The Lasting Legacy of MJ

Listening to my playlist this afternoon and "heal the world" comes on and three words into it my littlest girl Junie said "is that Michael Jackson?" "yes it is baby, good job!". It warms my heart he will live forever in his music. #teachthemyoung  - Lisa

Mardi Gras Dance

Lisa took the girls to their Mardi Gras dance last night, coming home at 10:30 on an adrenaline high. L and I then watched 'This is It'. Commercialization of MJ's death? U betcha. But seeing his obsession to detail and the pure grace of his moves was worth it. And his voice . . .  Sh*t. If MJ's voice wasn't a gift from God nothing is.

Is Michael Jackson Alive? Nope. But this video claims he is.

It's started folks - Michael Jackson sightings! This video allegedly shows Michael hopping out of the coroner van that was bringing his "body" to the morgue. With all the secrecy and delays in his burial, stuff like this was bound to surface.

I'm big fan of these odd obsessions, even though I'm 100% a non-believer. In the '80's I read Is Elvis Alive? (His name is misspelled on his tombstone. Gasp!) and avidly listened to the enclosed tape of "Elvis" discussing his literal lfie after death. Good times, good times.

It's said MJ's life mirrored Elvis' - did they both fake their own demise??? ;)



h/t

UPDATE: A German TV crew has taken credit for the hoax

Unmasked: The Final Years of Michael Jackson

I don't think I've seen a book, outside of partisan political tomes, that's generated the kind of venom leveled at Unmasked. Online reviewers slam the book and all but wretch in print (although very few seem to have actually read it) and I've met an MJ fan whose face wrinkled in disgust when I mentioned I was reading a copy.

Much of the anger seems to surround a chapter that alleges Michael was homosexual. In the end the correct response to that is that it shouldn't matter if he was gay, straight, or asexual. However, I'll agree that the lurid need to 'out' everyone famous, whether they are truly gay or not, gets tiresome and offensive. Moreover, the allegations in that chapter are backed by 'secret' sources, all "sworn to anonymity", and some of it is counter-intuitive: somehow I doubt a hypochondriac like Jackson would be keen on having sex in a roach filled hotel room.

If he was gay, you won't find the proof here.

The problem is when author Ian Halperin engages in speculation, or ventures into an area where there are no hard facts to guide him, the book completely falls apart. His prose is readable but he injects himself into the story at every opportunity, often painting himself as the hero going the extra mile for a story. Frankly, it sometimes reads like a bad blog post.

But what the fans ignore - stupidly - is that the book, which originally set out to pin MJ as a chronic molester, ends up exonerating him.

Whenever Halperin has documents and on-the-record sources to guide his hand, the book maintains a steady and believable footing -and there are certainly enough resources about the alleged molestation cases to fill the bill. Among other evidence, the book includes a *45* page transcript of a session between his '90's accuser and a child psychiatrist.

This isn't the time or place to go over all the facts, but it appears to be a clear case of extortion orchestrated by a man who'd had his medical licence suspended for unethical behavior and who (oddly) dreamed of Jackson financing his screenplay. Many of the media 'revelations' were also patently untrue, and often seem to have been consciously manipulated by D.A. Tom Sneddon.

Most shocking - his accuser, who comes off as an intelligent and well spoken teenager in the transcript, stated to authorities that Micheal was circumcised. This, along with other 'distinguishing marks' he identified, were the reason behind the infamous nude photos the D.A. took of Jackson.

The problem? To quote the doctor on scene: "The subject is clearly not circumcised."

At the time the media jumped on the photos as 'proof' of the accusations, when at the very least they strongly cast doubt on the intimate details of the case.

As for the trial in the middle of this decade . . . start to finish it appears to be a farce. To quote Stephen King:

This came down to a prosecutor either so sure Jackson was bad or so offended by
Jackson's combination of celebrity and wackiness that he rushed into a case that
looked shaky from hello. It looked worse as Tom Sneddon went along, and had
become nearly ludicrous by the time Jackson's ex-wife left the stand. No matter
how pure Sneddon's motives may have been (and I'm not saying they were, believe me), he began to look like a man pursuing a vendetta, one whose chief hope of
securing a conviction lay in the obvious fact that the trial was a sideshow and
the accused was . . . well, a freak.

Would I let my kids sleep in the same bed with a grown man? HELL TO THE NO. Did Jackson display horrific and naive judgement in continuing his behavior even after the '90's debacle? Yes. Was Jackson, as one detective theorized, a grown man only in business affairs, and a 'regressed 10 year old' otherwise? It certainly appears so.

