The Triumph and Tragedy of Michael Jackson: 1958-2008

All,

This is an outstanding personal essay by Detroit-based writer and cultural critic Patricia Calloway on the heinous nexus of money, fame, drugs, exploitation, and "entertainment" in the gigantic corporate matrix that tragically became known to the rest of us as the global commodity called "Michael Jackson, Inc."--which predictably destroyed and dismembered the brilliant human being of the same name (without the quote marks and incorporated copyright sign of course). My wife and I saw the man and artist Jackson this past weekend in "This Is It", the new tribute documentary film now playing in over 18,000 theatres nationwide, and it is a wonderful and thoroughly inspiring examination/celebration of a genuine musical genius and extraordinary dedicated artist of the highest caliber. What the film proves conclusively is that Michael Jackson was an absolute master of his musical idiom who truly deserved the encomium "King of Pop." I enthusiastically recommend that everyone see the film. I guarantee you won't be disappointed. It really is that good...

Kofi


MILK AND ASHES

Losing Michael Jackson was like losing a brother in more ways than one.

By Patricia Calloway

There once was a king of pop
Who took milk going back to the top
His doctor was wit' it
But he overdid it
The milk, and the king of pop stopped.

On August 29, 2009--which would have been his 51st birthday-- Michael Jackson was finally interred at Forest Lawn Cemetery, his body committed to the ground by his family after weeks of lying in a freezer being chipped at, drained and sampled in the search for the cause of his death. Two culprits have emerged; one, Dr. Conrad Murray, who caused the death proper, and the anesthetic drug propofol, his weapon of choice. Accomplices include the tranquilizers midazolam and diazepam, with lidocaine and ephedrine acting as lookout and getaway driver, respectively.

That week in class we studied the action of the drug propofol as part of a course lecture in veterinary anesthesia; I am a second year veterinary nursing student who has recently completed an Associates degree in General Science. Our instructor talked about Michael and the drug in the most offhanded and disinterested manner. During our class break I went to a stall in the ladies' room and inexplicably burst into tears. I was quite surprised by that.

Michael's Milk of Amnesia

Propofol is a central nervous system drug used for anesthetic induction. It works very fast; it is highly lipid soluble, so it goes in and runs through the body, is metabolized then dissipates within five minutes. Its action produces unconsciousness and is painful when administered to humans.

The drug is suspended in a soybean oil and egg lecithin emulsion, hence its milky whiteness. It must be used quickly and completely because of its poor storage characteristics; any remainder must be discarded within six hours of opening because the proteinous emulsion supports bacterial growth and could become contaminated.

Dogs and cats do very well under propofol. Onset is usually less than 60 seconds and the duration of anesthesia is 5 to 10 minutes. Dogs recover quickly and smoothly from propofol with no hangovers even after multiple injections. Cats, while their recovery is a little longer, recover quickly as well. Humans are supposed to recover from propofol with a minimum of problems, except when your doctor is Conrad Murray; in that case, you've got a world of problems.


A Brother From Another Mother

My brother Rodney JoWayne Young was born in the same month as my brother Michael Joseph Jackson and they would have been the same age. My brother was a Detroit Police officer, a sergeant with over 20 years on the force. He had wanted to join the police force since high school; he graduated then worked at the Ford factory while taking classes at a local college. When the police academy called him he threw down his work gloves and apron and never looked back.

June 20, 2006 my brother was out after work riding his motorcycle with three other off-duty officers when he lost control of his bike on a freeway entry ramp. The bike went under an eighteen wheeler truck; he was crushed beneath its wheels. The driver drove another five miles before he knew he had even hit my brother.

When I visited his body in the hospital morgue the first thing I noticed was his peace vibration. I touched him; he was cold, of course, but there was no hint of last moment angst, no residual fear. I knew he hadn't been afraid in his final moments. How could that be?

For months I was tormented by the thought of the eighteen wheeler crushing the life from my brother's chest. An autopsy was scheduled to determine cause of death. He was a police officer; they had to make sure no foul play was involved (he worked in fugitive apprehension). The state police conducted the autopsy but the results weren't final for another sixty days. In the meantime he was laid to rest in a funeral fit for a head of state.

Then came the questions: How did Rodney, an experienced rider, end up under the wheels of an eighteen wheeled truck? How did Michael, a seemingly healthy man, end up in cardiac arrest under the nose of a licensed physician?

These were million dollar questions and it dawned on me as I watched Michael's memorial service, along with millions of others, that his family was on that same road toward to discovering exactly what happened to their loved one because things just weren't adding up.


Dr. Dootoomuch

When I first read the list of drugs administered to brother Michael in the early hours of June 25, 2009, I couldn't believe it. What the hell......? Who gives an entire family of drugs to a patient within hours of each dose? Who gives CPR on a soft bed instead of a hard surface? Why were there needle marks in his neck and what was injected into him? Why was he in the doctor's room and not his own? None of it made sense.

