I have never shared the collective American dream of “going to Hollywood.” Despite my interests in acting, writing, film, and film music, there has never been a strong enough allure to the excitement of Tinseltown to make me want to move there. I sooner associate southern California with a congested population, high crime, and some downright crazy residents.

But the allure of a “specialized” arts journalism program at the University of Southern California was enough to get me to consider moving out to Los Angeles. The graduate program awards a master’s degree in a mere nine months, and is tailored around the corner of the arts of my choice (film music, to no one’s surprise). Emphasizing entrepreneurial and technologically forward-thinking approaches to journalism—and integrating music and film music studies at the very epicenter of the industry—this rather niche opportunity was too good to ignore. And though one of the very reasons I applied, the university’s prestige was also a major reason I did not expect to get in. It was, all along, a bit of a Hollywood dream in itself.

And then, this time last year, I was accepted. The day I found out—I was at my favorite German restaurant in Tampa with my then-fiancé and future in-laws—was one of the most thrilling personal news days of my life. I was flattered that this “big name” school wanted me in this incredible program, and especially touched that one of the professors gave me a personal phone call to inform me. I was so flattered, in fact, that I nearly flew in the face of my concurrent “stay out of debt at all costs” Financial Peace education by taking out the $50,000 in student loans necessary to pay for tuition…an action that I would have derided with venomous disdain only a few weeks earlier.

Thanks to the counsel of some sage figures in our lives, my wonderfully grounded fiancé and I decided not to wager our future in such a high-stakes gamble, and I deferred my application for another year. When the new spring rolled around and I was again accepted into the program, I was glad of the news—but I knew that the real kicker was finding out whether I would receive the tuition-waiving, stipend-awarding fellowship. I wasn’t nominated for the fellowship last year, and was keenly aware that my chances were slim. But Alison and I determined that we would not pursue this dream unless it was funded by something other than our uncertain future earnings.

Last week the professor—who phoned me in 2010 about my acceptance—called me again, this time letting me know that I had been awarded the fellowship. My dream, skeptically expected, cautiously postponed, had been generously granted.

Now all negative thoughts about Hollywood and southern California are crowded out with visions of sitting at the feet of master professors, attending film scoring sessions, working up-close with my favorite composers, advancing my education as a journalist, and taking a serious leap towards a career as a writer. Now I’m just like all those other crazy fools, salivating at the thought of the big white letters perched atop the Hollywood Hills—breathless to chase down my dream in that most stereotypical place where they’re said to come true.

Music, as an industry, is in a state of dramatic flux. With the nuclear fallout of physical formats and the stratospheric rise of digital downloads and streaming (legal and otherwise), both artists and the suits around them are having to adapt to a radically new paradigm than the one that’s been in place for generations.

As a walkman-era kid, whose appetite for music was cultivated during the peak of the compact disc, I tend to prefer a physical format, a handsome set of album notes, a hard copy of the music I buy. I’m also a Jesus-follower with an attorney for a brother, so I tend to prefer the legal acquisition of music (though, even for me, loopholes and excuses are easy to come by).

Those qualities being as they are, I am an enormous fan of free, legal, streaming music services—particularly Grooveshark. Since discovering Grooveshark a year or so ago, I have located several albums (including hard-to-find film scores), created playlists, shared music links with others, and listened to some particular albums ad nauseum. It is a great service, and while the selection occasionally leaves me wanting, I am continually impressed with what has been uploaded by other users (the trick is often knowing how to search—something I am beginning to master—and culling the tracks for complete albums from various sources).

I think that artists (and record companies as well, though I have less empathy for their plight) ought to be thankful for free services like Grooveshark. 30-second clips on Amazon MP3 or iTunes are rarely enough evidence for me when I’m considering purchasing an album. But when I can listen to a full album in (to my ears) wonderful quality, as many times as I like—thus getting the opportunity to really live with the music, which most good music nearly demands—I can be convinced to buy a good album.

It may not sound impressive, but Grooveshark has led me to purchase three different albums in the past three months (and, believe me, with my vassal’s budget that is impressive). With curiosity piqued about these albums, I was able to find them in their entirety on Grooveshark and listen to them all the way through, many times, over several days and weeks. I found myself continually coming back to these particular albums, hungrily devouring them like I do all great music. I was so hungry that I felt persuaded to purchase these CDs for the glorious privilege of tangibility and permanent ownership.

That’s why artists should embrace Grooveshark.

