You didn't even know me. But others knew me through you.

How? The name's Jackson. Two celebrities helped folks get through to me on the phone, as a reporter and editor.

"What's that, Johnson?" a caller would ask. "Jackson, I'd say. Like Michael Jackson."

Then they'd get it. "Oh."

The other celeb I relied on was less corporeal.

"What's that? Mark?"

"No, Bart. Like Bart Simpson."

"Oh, yeah."

Other than a name, we had something in common. It was the music and the dancing. You were on top, a master of the music since you were a young pup. To the world's acclaim.

I was a nobody fan. But how I danced (badly), to no one's acclaim, except to the audience in my fantasies.

We both started young.

The first I can recall was performing like crazy to my older siblings' records. Elvis, Little Richard, and my mom's Bobby Darin records. Oh yeah, Michael, you should've seen me with my imaginary microphone in front of a $40 record player, knocking 'em dead with Jailhouse Rock, Tutti Frutti, and, still one of my all-time faves, Beyond the Sea (La Mer). I mention the French translation only because it was on the label and was the first francaise I'd ever known other, I guess, than bonjour.

You would have been proud, Michael. I had so many cool moves, played to no one, of course, in the privacy of a living room that would suddenly go still if any one of my family walked in. But how the fans went wild. In my dreams, they still do.

But, as the Bible says, we put away childish things, eventually.

But you didn't. And you went through some hellish things, with a demanding family and demanding fans. Real fans.

Childish things. Well, confession here, I didn't put them away either.

Because when you came out with Thriller and increased your fan base to the millions, I listened and danced and sang along, in the privacy of my room, to hordes of fans.

It was 1982. Geez, I was 30! I'd gone through youth performing Beatles' tunes to screaming girls; The Who welcomed me to their stage when Roger Daltrey was ill.

What the hell was I doing performing to the imaginary multitudes in my adulthood?

Well, Michael, as you know, some of us never grow up. I seduced Billie Jean, fancy-stepped to Thriller, thrilled 'em all, and like our heroine, Judy Garland, said, we stayed all night and we sang 'em all.

So thanks for the memories. And never think, wherever you are, that you were alone on stage, or in life, or in your craziness. I don't share some of your, um, eccentricities, but I share your dream.

Difference is, you lived it.

Gotta go now. Clapton's waiting for me to perform. Hafta show him a few guitar licks. And sing and dance, of course; he's never been up to our standards.

The audience is waiting, they're going wild.

And soon, Michael, we'll be on stage together for that comeback concert you never gave.