This doctor was clearly the most inept, negligent and downright stupid practitioner to ever hold a license if he gave Michael CPR on a soft bed. People Magazine reports that not only was Michael given cardiopulmonary resuscitation on a soft surface, but that the doctor used one hand to massage his heart.

In veterinary emergency CPR, we wouldn't dream of using one hand on a dog. In canine CPR, the chest is compressed between both hands, one under the chest, one over the heart, while the patient lies on its side; or, when chest up, one hand over its heart, the other under its back. The patient is always, always on a hard surface. In human CPR both hands are placed over the heart and compress the chest while the patient lies on his back.

According to his own attorney, Conrad Murray administered CPR to Michael Jackson the way I would give chest compressions to a dog in cardiac arrest. A dog. The King of Pop got substandard emergency care even by family pet standards.

The family pet would have received flumazenil, a benzodiazepine antagonist which would have reversed the effects of the Valium, Versed, and Ativan that Conrad Murray (for I refuse to call him “Doctor”) administered to him damned near every hour on the hour from one o'clock to seven thirty a.m. CNN.com reports that Murray allegedly told emergency personnel at the hospital that he had given Michael flumazenil, but I don't buy that. I don't buy it because Michael is dead; I am of the opinion that Murray threw that in to cover himself only after he finally remembered he should have used it.

The family pet also would also have been immediately ventilated, put on an ECG and given IV fluids. Not one report states Michael Jackson got any of this from Conrad Murray; that's why I'll never call him “Doctor”. When sister LaToya demanded to see Michael's doctor to “ask what the hell happened” to her brother, he didn't identify himself. Paris-Michael, Michael's daughter, had to point him out to her; after that he disappeared from the hospital. That's why I call him....well, you know, other names.

And AEG Makes Three

Who books a man for three months running in 2009 and another two months in 2010 for a total of 50 dates at an outdoor entertainment venue? Anschutz Entertainment Group, that's who.

AEG is a global sports and entertainment promotion outfit; it is the world's largest owner of sports teams and venues and the world's second largest concert promoter behind LiveNation. AEG makes its money by promoting concerts and live shows in the sports venues they own. The Staples Center is just one example of the strategy that has propelled them to the top of live entertainment.

It was AEG who held the $4 million dollar memorial service for Michael Jackson, stiffing Los Angeles taxpayers for the bill while at the same time garnering international attention for the Staples Center. Angelenos weren't the only ones left holding the bag, however.

It was AEG who pulled a fast one on its advance ticketholders when it announced that any of the 750,000 tickets sold for the “This Is It” concerts could either be refunded upon request or ticketholders could receive souvenir tickets instead. The souvenir tickets, which AEG has carefully pointed out will become collector's items, have a holographic 3D face, kind of like those Topps baseball cards of the 1970's that moved when you moved them. The tickets sold for from £50-£75; 750,000 refunds would cost AEG about $85 million dollars in tickets and booking fees.

AEG was looking to save $40 million dollars by running this “All 750,000 tickets will be valuable, just wait and see” scam. Never mind that since AEG prints the limited edition tickets they control the market for and the value of the souvenirs. Luckily, Brits aren't stupid and many of them went for the refund. Good for them.

Quick, where's the remaining piece of the historic Berlin Wall? Don't know? Me, either. AEG had it removed because it blocked the view from one of their stadiums. Ask them where it is; they had it last.

The Jackson family suspects that several of the people surrounding Michael before his death were put there by AEG and looking at this Berlin Wall and ticket thing, I can't put it past them. Their biggest concern right now is how to best “monetize their asset”; that's “make money” to me and you.

These are the people Michael agreed to work for.


“G” Is For Greed


Published reports say Michael didn't want to do fifty dates, he only wanted to do ten. AEG sold and sold and sold until he relented. Michael loved his fans and didn't want to disappoint. According to LaToya Jackson, AEG exploited his love by planting people within his camp to monitor him. She feels that Conrad Murray helped others to control him with drugs. According to AEG, a “significant amount of money” was to be advanced to Murray by them and he would be with Michael in England for the concerts. Murray had given up two cardiology practices to work with Michael. If AEG was going to advance him “substantial amounts” of money, then Murray's ship had finally come in; millions of dollars and several baby mamas in debt, he was determined to sail.

Michael passed AEG's physical like a champ and the latest coroner's report backs up their findings; he was a little thin but he was healthy for a 50 year old man. Was the reason Michael couldn't sleep because Murray had him on stimulants so he could dance and sing for hours on end in preparation for the concerts? Sedative cocktails were used to put him down at night. Sam Goldwyn used and abused Judy Garland in the same way.

There's a “g” in his name, too.