They should fear Grooveshark because, after ravenously picking every bit of meat off the bones of these great albums, I felt that I’d picked the bones clean soon after obtaining the CDs. The very thing I loved about the ‘shark—unlimited, complete access—also had the negative effect of all but depleting the juice out of the music I was convinced to buy. The window of time between -sufficient exposure to want to buy the album- and -growing weary of the music- was, alas, very narrow.

I want to continue buying music legally, whether via digital download or physical formats. I want services like Grooveshark to continue operating in freedom, and for their stores to grow even fatter with choices. Both in deepening my familiarity with known music and discovering new music, I believe that spending time with an album is critical to my fiscal actions as a consumer. But this great tool can be easily abused, either as a total substitute for buying music, or in hastening the enjoyability expiration date on even the best music.

I hope that the music industry, artists, and listeners alike can navigate out of the choppy, pirate-riddled waters that music is currently sinking in. I want artists to have the proper support for their music, but I also want—as a listener—to have proper access to the music that I have the potential to purchase. Somehow the shark needs to eat the pirates, while the rest of us are able to feast on the shark.

Over the weekend I saw a matinee showing of Source Code, the new thriller from Moon director (and progeny of my beloved David Bowie) Duncan Jones. The slick, formulaic trailer for the film wouldn’t have been enough to persuade me to see it, but I’m interviewing the score’s composer and looked at it as a research assignment. It helped to see mostly positive reviews cropping up on opening day.

Source Code is a modern thriller with a sci-fi premise. It toys with the long-fascinating ideas of time travel, alternate realities, and inhabiting another person’s body—with some satisfying twists and turns. I quite enjoyed the film overall, despite a few (minor) casting missteps and a spoonfed monologue about how the premise’s technology worked.

As the end credits rolled, an older gentleman turned to look at the middle-aged couple behind him. With a pained, quizzical look on his face, he asked the couple if they could explain it to him. They laughed and voiced confusion, and the older man said in exasperation, “I hate these kinds of movies!” As the couple was exiting, they looked back at me (still sitting and intently listening to the end credits music) and asked me if I “got it.” I mumbled something about it being a “real brain teaser,” but in my head I was thinking, You don’t have to get it to enjoy it, people!

Now, I may be totally inconsistent when it comes to judging a film’s science and internal logic, and I have probably lambasted movies in the past for some plot element or device that betrayed my suspension of disbelief. But watching Source Code (and Inception, the last film I remember watching that tested this idea), I realized that I am completely willing to take an enormous technological or scientific leap of faith—and sacrifice a few explanatory “answers”—if the story arch and characters are satisfyingly executed.

To me it’s all about the yarn. Sci-fi movies, in particular, rely on fantastic premises that break currently known laws of physics. If a movie owns up to this sci-fi element (in other words, if it doesn’t pretend to be an utterly plausible premise and then break all plausible laws), I give it plenty of leeway with how convoluted or confusing the quantum physics and technobabble are—so long as the science facilitates a good yarn.

If a wild leap of faith props up the yarn, I’ll make the jump. I need to understand just enough of the science talk to grasp how it’s relevant to the story. I don’t need to exit the theater able to explain how everything worked the way it did or why. I left Inception emotionally charged and moved, like my heart and mind had just gone on a thrill ride. I cared about the characters and loved the music and willingly got sucked into dreams within dreams. I left Source Code emotionally charged, heart rate still pulsing, and inspired to go save some lives.

It can be fun for me to try and answer all the riddles presented by a film, but it isn’t necessary. Story trumps science every time. And as long as the science doesn’t trip up the story or attempt to be the story itself, I can typically accept it. Yes, I could even accept the Starship Enterprise traveling back in time via warp-driving a slingshot trajectory around the sun—if Star Trek IV’s hybrid “Save the Whales” PSA / wacky “whale out of water” story wasn’t so insultingly stupid.

Read Part I here.

Since the beginning in 2000, my obsession and interest in Michael’s music would occasionally lay dormant for periods of time. The release of a boxed set or the news onslaught in 2005 would rekindle the flame, but that kind of fanatic interest could not be maintained at the same level over the long haul. His death certainly found me burying myself in his music once again, and I have had him in at least the peripheral of my mind since 2009.

