Who wouldn’t be rendered speechless meeting Mike Tyson in the loo?
Michael Jackson owed thousands of fans refunds for the exorbitant tickets they bought to watch him perform. With screaming, sweaty fans waiting for hours for his Gloved Majesty, he would tease them by letting them hear that signature heartbeat from Smooth Criminal for about five seconds. The screaming would go up 20 decibels. Then he’d make them wait another 15 minutes.
Finally, the lights in the stadium would go off. After about a minute of darkness — and screaming —a spotlight would zone in on the roof. He would appear from the heavens, descending à la the Son of Man during the Second Coming.
Fifty-eight people would faint. Landing on stage, he’d stand motionless, hands on hips, for 90 seconds while a further 41 screamers passed out. Then, with a “whoop”, he’d change posture, outstretched leg, gloved hand on his hat, wiping out another 36 of the frenzied mob. If you haven’t watched Live in Bucharest on DVD, you won’t get what I’m on about. If you have, you’ll remember the youngsters being carried out of the arena by medics.
Imagine the conversation afterwards between a struggling Romanian pig farmer and his daughter after he’d sold a boar, a sow and three piglets to raise the $100 (about R1,800) for her ticket.
“How was the concert?”
“It was the greatest show I ever saw.”
“Tell me all about it.”
“I didn’t see much. I was being given CPR in the medical emergency tent.”
“Annie, are you OK? In the head?” The adoration of public figures is as old as our species. Imagine in 765AD there was a woman called Nomazalela living in present-day Jozini who could make hens and cockerels lay eggs just by staring at them. Word spread and soon women with fertility challenges were travelling from Mesopotamia to consult her. I doubt she was able to walk out of her hut without being accosted by hordes of people on their knees, begging her bodyguards to let them touch the hem of her dress.
Idolatry is as human as forgetting your banking app password (that you changed last week) and being able to rap along to the opening theme of
The Fresh Prince of Bel Air . Heck, poor Moses went up Mount Sinai for a little Sho’t Left to write a bestseller and returned to find the children of Israel fainting and throwing panties at a golden calf.
Before you judge the Michael Jackson fainting goats and golden calf worshippers, take a moment and reflect that you probably have idols who would render you hysterical if you met them. My mother, who was happily married to my father for 50 years, would probably have eloped with Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole or Elvis Presley if they’d asked her. And she’d be eternally grateful if I took her to Graceland. Thank God they’re all dead. But I worry about her running into Sir Cliff Richard.
And if you wagered that I was immune to the cancer of fawning over high-profile figures, you’d have wasted your money. I once ran into Wole Soyinka during the Cape Town Book Fair and I was reduced to a blabbering fool. I don’t even know what I said to him. But he kept looking at me with worry in his eyes, concerned about my mental health. Fortunately, Pallo Jordan appeared and rescued him from me.
This sad, embarrassing scene repeated itself the evening I ran into Mike Tyson at the urinals at Emperor’s Palace. One second I was aiming my heated stream at the heap of ice cubes and the next I looked and there he was; the former Baddest Man on the Planet. I was, again, completely overwhelmed. I tried to think of something so profound and simultaneously witty that he’d have no choice but to say to me: “You’re really thmart and funny. I think I’ll take you with me back to the Thtayths.”
That didn’t happen. Whatever I said, he looked at me the same way you’d look at a man wearing a nappy on his head as he walked down Grayston Drive yelling: “I’m the terrorist you were warned about.”I hope that whatever I said to Iron
Mike, I didn’t say: “I’ve eaten ears as well. Pork ears, actually.”
Idolatry is as human as forgetting your banking app password (that you changed last week) and being able to rap along to the opening theme of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air