The Light Of Day

When I had you, I treated you bad and wrong, my dear

And since you've been away

Don't you know I hang around with my head hanging down

And I wonder what I'm gonna do

The Los Angeles Coroner's Office has ruled Michael's death a homicide. In his official statement, the coroner found that Michael was a healthy 50 year old man whose weight was within normal range for his height, and though he had a few tics here and there, namely a little arthritis, a little chronic lung inflammation (probably from his lupus) and no skin cancer (it had cleared up!), he was in good general health. No, he was not bald, emaciated or covered in scar tissue and puncture marks, although there were some on his arms (fresh, obviously) and one on his ankle. Now that the wait is over we all know that Conrad Murray killed our brother.

“Acute Propofol Intoxication” is another way of saying Michael was overdosed on anesthetic. In veterinary nursing what Murray did to Michael is called euthanasia; he lost consciousness then, aloft, floated away peacefully and never knew a thing.

The Michigan State Police ruled Rodney's death an accident. In their official statement, they found that my brother had suffered cardiac arrest on the freeway ramp. He lost consciousness, then control of the motorcycle which crashed into the rear side of the truck; he went under the wheels from there.

That's why he had a peace vibration; he never saw his death coming and for this I am grateful.

The driver of the truck was from the state of Wisconsin, just a family man who was on his job. He did not know he had run over my brother until the officers my brother was riding with arrested him. When he learned what happened he became hysterical. He cooperated fully with police and after the autopsy findings all charges were dropped; it wasn't his fault, it was nobody's fault.

I was never angry at him; somehow I knew he hadn't hurt my brother willfully. I prayed for his peace of mind, something so scarce during that time. It was hard for us all, the family, the officers, everybody. We held no ill feelings toward him; it was just one of those things, one of those sad, tragic events that test us and our strength in times of crisis.

I will not be praying for Conrad Murray. It's just not in me. Conrad had better pray for himself; between the Jackson family, the states of California, Nevada, and Texas plus AEG, there won't be a scrap of meat left on his bones when he goes to prison. And he will go to prison. The only thing that can save him right now is the hand of God and I don't think he will get even that.

AEG had a $40 million dollar insurance policy riding on the outcome of the autopsy; now that the death has been ruled a homicide, they can collect. A pre-existing condition would have knocked them out of the money, so I'm sure they're relieved for their bottom line that Conrad Murray poisoned Michael with propofol instead of some unseen ailment suddenly rearing its head. They sold their rights to “This Is It” to Columbia Pictures for $60 million dollars and ten percent of the film's box office. The remaining ninety percent will go to Michael's estate, as it should.

However, AEG made a side deal with worldwide merchandiser Bravada for ring tones, trading cards and apparel which the Jackson estate is seriously frowning upon. This is going to be good, so strap yourselves in. In the meantime Michael's will designates twenty percent of all income generated after his death for various charities; he will be healing the world long after you and I have gone away from this place.

My Blue Heaven

I see Rodney in dreams. He has that same peace vibration about him and I'm never sad or scared when he comes to me. He is always dressed to the nines. Gianni Versace is obviously on the other side still making clothes, fabulous, fabulous clothes.

I hope Omar, Prince, Paris and Blanket aren't afraid when their daddy comes to them. They shouldn't be; he loved them more than life itself. It's the love that brings them to us, it's called a soul tie and it lasts forever. For as long as he loves his children and they love him the King shall remain.

Long live the King.



“Michael Jackson's This Is It” opens in theaters October 28, 2009. Patricia Calloway lives and blogs in Detroit, Michigan and will be in attendance with bells (and a sequined glove) on.

The Persecution of Michael Jackson

http://www.counterpunch.org/reed06292009.html

All,

A typically incisive, informative, and razor sharp analysis/commentary by the internationally renowned novelist, poet, journalist, philosopher, teacher, and activist Ishmael Reed from the best muckraking journal on the Internet today, Counterpunch magazine...Ish is right on target as usual...Pass it on...

Kofi

June 29, 2009

The Mad Dog DA and the Mad Dog Media

The Persecution of Michael Jackson
By ISHMAEL REED
Counterpunch

Last Thursday, while working on some writing deadlines, I was switching channels on cable. On CNN they were promoting “Black In America," an exercise meant to boost ratings by making whites feel good by making blacks look bad, the marketing strategy of the mass media since the 1830s, according to a useful book entitled “The Showman and the Slave,” by Benjamin Reiss. The early penny press sold a “whiteness” upgrade to newly arriving immigrants by depicting blacks in illicit situations. By doing so they were marketing an early version of a self esteem boosting product. One of the initial sensational stories was about the autopsy of a black woman named Joice Heth, who claimed to be George Washington’s nurse and over one hundred years old. It was the O. J. story of the time. Circus master, P. T. Barnum, charged admission to her autopsy, which attracted the perverted in droves.

And so, if the people broadcasting cable news appear to be inmates of a carnival, there is a connection since the early days of the mass media to that form of show business. According to Reiss, early newspapers were not only influenced by P. T. Barnum, but actually cooperated with him on some hoaxes and stunts.