It’s no doubt hard to relate to my consuming passion for an enigmatic celebrity widely considered, at best, a weirdo, and at worst, a pedophile. In part it can be explained by my extremely obsessive personality. My wiring is such that I find certain interests and I absorb them with the thirst of a sponge. Another easy, partial explanation is the undeniable allure of his exquisitely crafted music, his superhuman ability to express that music with his body, and his gravitational showmanship. It was no fluke or marketing gimmick that he became a global supernova, even if most of the globe was quick to cast him in the graveyard of forgotten pop icons soon thereafter.

But my obsession goes deeper than the draw of even his catchiest melodies and most incredible moves. I became his ardent advocate and devotee, I think, because I found in him a very mistreated and misunderstood soul. No one can deny his eccentricity, or even the unusual nature of his love for children. But where most people saw perversion and narcissistic excess, I found fragility, and even beauty. Maybe it was because the obsession took root during my most awkward and misunderstood adolescent years, but I instinctively empathized with this man who had become a wild punchline to an endless string of cultural jokes. Another essay for another day is my fascination with Richard Nixon, but both obsessions have at their heart a deep empathy for an odd and maligned celebrity.

Lately I’ve been listening to the recent posthumous album of unused songs, Michael. Missing from its production is the meticulous attention to details and orchestration that Michael brought to each of the few albums he released. It also suffers, somewhat, from the same problems on Invincible, in that it is more influenced by current R&B sound than it is influential. Yet it is still Michael’s rich, emotive voice, pouring out defensive aggression, romance, and wounded regret. It is the melodies born in his brilliant head, with beats and instrumentation conceived by his symphonic imagination. It is the bittersweet echo of a voice now forever silenced, the waves of a body forever stilled. And I honestly weep over the loss—of an icon whose music tagged along beside me from youth to adulthood, of an enigmatic man who I had truly grown to love.

One of my favorite movies as a boy was Free Willy, the heartwarming tale of an abandoned kid named Jessie and the whale who loved him. On our VHS copy of Free Willy, before the BumbleBee Tuna commercial and the film, was a music video for Michael Jackson’s gospel epic, “Will You Be There.” Perhaps it was the catchiness of the song, or the song’s association with the Homerian Willy saga, but for some reason my brother and I were compelled to sit down and painstakingly write out every word of the lyrics. Such was my brief and innocent introduction to Michael Jackson.

Sixteen years old, I was eating at the Denver Hard Rock Café, and in the stream of music videos playing on the ubiquitous monitors arrived Michael’s infamous Thriller video. I was intrigued, if maybe a little disturbed. Soon after, rifling through the video collection of some friends (who had moved and put us in charge of looking after their unsold house), I discovered an ancient (to my mind) treasure: The Making of Thriller.

I took this VHS totem home, and that night in my room watched the full Thriller video and the eighties-drenched behind-the-scenes featurette that followed. Almost twenty years late I discovered the marvelous pop culture enigma—the dancing, the inimitable voice, the idiosyncrasy, and the aura—of Michael Joseph Jackson.

The song “Thriller” buried itself into the soft concrete of my teenage mind, and a true obsession was planted and watered. Every opportunity I had at school to give a speech or write a research paper, the subject was Michael. I thus did an inordinate amount of investigation into his life—his childhood, the Jackson 5 days, his teenage years, his superstardom, and his fall from grace. I read defensive fan articles and condemning news articles alike about the allegations of bizarre behavior, plastic surgery, skin bleaching, and child molestation. I became something of an authority on what could be known about his life, and an ardent champion of the King of Pop (a title that, despite common belief, was not self-proclaimed).

And of course I was obsessed with the music. From the sloppy mix CD-Rs commissioned to my friend Chris (who had Napster and a fast internet connection), I graduated to owning every single album. My obsession came at an eerily coincidental time in his career; nine years after releasing his last full studio album, 2001’s Invincible came out at the peak of my fever. I bought up every popular music video collection, the oddly cobbled “film” Moonwalker, and a Chinese import of the Stan Winston-directed Ghosts.

When new allegations of child molestation arose in 2005, I was Michael’s unofficial defense attorney to the general populace in Parker, Colorado. I followed the case with uncommon interest, and was relieved (but not surprised) when he was acquitted of all charges. I eagerly awaited the day when he would release a new album (hanging on every scrap of a rumor—that he was recording songs in a house in Ireland, that he was finally going on tour again). I was once again in Colorado the day I found out he had been rushed to the hospital (in 2009), and I remember the exact moment—driving in my truck across the plains of Longmont—when I learned he had died. I believe the sky was overcast.