Maybe showers remind me, of psycho too much!

This may sound like a fanciful tale, and unnecessary detail at the beginning of the post, but it is all true and does have a point. Back in the early 1980s, resulting from a quirk in my parents' employment, I lived in the Far East, on the island of Borneo. A wonderful place to spend your childhood I can assure you. Anyway, this period also corresponded with the development of my own keen enthusiasm for music, but also with the rise of Michael Jackson from teen pop sensation to global superstar with the monster that was Thriller, and all it unleashed for him and the world. Being a slight commercial backwater we used to get a lot of our music tapes from the Chinese markets, and what I now know, but didn't at the time, is that many of these tapes were black market pirate copies. Hence my earliest versions of albums sometimes featured bizarrely translated song titles (Hum And Nature anyone) and some confusing track listings. One of these quirks came with the procurement of an album, ostensibly by Jackson himself, but which actually turned out to be the full album "Somebody's Watching Me" by Rockwell.

Now then, of course we all know the tune itself, and it is a gem of sorts, but it has always intrigued me as to who the hell Rockwell actually was, and why after such a global smash, he virtually disappeared. And also, how did this one-hit guy get the biggest star on the planet to sing on his record, thus guaranteeing him a smash-hit. Well now I know and the truth is more interesting than I had hoped. Rockwell, real name Kennedy William Gordy, son of Motown supreme Berry Gordy, step-child of Diana Ross, half-sister to Ross' daughter and now actress Rhonda Ross Kendrick, brother-in-law to Jermaine Jackson, and clearly a friend of Michael himself, friendly enough to persuade him and Jermaine to do backing vocals. But not any more it would seem, as Rockwell was last heard of testifying against Jackson at his 2005 child molestation trials. And it gets even weirder, with Rockwell alleging that the entire song was about Jackson and his behaviour around children, and as seen through the eyes of a child, with the video itself also a metaphor for Jackson's behaviour.

Now I don't know if you have seen the video recently but it is absolutely hilarious, and features amongst other things a half-zombie mailman, a pig-dog, Rockwell showering with his boxer shorts on and a variety of ghoulish characters. Kind of like a really bad attempt at achieving the chills of the Thriller video. Now I am not commenting in any way about the trial or allegations, or making light of them, but when I read the quotes from the court case I had to chuckle. Here is the best; ""All those shots you see of me hiding in the closet, or standing in the shower with my boxers on, or running through the house trying to get away from that pig-dog, that's all Michael," said Rockwell. "Seriously. You wouldn't believe the stories I used to hear about him in the studio. My little nephew said every time he turned around Michael was sneaking up on him, dropping a bar of soap and asking him to pick it up, that sort of shit.Thank God by the time I recorded the song with him I already had my pubes, that's all I'm saying". Check it out on youtube and I suppose you can make up your own mind. Or you can just ignore all that and enjoy the creative peak of Kennedy William Gordy. Just don't bother with the full album. No*really!