I would classify CNN’s “Black in America” as a stunt. In preparing for a sequel to the first "Black In America," which boosted the networks ratings (the O. J. trial saved CNN!), CNN rolled out the usual stereotypes about black Americans. Unmarried black mothers were exhibited, without mentioning that births to unmarried black women have plunged since 1976 more than that of any other ethnic group. Then we got some footage that implied that blacks as a group were homophobes even though Charles Blow, a statistician for The New York Times, recently published a chart showing that gays have the least to fear from blacks. Recently, the media perpetrated a hoax that blacks were responsible for the passage of Proposition 8, the California proposition that banned gay marriage. An academic study refuted this claim, but that didn’t deter The New York Times from hiring Benjamin Schwarz to explain black homophobia. Schwarz is the writer who wrote in The Los Angeles Times that blacks who were victims of lynchings in the south were probably guilty.

In the last “Black in America," Soledad O’Brien, CNN’s designated tough love agent against the brothers and sisters, scolded a black man for not attending his daughter’s birthday party. The aim of this scene was meant to humiliate black men as neglectful fathers. Ms. O’Brien won’t be permitted by her employees to mention that 75% of white children will live at one time or another in a single parent household and that the Gov. of South Carolina’s not showing up for Father’s Day isn’t just a lone aberration in “White America.”

How would CNN promote a “White in America?” The thousands of meth addicts who have abandoned their children? The California rural and suburban white women who do more dope than Latino and black youth? The suburban Dallas white teenagers who are overdosing on “cheese” heroin? Why not? Can’t get State Farm, Ford and MacDonald’s to sponsor such a program? All of these companies are sponsoring “Black in America,” the aim of which is to cast collective blame on blacks for the country’s social problems. For ratings.

During CNN’s carnival act disguised as news, the scene of Zimbabwe’s Prime Minster being urinated upon by a monkey while sitting in his garden drew snickers in the newsroom. This is what passes for coverage of the African continent by CNN.

When the bulletin that Michael Jackson had died flashed across the screen, I was prepared for TV at it’s worst and I wasn’t disappointed. The man wasn’t cold before the familiar adjectives were rolled out. “Weird, bizarre, eccentric,” the traditional language used to disparage artists by the bourgeoisie. Dan Abrams, who made his reputation by convicting O. J. Simpson before the opening arguments of his criminal trial, made a snarky comment about Jackson’s weirdness. Mr. Abrams, a higher up at MSNBC, employs a Hitler admirer named Pat Buchanan. Given Abram’s background, why isn’t that considered weird?

Former Calfornia poet laureate Al Young called to inform me that CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin, another O. J. alumni, and a man who said that blacks shouldn’t be “patted on the head” or “patronized” for believing in O. J. Simpson’s innocence, had made some ugly comments about Jackson. (A star who has had at least a dozen facelifts called into the “Larry King Show” to comment about MJ’s altering his appearance).

Also weird was MSBC’s Savanah Guthries’ air-headed depiction of the trial. (For a list of Ms. Guthries’ false reportings see MediaMatters.com). She said that the evidence against Jackson in the trial was “devastating." So devastating that some legal experts said that Jackson should never have been brought to trial and that the aim of the trial was to seek a pound of flesh from Jackson for being uppity and for putting the name of Thomas W. Sneddon Jr., a vindictive District Attorney, into a song. In my opinion it was the prosecution of Jackson by this District Attorney, who, among other things, violated Jackson’s fourth amendment rights, and made disparaging remarks about the star during a press conference, and the side-show pro prosecution media coverage that killed Jackson.

In my lengthy examination of the trial printed in my book, “Mixing It Up, Taking on The Media Bullies,” I concluded that though millions of Jackson’s fans celebrated his acquittal, the District Attorney, who was allowed to squander the California taxpayers’ money so that he might humiliate a rich black man, whom he felt had sassed him, was the victor. At the beginning of the trial, Jackson was dancing on top of a van. During the trial he had to be hospitalized. At the end, he was a frail emaciated wreck.

Because of the malicious prosecution of Jackson by Sneddon and Sneddon’s claque in the media, Jackson will always be regarded as a pedophile. (When the trial opened, a USA Today / CNN / Gallup Poll found that 72% of whites and 51% of Blacks believed that the charges against Jackson were “Definitely” or “Probably” true.) Wherever “Mad Dog” Sneddon, this hateful man might be in his retirement, he can gloat over the death of the man against whom he waged a vendetta with all of the power of the state at his disposal. Sneddon even tried to introduce photos of Jackson’s genitals during the 2005 trial, which proved too much even for the pro prosecution judge.

Of course, none of Sneddon’s abuse or the abuse of Jackson by his accusers was mentioned by an old corporate media, out of touch and on life supports. For infotainers like Katie Couric, Jackson’s father Joe was MJ’s sole abuser. In the eyes of yesterday’s media, black fathers are the principal actors in domestic violence.

