A Nation in Anguish

When I walked down the streets of Iran this morning I witnessed a country in agony. The King of Pop was dead. You could read it in all of their faces. They were obviously mourning... heads hung low... in the distance you could hear a protest, and if you listened hard enough you could barely discern the beats from the song Dangerous... blasting loudly. It sounded like gun fire, an odd metaphor for how they were dealing with the death of Michael Jackson.

My first interview was with a young man, 26 years old, just the right age, growing up with the sounds of Michael Jackson consistently in his ears. This is what he told me:

"Michael Jackson? Yeah, I love Michael Jackson. Bad, that album was just incredible, I mean I remember when I first saw the video for the song, that Scorsese piece, just blew my mind when I watched the full thing. I would point to that album and say that it really shaped my youth."

A nice man, I asked if there was anything else he wished to say:

"Yeah, Iran's democracy is in shambles and while I really do enjoy the music of Michael Jackson, I really hope that some people out there remember what we are..."

At this point I turned off the recorder. The ramblings of a young man dealing with the death of a pop icon.