t DONE. I recognize that eras shift, time changes, etiquette softens and society seems to become increasingly coarse and tends to toss away certain mores – this polite refusal to discuss such matters as one’s age, sexual proclivities, income, etc. – become “old-fashioned.” I’ll take that on. Call me old fashioned, but some things are, and will remain, none of people’s business. I’ll shoot and produce reality shows (and have a fantastic time doing them, usually), but if you ever see me APPEAR in one, know that I am either (a) desperate for money or (b) somehow mentally incapacitated. I am a private person. I own that, too. So given that stance against the backdrop of a media world where the beast needs to be fed, and everyone expects to not only enjoy the CREATION, but consume the world of the CREATOR as well (no more of that “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!” shit), why would I blog? What is there to share?

There is a reason. It has suddenly become incumbent upon me to blog again because the suggestion was strongly made to me by a friend whom I greatly respect. For nearly two years now, I have been on a journey that I could never have foreseen by any stretch of the imagination. This friend has watched me on this journey from the very first step, when I approached him and asked, “Do you think I should make this a documentary?” I thought I should, and for nearly two years now, I have been. About a month ago, this friend checked in with me and said, “You should really chronicle the process of making this film. This is changing you.” I had been thinking the same thing, but hearing it from someone else drove it home; he was right. As it is a subject that requires an entry of its own to begin chronicling this life-changing experience, I will save more detail for the next entry. Suffice it to say that I will never be the same after I finish this project. THAT is what I am willing to share. This is changing me. I am being forced to confront my own attitudes and biases, my own fears, and my own life experience via someone else’s life story. Further, I am keenly aware of the fact – every single day that I work on this project – that it is not about ME at all. It is about something larger than me, something that the world can, should, and will learn from. I am but a “surrogate mother” and temporary custodian of something that will eventually belong to the world and, hopefully, change that very world in some small and specific ways. It is an honor.  It is humbling. And the scope of the responsibility is terrifying at times. But as certainly as I know that my name is Terik King, I also know that tuning back isn’t an option.  I have been called, and I will answer. And I am thankful.

More later…

My goodness, it’s been a while. So…when last we checked in, 2009 was on it’s way out (thank heavens) and 2010 was about to start, I was still upset beyond belief at Michael Jackson’s death (and its aftermath, and what it all meant), I was reserving judgment about Barack Obama, even after my open letter to him was starting to sound prophetic, and I made 10 wishes for 2010. So before we get into the now, a look at how THOSE all turned out:

Wish # 10: didn’t happen. She's still there blathering away ...

whether anyone wants to hear it or not.

Wish #9: didn’t happen.

Wish #8:  Ugh…whatever.

Click to read more ...

A little bitchy & unsentimental in places, but here's where my head is as 2010 comes in.

My Top 10 wishes for 2010 are:

Click to read more ...

Yes, I know it's huge. You think something so large could be that way BY ACCIDENT?

At 12:01am on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, the lights dimmed at the Clelsea Cinemas Auditorium #7, as it did in 18,000 theatres across 97 countries today, and Michael Jackson's This Is It debuted for its limited two-week run. Of course, I had to be among the first to take it in, so there I was at Chelsea. I've been asked a lot to relate what the eperience was like for me, so here is my best stab at it.

Having gone into the film "well-medicated" (shout-out to the Texas-size margarita at BBQ's across the street) and not really knowing what to expect, either from the film or from myself, I just numbly walked in and found seats in the packed (but not to the rafters) theatre. I needed to hunt down a T-shirt, so i went back out into the theatre lobby where the Thriller video was playing on a large screen and a few "dancers" were awkwardly trying to replicate the choreography. It was out here that I ran into my compatriot DJ YGB, and I expected we'd sit together (but alas were separated). In any event, the energy was both parts somber and celebratory, probably leaning a bit more toward the former than the latter. So I get my t-shirt, and I slip back into the theatre just as the lights are going down.

As a student of the documentary form, I'm used to more information coming aross from this type of film. That a story, be it an individual (Michael's) or collective (the entire company's) one, a story will be told. At the beginning, This Is It started off satisfying those expectations by talking to some of the (so damn YOUNG!) dancers who had been selected to perform with him; it felt good.

And then...there he was.

Michael was launching into his rehearsal of Wanna Be Startin' Somethin.' I expected to gasp, to tear up, to break out into screams of joy or...whatever, but I didn't. We applauded in the theatre, but it was a tentative applause. It remained that way through the night. ("I don't know whether...to laugh or cry..." "She's Out of My Life")

For the next hour and 52 minutes, we watched Michael work. And work. And work. And he was phenomenal, but wasn't he always? Any idea that he was a weak, sickly, drug-addled near-invalid are dispensed with by the 5-minute mark. And then there is MORE footage of Michael working. And he is a wonder to watch, but I'll be honest: I expected nothing less. Michael has always been the master of his own house, and during rehearsals, the Staples Center was Michael's House. Nothing groundbreaking there.

I was also a bit disappointed in the set list. See, I have seen (and retain DVD copies of) all of Michael's tours dating back from the late 70s. While they have steadily grown in size and scale, the song lists themselves never evolved too far from the Victory Tour/Bad Tour formula (which was an phenomenal one).