Guthrie also said that the prosecution “had conducted mini trials within the trial,” which brought up “a whole history of prior bad acts of molestation.” She was referring to 1994 case in which Jackson was accused of pedophilia by a youngster who, according to writer Mary Fisher, a serious journalist, was used by his father to wrest some cash from Jackson. In"Mixing It Up,” I summarized Mary Fisher’s serious and thorough investigation that was originally published in GQ, October, 1994, under the title “Was Michael Jackson Framed?” Jackson settled out of court because Johnnie Cochran didn’t want him to face one of those all white suburban juries that O. J. faced.

Fisher wrote: “It’s a story of greed, ambition, misconceptions of part of police and prosecutors, a lazy and sensation-seeking media and the use of a powerful, hypnotic drug. It may also be a story about how a case was simply invented.”

Fisher claimed that the first case arose from the ambitions of the thirteen-year-old accuser’s stepfather, Evan Chandler, who exploited Jackson’s friendship with his son. At one point, he asked Jackson to build him a house. Fisher said that the child denied being abused by Jackson until he was administered the drug sodium amytal, which is known to induce false memory. Chandler refused to be interviewed for the article and refused to appear on the Today Show, where Fisher repeated her charges before a nationwide audience. She said that the whole scheme was concocted by the child’s stepfather to destroy the superstar.

None of the media descriptions of Jackson’s career, including a superficial pop-driven survey of the star’s career by Anderson Cooper, referred to the 2005 plaintiff’s lies and his mother’s shabby history of conning individuals and institutions including J. C. Penney’s, which she accused of sexual abuse. She claimed that she had been “fondled inappropriately” by store personnel. Documents also hinted that “…the mom rehearsed her children to corroborate her story.”

During the 2005 trial, Jackson’s Attorney, Tom Mesereau Jr. got the teenage boy to admit that he lied under oath during the J. C. Penny case. USA Today reported on March 1, 2005, that the mother used the boy as a prop to get money from Mike Tyson, Adam Sandler, Jim Carrey, Jay Leno and others, “even though insurance was paying his bills." Linda Deutsch, one of the last of hard-nosed shoe leather journalists, reporting for the Associated Press on March of 2005. said that Mesereau got the 15 year old to admit that he’d told Jeffrey Alpert, a school official that “nothing happened" between Jackson and him.

Connie Keenan, editor of Mid Valley News, wrote of a hoax that the boy’s mother perpetrated on that newspaper. She made a pitch that her son needed medical care and that she had no financial means to provide it. During the first week of the newspaper’s appeal, the mother received $965 in donations. It turned out that the boy was being treated at Kaiser Permanente in Los Angeles with no cost to the family. Connie Keenan concluded that “My gut level, she’s a shark. She was after money. My readers were used. My staff was used. It’s sickening."

While referring to Jackson as “bizarre” none of the cable reporting about Jackson’s death cited the bizarre courtroom testimony of the plaintiff’s mother, Janet Arvizo. At one point during her testimony, she said that feared her children would disappear from Neverland, Jackson’s ranch, in a hot air balloon.

On Apr 18, 2005, Agence France-Presse reported “The mother of Michael Jackson's young molestation accuser claimed that she feared her children would be spirited away from the star's Neverland Ranch in a hot air balloon. In some of the most bizarre testimony of Jackson's frequently surreal trial, the woman revealed that she told police she feared her three kids would vanish from Neverland into California's blue skies.

"Did you tell the sheriff that you thought your children might disappear in a hot air balloon from Neverland?" Jackson's lead lawyer Thomas Mesereau asked the woman under cross-examination.

"I made them aware," she said.

Finally, in November of 2006, according to TMZ, Janet Arvizo pled no contest to a welfare fraud charge in Los Angeles. She was ordered to 150 hours of community service and to pay $8, 600 in restitution. During Jackson's trial, Arvizo invoked the Fifth regarding welfare fraud. Seems that she applied for welfare even though she’d received a $150, 000 settlement from J. C. Penny’s. Even with the mother’s behavior and the boys lies, Nancy Grace, commenting on the death of Jackson, said that she was surprised by the not guilty verdict in the Jackson trial. No wonder Ms. Grace has been called” a cheerleader for the prosecution.”

Yet, these journalists insist that their news product is superior
to that of bloggers. (Journalistic bottom feeder, Diane Dimond, a Sneddon fan and Jackson stalker was invited by MSNBC to weigh in during which she was allowed to engage in doofus speculation much of it ugly about Jackson’s life and death)

G. Q. s Mary Fisher accused her colleagues of lazy journalism of the sort that defamed Jackson in life and in death. Maureen Orth from Vanity Fair didn’t read Mary Fisher’s findings. She was on the Chris Matthews Show accusing Jackson of “serious felonies” involving pedophilia. Another reporter who seemed to nullify the 2005 Jackson jurie's decision was “Morning Joe’s” adjunct bimbo, Courtney Hazlett. She said that there would be no pilgrimage to Neverland and as there was to Graceland, because “bad things happened at Never Land." We are led to believe that Presley and his entourage spent their days at Graceland drinking milk and reading each other passages from the scriptures.

