Thursday night, as Twitter spread the news of Michael Jackson's death, Google searches on Michael Jackson were suspended for half an hour and the site mistakenly posted a notice that said, "We're sorry but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application."

There was no virus, there was just a computerized outpouring of interest, grief and disbelief.

After hearing about the news in a text message from my girlfriend Kim, I called her and we sang "I'll Be There."

The self-proclaimed "King of Pop," who was like a brother to my entire generation, had died, and the same way we had all watched the Jackson 5 cartoon and learned to dance from Michael and "Soul Train" on TV, we all began to search out news about Michael's death online, each of us alone, yet together.

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Thursday night I could not watch television. I won't be able to until I drill a hole in the side of my house to run a cable so my new antenna can pick up digital signals, but that did not stop me from accessing the news. CNN, ABC and MSNBC were all at my fingertips through my computer.

After watching a couple of news reports, I moved over to YouTube.

So did everyone else.

I put my children to bed last night between Michael videos on YouTube and then spent the rest of the evening watching the Thriller video, Billie Jean and Michael on Motown's 25th Anniversary Special when he unveiled the moon walk. I showed my children that clip and still screamed when he started to slide.

Michael Jackson may not have been able to defy aging like Peter Pan, but gravity did not affect him the way it does the rest of us.

In individual homes across the country, and, I hate to admit, the globe, we were all there, shrouded in the glow of a computer screen, watching Michael. Each creating our own individual memorial services for the man whose entire catalog of songs we all know by heart.

He was our Elvis. He was our Sinatra. We had all experienced him the way we experienced so many of the events of our generation: on television.

Thursday night, the computers took over, but there was Michael, from his days singing "ABC" to the creepy changes in his appearance and his personal life.

I remember big fat, drug-addicted Elvis. I remember Sinatra, the sleazy years. I didn't understand the adoration of those men, the outpouring of grief when they died.

Now I do. Now, those who joined me, sitting alone at the computer while the kids were in bed, all do.

We remember his music. We ignore Bubbles the chimp, Lisa Marie Presley and the child-molestation trial. We remember his hand helping Africa with "We Are The World."

We watched it all -- his rise and fall.

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On the 67A to Monroeville last night, there was a whole panel discussion on Michael.

On airplanes delayed at the gate, the passengers turned to strangers and talked about Michael.

And on Twitter, once the Farrah Fawcett grief had died down, there was tweet after tweet about Michael with 68 new messages that I could refresh my browser to see, immediately after I had just refreshed my browser.

Yesterday morning, I woke up an hour before my alarm and sent a text ("texted" being the verb of choice now) to Kim describing my evening. She had already sent me an e-mail at 5:27 a.m. with a link to a video of Michael and his brothers doing a medley with Cher.

Yesterday morning, as we all got to work, we compared notes on our reactions, our experiences through the evening, through the night.

What we found, when we put our heads together, was that we were all there, doing the same thing: remembering the good years, when Michael was young; when we were young. When we had only four TV channels and five radio stations.

For a night we were all there again, creating a Motown reunion together, but without knowing it.