I grew up in the newspaper business—my parents owned and operated the newspaper of record in American Samoa, the Samoa News, and later on, the Samoa Journal. I came out of my mother's womb and immediately got smeared with newspaper ink when my father held me in his arms. I started as a paper boy at the spry age of 3, moved onto become a typist at 9, and by high school, I was designing ads, laying out, and collating newspapers. Later on, I even edited and wrote stories, as well as opinion editorials.

We didn't have a web press or automatic folding machine, so we had to manually fold, collate, and insert the actual pages of the newspaper. It was an arduous task and took all night. But it was fun by virtue of the communal nature of things: We didn't sleep the night of production, but we played music while we folded the newspaper, we laughed, I got to watch my older brother develop photos in the makeshift darkroom, and the blur of pages landing on top of each other at the front of the press formed a kind of visual rorschach test that still lingers in my memory. We drank coffee (in my case, soda—I wasn't allowed to drink coffee), and in general, got lost in the rhythms of the offset sheet press that gave birth to the printed word via newsprint. It was hard work but rewarding because of the fun we had collectively putting the paper to bed as a team.

On one particular night in 1985, my brother and I were working another one of those overnights folding papers, when this song came on—this beautiful, amazing song. It immediately caught my attention. It had all the hallmarks of a classic. A lullabye intro with lush pads, hooks and inner hooks and a catchy verse melody and a catchy prechorus melody and then more hooks on top of that and a huge chorus that never quit. It even had guest appearances by all the biggest musical stars at the time: Lionel Richie, Cyndi Lauper, Huey Lewis, Bruce Springsteen, and legends like Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, and more. Of course, most of you know the song I am referring to: We Are the World. Quincy Jones produced it, and It was written by Lionel Richie and, yes, the King of Pop, Michael Jackson.

I remember hearing Michael Jackson's part come fairly early in the song, right after Diana Ross' voice trails off with the words, "we're saving our own lives," just as Michael's satin falsetto seamlessly merges with hers in harmony before taking the first chorus by himself, gently, smoothly, caressing the now-famous hook in only the way that he could. The radio station played that song at least 20 times that night, probably 3 or 4 times an hour. I knew most of the words by daybreak, and to this day, it remains one of those childhood musical markers for me, a moment in time placed in a capsule of my choosing to be opened whenever I feel the need to revisit things from a bygone era. I break out "We Are the World" when I need a karaoke show-stopper (I can still do relatively decent fascimiles of all the singers who performed the song), or simply when I want to feel the warmth and nostalgia of my childhood, smell the newsprint, and feel the ink stick to my fingers as my brother snores underneath the table sneaking a nap before the next round of papers is ready to be inserted.

Almost 25 years later, I will get the chance to sing this song from my childhood (and others from the MJ catalog) at Michael's memorial service at the Staples Center today, Tuesday, July 7th. I'll be singing as part of the Andrae Crouch Gospel Choir, and we'll be providing the spiritual backbone of the services. The Andrae Crouch Choir in the 80s and 90s sang on MJ records like Man in the Mirror, Heal the World, and even on a Madonna tune, the gospel-tinged Like a Prayer.

It's 12:38 a.m., and I just got back from rehearsal at the Staples Center. They're expecting roughly 700,000 people flooding downtown LA for this event. It's been a whirlwind couple of days in rehearsals for this service, and I got the opportunity to see some of my childhood idols soundcheck this afternoon and evening. A quick Google search will let you know the performers, so I won't list them here, but for one: Stevie Wonder. At soundcheck today, he left me in tears performing a two-song medley on acoustic grand by himself. His voice devastated me, and I just cannot say enough about the strength and power and beauty and special quality that Stevie has in person. It is in the sacred vibrations of music by artists like Stevie Wonder that we normal-folk are allowed to glimpse the divine. I cried, and for a few minutes, an entire auditorium full of jaded, entertainment industry veterans who have seen it all, heard it all, been everywhere....paused and listened. And this was after several other prominent artists had taken the stage earlier. I know, I'm a broken record...bla, bla, bla, bla Steve Wondier is god, bla, bla, bla, bla. But it was that good.

I'll try to post more of my thoughts and recap after Tuesday is over. Pundits everywhere are pontificating about his death, the role he played in shaping his own controversial image over the years, and in the midst of all that chatter, it's easy to forget that at the end of the day, he was just like you and me: a person, a suffering human being, someone who wanted only happiness. I'm not privy to Michael's life in any way, but I will say this—the dancers, the musicians, the techs—all of them exude a kind of loyalty and this sense of loss that could only have been the result of a former boss whose interactions with them must have been in some way like those with family. I'm focused, honored, and humbled to be a part of this moment in time, and yet any potential excitement I'm feeling is tempered by the collective sadness that seemed to fill Staples Center today and the prospect of saying goodbye to MJ, to Michael, the King of Pop—Michael Jackson—a major musical influence from my childhood.

Thanks, Michael, for the musical memories. I hope you've found the peace you sought and that we all deserve some day.

PS Hulu is streaming the Memorial Service. I've embedded the stream at the top of the page for those of you with fast internet connections. Peace and blessings.