All of these opinions seem to indicate that Cable’s talking heads have taken it upon themselves to nullify the judgment of juries whenever they please. This all white electronic jury has placed itself above the law.

But at least Jackson didn’t suffer from the kind of hi tech lynching accorded the tragic Patsy Ramsey. For years cable, which now not only calls elections but acts as judge and jury, accused her of murdering her child. Only after her death was it found that she was innocent.

If the reporting on Jackson’s death by the media wasn’t salacious and ignorant enough, it didn’t get any better the next day, June 26.

Ignoring Jackson’s philanthropic pursuits and contributions to forty charities, on the “Today Show,“ it was all about what happened to all of the nigger’s money and whether he died from too many drugs and what’s to become of his children, questions meant to attract the prurient. Again, Diane Dimod was invited on to spread scurrilous unconfirmed rumors about the dead star. Some of the modern day carnival barkers like Chris Matthews expressed surprise that Jackson’s death resulted in such an outpouring of worldwide mourning. This is what happens to people like Matthews who dwell in an insulated white supremacist bubble (that includes the Anglo wannabe and Churchill admiring Irish among them) which holds that a narrow cultural strip between New York and Washington represents the world.

I would like to have seen more independent African-American journalists comment on the passing of Michael Jackson, but, according to Richard Prince, who runs a media blog for the Maynard journalism Institute, hundreds have lost their jobs over the last two years, including Pulitzer Prize winners like Les Payne.

With the absence of black and Latinos from journalism, the media have become a spare all white jury always ready to take down a black celebrity for the entertainment of the types who used to attend those acts created by P. T. Barnum.


Ishmael Reed is the publisher of Konch. He is also the critically acclaimed author of over 20 books (novels, essays, poetry, and plays). His new book, "Mixing It Up, Taking On The Media Bullies" was published by Da Capo in 2008.


Lyrics by Michael Jackson

They wanna get my ass, dead or alive.
You know he really tried to take me down by surprise.
I bet he missioned with the CIA.
He don't do half what he say.

Dom Sheldon is a cold man
Dom Sheldon is a cold man
Dom Sheldon is a cold man
Dom Sheldon is a cold man

He out shock in every single way.
He stop at nothing just to get his political say.
He think he hot cause he's BSDA.

I bet he never had a social life anyway.
You think he bother with the KKK?
I bet his mother never taught him right anyway.
He want your vote just to remain TA.
He don't do half what he say.

Dom Sheldon is a cold man
Dom Sheldon is a cold man
Dom Sheldon is a cold man
Dom Sheldon is a cold man

Dom S. Sheldon is a cold man
Dom Sheldon is a cold man
Dom Sheldon is a cold man
Dom Sheldon is a cold man

The King is Dead, No More Kings, Please: A Threnody for Michael Jackson

By Rayfield A. Waller

INTERROGATOR (Arab soldier)
My main man. Tell me something,
OK? What is problem with Michael
Jackson?

TROY (Black American soldier)
What do you mean?

INTERROGATOR:
The King of Pop. 'I'm bad, I'm
bad, you know it --'
Michael Jackson is Pop King of
sick country.

TROY:
Wrong.

[Troy is smashed in the face with the clip board by the interrogator. Blood drips
from his nose.]

INTERROGATOR:
Bullshit wrong, dude. A black man
make the skin white and the hair
straight. You know why?...Your sick
country make the black man hate hisself...

[from the film “Three Kings,” Screenplay by David O. Russell, 1998]

I meant to say nothing at all about the death of Michael Jackson, ‘King of Pop,” but now only twenty four hours after the news broke, and only five hours after the autopsy has been concluded and the coroner’s preliminary announcement that ‘more tests are needed before a cause of death can be determined,’ I’ve been convinced otherwise.

The LA coroner’s ‘more tests are needed’ is a long recognized code for ‘we might have another celebrity death caused by drug overdose here.’ While a snide undertone in coverage of Michael’s phenomenal talents, energies, and innovation is, predictably, starting to show through in the ironic smiles and crass humor of TV newsreaders. That undertone of contempt in Michael’s case, as in Richard Prior’s case before him, is for yet another dead Black performer’s ‘unfortunate flaws’ and ‘idiosyncrasies’.

