Spike Lee's Brooklyn Block Party for Michael!

Spike Lee's birthday party for Michael today in Brooklyn

THIS is what a REAL tribute is supposed to be. As nice as it was, forget the memorial service. Forget the magazines. Forget all of it. What happened today in Brooklyn was like a mass movement of JOY and LOVE and HARMONY, all in the name of Michael Jackson. Every single person there (and there were thousands -- was feeling the MJ love, and it was pure. For real. Old people, young people, every color, shape, and persuasion imaginable, and all of them were FEELING IT, big time. No one was there for a photo op. There was no drama, no fighting, no nonsense -- just love and music and dancing. Michael was truly CELEBRATED and it felt so good.

This is before things started to fill up. As you can see, we did have rain, but it wasn't a disaster. Mike would've approved of all the umbrellas.

About 30 minutes in, Spike Lee came out and we all sang along to "Here Comes the Sun" (one of a small handful of non-MJ songs that were played), and what do you know? The rain stopped, and a bit later, the sun came out. Amazing! I'd like to think that George Harrison and Michael conspired together on that bit of magic from wherever they are now.

Click to expand...

DJ Spinna and Spike Lee on the stage. Spike kept it totally real -- he was pretty much up there the whole time, dancing and singing and celebrating right along with us.

And then...Tracy Morgan came out to say hello! He hung out up there for most of the day, too.

SINGALONG TIME, MASS-KARAOKE-STYLE!

Click to expand...

The Rev. Al Sharpton delivered a beautiful (and celebratory) eulogy , then led the entire crowd in silent prayer. It's a rare moment.

CRAZY-AMAZING MOMENT OF THE DAY: During "Butterflies", several monarch butterflies actually swooped down over the front of the crowd. NO JOKE. Everyone saw them. One in particular was hanging around a lot, and we're pretty sure it was Michael.

Click to expand...

Ed Lover (!) acted as hype man for much of the day, and he really did a fantastic job. It's not easy keeping thousands of people active and singing for FIVE HOURS STRAIGHT, but he managed to keep us all in line. In the last hour, he had us going with a call-and-response chant that became like an out-of-body experience for me after spending the whole day dancing (and sweating, and screaming).

Fab 5 Freddy (!!!) came out on stage for a minute, but I didn't have a chance to get a picture of him, unfortunately.

The set ended with a "Man in the Mirror" singalong that left me in tears. Then, since there were still a couple of minutes left on the clock before the Parks Dept shut us down, Spike said we were going to do a "Brooklyn Do-Over" (hah)...so we did it all over again.

Click to expand...

SeanK said:

Are there any videos from this tribute? I have been searching and haven't found any so far, but heard it was very successful. I live in Indiana and opted to stay home in my town instead of even attanding the Gary celebration which I heard had a great turn out too, because even my own town had a MJ Day celebration. I bet there were little and big gatherings all over the world. How can they not see that the people have spoken in support of an official MJ Day?!?

Click to expand...

PrincessLNJ said:

evenmore

Click to expand...

LOL@ the Scarecrow...It looks like soo much Love and Fun...I hope its gonna be like that on Sept 6th...