The Beat It NYC Dancers perform a strangely familiar piece at the NYC Dance Parade

One must give credit where credit is due, Beat It NYC does Michael Jackson almost as well as Michael did.    Beat It NYC is a volunteer group of dancers who perform the late King of Pop’s signature dance moves, you know: the ones you practiced in your living room while MTV blared in the background.  The ones you could never do, even if you had several tendons and ligaments cut to make you more limber.

In all honesty, I hated Michael Jackson’s music in the 80′s, my Sister played Thriller incessantly.  (Not because she liked it so much, rather it was a great way to piss me off!  Ask her, she will tell you!)  Then Michael went weird on us in the 90′s, well weirder,  displaying a fondness for children that most folk find just a little too fond.   After his death his music, rather than his eccentricities,  take center stage as his legacy and for the first time I find myself LIKING the music.  I see why it was so amazingly popular and why people would gather to recreate his iconic videos.

Perhaps this is all we can hope for, that our talent outshines our oddities.  I would like to think the legacy to the world I leave behind is not a predilection for Irish alcohol and buggering up my life every seven years, but the strange and beautiful moments I’ve witnessed preserved.  If not, I suppose it is never to late to learn to Moonwalk.