One thing I always wished was that he would draw deeper from his immense body of work and shake up his set lists a bit more.

After I bought my ticket to see the first show in London, us ticket buyers were sent a link by AEG to submit suggested songs for his set list, and that MJ would make selections form the (millions of) suggestions received. I chose some phenomenal ones I haven't heard him do a gazillion times (I Can't Help It, The Lady In My Life, etc.) as well as th ehits, and was hopeful tha I'd be surprised when I got to London. I don't know if that was a stunt or what, but his order of songs felt like it wouldn't be much of a deviation from his HIStory tour in 1995. I would have loved to see him preparing to strip-down all the bells, whistles and pyrotechnics, sit on a stool, and absolutely open up his heart and serenade us with One Day In Your Life or something similarly underplayed. Judging from This Is It, that wasn't the plan. Michael was going to be Michael.

And MICHAEL he was. One thing was clear: he was going to kick the effects spectacular aspect of the show up to a level we had never seen before. At Chelsea where I viewed it, the audience GASPED at points where we saw reveals of some of the special effects he had planned. It was going to be extraordinary. As far as all the repeated mantras of "Michael Jackson set out to prove he still had it," and the like; I find these to be non-statements. Of course Michael "still had it." His true believers never concluded he had lost anything. If you needed This Is It to show you that, it's a reflection of your miscalculation of his "decline," not of any extraordinary action on Michael's part during these rehearsals. He was the Michael Jackson he's always been: focused, engaged, soft-spoken yet firmly in charge, apt to the artist's habit of metaphor, and, of course, a singular talent that is ONLY Michael Jackson. The brightest light I have ever seen.

And then it was over. Before I knew what had hit me, the credits were rolling. No situating the rehearsals against the now-too-keenly-known fact of his death. No "after words" with the cast/crew. Just rolling credits. I felt like that left a feeling of something "unresolved." As soon as that word came to mind for me, I immediately believed that this had to be a deliberate choice. It should have been left unresolved. Michael's life was left unresolved.

For all the talk (especially in that endlesly rebroadcast clip of Michael's April press conference) of this being Michael's "final curtain call," it hurt me somewhat when I realized that he didn't literally get a curtain call in This Is it - the planned London live shows or, as it turns out, this documentary. He never got to take a bow.

NEW YORK TIMES REVIEW OF THIS IS IT

When I was a kid, there was no TV series I'd loved more than V. From the original 1983 miniseries, to the sequel (the arguably better) V: The Final Battle in 1984, to the series which ran for a single season after Final Battle in 1984, I was a complete V-maniac.

I remember being in school and arguing with Ami Thorpe about who was uglier, and we'd hit below the belt when we called each other V's. In a way, I almost WANTED to be one of those lizards-on-the-DL. Diana the head lizard, Mike Donovan, Ham Tyler...those were my peeps.

When it was cancelled after the second season, I my childhood naivete came crumbling around me. "You mean, they just took it OFF?" I remember asking my father. I learned about cancellation of TV shows. I cried. Oh, the trauma!

DIANA: Who have they got that's badder than this?I know. I needed friends. But that ship has sailed....

So you'd think I'd be happy that ABC is bringing a - what? - a NEW V?

Hmmm....

I'm resisting the urge to sound curmodgeonly increasingly more often these days. (It ain't sexy.) And what could possibly sound more curmodgeonly than complaining about remakes of things because they were moments in time that "should be left alone." My recent beefs: the Dreamgirls film, the remake of Fame, all the damned Disney cartoon theatrical productions on Broadway, not to mention the CEASELESS Broadway dust-offs of 50-year old shows in lieu of exciting new theatrical properties...I could go on and on.... But again, don't want to sound curmodgeonly.

In the name of not being curmudgeonly, being "open" and all that jazz, I will watch the "new" V and give it a fair shot. But I will say this ahead of time: it'd BETTER BE GOOD.

Yes, the special effects in the 80s were hokey and somewhat primitive, and that advances in CGI and digital effects make it possible to do an extraordinary update of V. That would be the case with any of the aforementioned remakes as well. But for whatever reason, it appears that the greenlight guys and creative teams appear to rest on a misguided notion that the technology will carry it, without imagination and stories. That's when we get into trouble. It's also a bad idea to be so (perhaps arrogantly) enamored with the "newness" of their production that they fail to draw upon legacy characters from preceding productions which would only add dimension to the "continuation" of the story which they are building upon.  (In this case, the "new" V, Diana should be a Leader Emeritus a'la' Joan Collins.)

If you're going to mine history because (perhaps) there is a dearth of new ideas in today's dumbed-down talent pool, it would be unwise to insult the original audience (whose memory of the original remains intact) with the attitude that the story in which they became invested is as good as never having happened, and that now they should become invested in your version because...well...it's new. Hopefully one day one of these remake producers will absorb that simple lesson.

But don't let me be the judge. (at least not solely.)

Take a look at the "new," and then the old. Improvement? Bastardization of the past? Guess I'll find out Tuesday at 8.

THE NEW ABC V TRAILER

THE ORIGINAL RECAP FOR NBC's V: THE FINAL BATTLE