Yet, as the above crib from the film, “Three Kings” implies, these very ‘flaws’ are endemic to the effects, of America’s film and music industry’s racism, on Black men and women who live inside the great meat grinder of the entertainment industry. The effects, if not the actual flaws (like Bird’s and Lady Day’s heroine addiction or Gil Scott Heron’s crack dependency), can be seen from Bill Cosby’s seething misanthropy disguised as humorous high jinks, to Will Smith’s obsessive-compulsive crossover mentality which leads him to do film after mundane film depicting Black men bent on ‘saving’ everyone (I Am Legend being the ultimate in that franchise), to Denzel Washington’s seeming inability to articulate anything culturally or politically critical and coherent in interviews other than his ceaselessly maudlin charity pitches, to Dave Chappell’s startling, self imposed exile from the same industry that had made him wealthy but clearly also had frightened him to the depths of his soul, to Oprah Winfrey’s manic agoraphilia and Angela Basset’s lonely crusade to hold onto her dignity against the misery and humiliation Halle Berry surrendered her body to in “Monster’s Ball” (Hollywood’s obligatory fetishisizing of the Black female body in proscribed, denigrating nude scenes, and prostitute, junkie, schoolmarm roles).

There is a familiar, racist double standard apparent in media voyeurism rather than any honest assessment of Michael’s talent. While Elvis’ physical addictions and psychological problems were and still are discussed in addition to his skills and his artistic significance, Michael’s shortcomings are treated as a negation of his expertise and historical genius.
This truculent lack of real or thoughtful context in both overt and slyly implied critiques of Michael’s sanity, his ‘morals,’ and his ‘self hatred’ (reflecting the sort of brazen contempt for his humanity that even the bloated, drug addled Elvis Presley, who did not have to suffer following his even more ignominious death at ‘Graceland’) has convinced me that I should write, to point out that lack of context. It only dehumanizes Michael to leave out that context, namely, America’s ferocious hatred of roots culture, of Black folk sources, and of the Afro-Soul origins that Michael drew from just as Sam Cook, and Ray Charles, and Al Green, and Cleavon Little, and Sammy Davis, and Bill Bojangles Robinson all had drawn from it. The hatred is equaled only by America’s simultaneous hunger for and desire to consume and exploit those sources, those roots.

The American entertainment industry is basically a public pillory, and no Black artist, no matter how rich and famous goes unscathed by the vicious duplicity of the industry’s failure to compensate Black artists equally, its subtle and gross humiliations of the Black image and disrespect for Black genius, its simultaneous praise and insult (and Michael, like so many brilliant Black performers, had grown toward the end to be no longer quite so rich, and less famous, more and more infamous). More and more over the coming days and weeks we will see it emerge: the implied, sometimes even literal smirk of ‘entertainment reporters’ and their sarcasm in mentioning Michael’s obvious psychoses, reflected in his peccadilloes with children, his addiction to Demerol and to plastic surgery, and his funny habits with elephant man bones, llamas, and Ferris wheels. That sarcasm—and the sublimated racism that it arises from, emerges as plain as the lack of a nose on Michael’s 49 year old face as these ghouls have been breaking the news of Michael’s death while transitioning into the sickening redundancy phase of their 72 hour news cycles, in which they will be re breaking and re breaking the news, shattering it, crunching it, and turning the shards into smithereens with relentless wall-to-wall coverage of the same old tired set pieces (here we are in front of the gates of the house where Michael died, the home he was renting in The Hollywood Hills that one or two ‘reporters’ have slipped up and referred to as ‘Neverland,’ an estate where Michael no longer lived; here we are in front of the coroner’s office; here we are in front of the Apollo theater where Al Sharpton belts out a spontaneous eulogy; now here we are back at the house again, still not ‘Neverland,’ and not located in ‘Brentwood’ as a dyslexic British reporter yammers, clearly reliving the heady days of the ‘OJ Affair’; always we are ‘out in front’, never inside, always fixedly gazing at a façade, as if meaning is about to emerge. but it never does; always we’re treated to a forest of microphone stands and to the same tired, chewed up looking cadre of ‘international journalists’ –i.e., glorified Paparazzi—droning on and on, and from the same Hollywood script at that).

The King, in short, is dead. But before the next Michael comes along to take his place in the public pillory of race, entertainment culture, and is chewed up and spat onto the plastic surgeon’s gurney, a few words from the REAL sponsor of the whole performance:

Even in this age in which Brittany Spears and Justin Timberlake announce their gratitude to Michael Jackson for providing the template they drew on to forge their careers, the abysmal ignorance of roots culture still motivates an equally abysmal disrespect for Blues, Jazz, Soul, and Hiphop, by implying for example that certain rap artists are taking their rap sensibility from popular mainstream film, television, and theater pieces like “Bring In Da Noise…” and that the monetary and psychic deprivation of Black artists like Michael can be lain at the doorstep of Motown (little by little, callow newsreaders and liberal talk show hosts are beginning to cite their freshly enlightened awareness of the injustice of the music industry through their single viewing of the single source, “Standing in the Shadows of Motown,” and the story of The Funk Brothers).