An interesting book, and I'd give it a read . . .just maybe not at full price.

MJ's Memorial and related events

Like more than a billion people worldwide, I watched the Michael Jackson memorial service. I thought it was appropriately reverent, classy, and emotional, while also taking care to express and share the joy that echoed through Jackson's music. I won't bother to rehash the event here, because it's just saturating the news (according to foreign clips shown on CNN, it's the 'top story' as far away as India and Hong Kong). I will say it featured a few surprises for me. I didn't realize how important Michael was to the African-American community, or how deeply affection for him ran among their leaders and icons. I didn't think there would come a day when Al Sharpton(!!) would earn praise from me for a rousing and positive eulogy. I certainly didn't think Sharpton would continue to garner accolades from me for his sensible commentary throughout the evening. Nor did I expect the service to end with the Jackson family making sure that, for all the spectacle of the memorial, they held fast to their faith. "The King of Pop must bend his knee to the King of Kings," said their preacher, The Rev. Lucious Smith. And Michael's daughter, wow. Her words brought tears to my eyes, a reaction I think was pretty common. At any rate, what a magnificent send-off. I won't see another funeral like this in my lifetime. There are those who will brush it off with a curt "He doesn't deserve it. It's not like he was a king, or a President who ended world hunger." I don't recall the last time a politician managed to accomplish the latter, but I understand the point. I just disagree. You may be ambivalent towards Jackson, you may dislike him. Either way an incredible amount of people felt the opposite, and where mourning is concerned I choose to be laissez faire. I say allow people to express their grief in whatever positive and healthy way they see fit. And for the record, I think he's a global icon who factors positively into the memories of three generations. The world misses the man. As popular as any President is or has ever been, you can guarantee that a billion people in China and India aren't going to give a damn when he passes away. Personally, I'm grateful for the chance to have witnessed this twelve-day event, and I hope my kids are old enough to remain some memory of it. To see an outpouring of love and respect for anyone is enriching, and the fact that people seem free once again to publicly acknowledge his talent and gifts, well, that's an added bonus. It's just a shame he had to pass away for people to once again show their love. * * * * * If you were paying attention, there were signs everywhere of this funeral's impact on our pop culture.

The woman in the apartment across from my Mom flew to L.A. for the memorial. Although I doubt she had tickets to get into the Staples Center, it was enough for her to be in the city. Another woman she knows holds a season pass for a local water park and attends religiously each day. Today she offered the pass to friends, saying she was going to watch the funeral from beginning to end. A woman at a store was wearing a "King of Pop 1959-2009" shirt as she checked out. At my niece's birthday party, the bowling alley played several MJ songs, and a middle aged man strolled down the hall singing along to "Don't Stop till You Get Enough" At a grocery store, I overheard a woman on her cell phone, vigorously debating what Jackson song was the best.

* * * * * Meanwhile, in my house last week I overheard YaYa calling LuLu over the computer. On Youtube YaYa had pulled up a copy of the Thriller video and was eager to show Lu. At first I was going to stop her as I thought it would scare them, but then I remembered something I hadn't thought about in decades. When I was around YaYa's age I was skating at a local roller rink. An announcement was made, and on a new fangled projection screen the rink played the Thriller video. A hundred kids, white, Hispanic, whatever, gathered around to watch it. Aliens could land on earth and you couldn't get 100 kids to unite and sit still for the news bulletin, but there we all sat, in awe, watching the video beginning to end. So I let them watch it, making sure to tell LuLu it was all fake. Now the kids can recognize most MJ songs by ear, even if they can't always get the title right (although YaYa is trying hard). Their favorite seems to remain Thriller, or what Lu calls "the wolf song". * * * * One last long forgotten MJ memory. When Bad came out my Mom bought us a cassette, then painstakingly sat and dubbed each of us kids a copy on her skinny dual-tape book box. (My Mom, the bootlegger :) Thank God it wasn't a Metallica album) I can still recall how hard it was to fit the track listings on the teeny little lines they printed on the tape inserts. Anyway, thanks Mom. That was sweet of you.

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Watching/DVR'ing the Michael Jackson memorial service on CNN.

Right now Mariah Carey is peforming "I'll Be There" at the memorial. I don't care what anyone says, NKOTB did a better cover of the song.

Just back from my niece's 13th birthday party. We listened to the rest of the MJ memorial in the car, as V100 was broadcasting it live. (Probably the only time you'll hear me with that on my car stereo :)