At the time of its 1990’s premiere of course, “Bring In Da Noise” was in fact, widely regarded in uptown Manhattan, in Detroit, Philly, LA, and Cleveland, as a bastardization of African American step art-dance, of Brooklyn radio-chant, and of James Brown-to-Ohio Players-to-Cameo-to-Jungle Bothers Black Funk roots culture. A lot of Black people across the country (Detroit, Chicago, Oakland, LA, Philly, etc.), not just in New York (Harlem, Bed Stuy, Bronx, ‘Strong’ Island, etc.) were sickened whenever we saw such drivel advertised incessantly on TV and Gods help us, even traveling throughout the country busting up into our communities, bringing out the corny white suburbanites who cruised into the theater districts under police guard to vicariously experience urban culture.

“…Funk…” is symbolic of many derivative cultural products manufactured in America, from minstrelsy to burlesque to John Phillip Sousa to Al Jolson, from Bing Crosby to Vaudeville to Elvis to Jerry Lee Lewis to Dinah shore to Madonna to Justin Timberlake. The simulacrum comes to be considered to be original (*groan*), not derivative, not a rip-off of the rural slave and urban wage-slave and Black street culture that it really is. Such theft feels to Black artists and writers like “Miss Saigon” must have felt to Asian Americans. The idea that the simulacrum is becoming the original is actually a sentiment which is gaining force in the culture right now with Hiphop just as it did earlier in the twentieth century with Jazz (by 1970 many Americans were convinced Jazz was a white art form courtesy of Benny Goodman, just as by 1950 they’d been convinced that Rock and Roll was invented by Jerry Lee Lewis).

I hung out with white cultural critic, Eric Lott (author of ‘Love and Theft’) when he was visiting the University of Miami a few years ago when I was an English professor there, and he remarked that he found it frightening how the culture was redefining cultural theft of Black art forms as ‘anti-racist’, ‘integrationist’ and progressive gestures, while simultaneously defining critiques of this long standing American crime as ‘racist’ (in other words, the victim who complains of being victimized is the real troublemaker here). To my dismay and my alarm, I ‘ve been noticing over the years while teaching at U Miami, FIU, at Barry University, and now at Wayne State University in Detroit, that my students have no idea that the white pop artists they love are actually culturally cleansed imitations of people like Aretha Franklin, Barry White, and Martha and the Vandellas (60’s and 70’s Black pop icons) via Peabo Bryson, Whitney Houston, Sister Sledge, and Anita Baker (the 80’s Black pop icons) and then later Bobby Brown, Ready for the World, Queen Latifah, and Roxanne Shante (the 90’s Black pop Icons). Sadly, they not only don’t know who Martha and the Vandellas are; they haven’t even been exposed to Queen Latifah! (They think she’s an actress, if they ever heard of her at all). Eminem (who is actually a quite talented Marshall Mathers underneath the candy coating) is only the latest evolution of an undeniable and inevitable process of taking rap, funk, and Hiphop away from African American roots sources, and culturally cleansing it (Backstreet Boys, Shakira, Brittany Spears, et al).

Not long after Lott had finished his visiting lecture at U Miami I was amazed to see in the Miami Herald (Sun Jan 19, 2003, Herald, pg. 9M, by Herald Music critic, Evelyn Mcdonnell), an article on composer Jon Larson, author of “Rent”, that mentioned the touring show, “Bring Da Noise,” while criticizing Hiphop impresario, Russell Simmons. The article featured the headline, “Copycats getting accolades for their predecessors’ creativity” as well as a caption beneath a photo of a white minstrel figure and a Black B Boy (‘Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam’ takes its cues from Bring In ‘Da Noise, Bring In ‘Da Funk’). This sort of thing creates the impression that Jon Larson is an originator of Black urban Hiphop culture while Russell Simmons is an imitator getting rich off Larson’s art. The photo of the white minstrel figure and the Black B Boy figure reinforced this fallacious idea, because the juxtaposition of the photos made it seem as if Larson IS the white originator (the ‘white negro’ as it were) and that the Black B Boy figure is Russell Simmons. This is a typical kind of visual and semiotic distortion engaged in by unconscious editors.

On closer reading, the article was not really even about what the head announces—rather it was an homage to Jon Larson. The article carefully draws a distinction between Larson and the “Bring Da Noise…” ilk, and furthermore it attempts to do a subtle critique of those within the hiphop movement who profit off hiphop’s whitewashing. Yet, even such a rare thing as a major daily critic writing a piece approaching the entertainment industry critically and analytically, is erased by the inevitable meat grinder of context (heads and captions carry on their own discourse which is gleefully oblivious of the point being made by the author).

There is in fact a sub genre of pop music criticism that positions Russell Simmons as somehow being an outsider to the Hiphop movement when in fact he was right there at the founding along with Cool Moe Dee, DJ Herc, Grandmaster Flash, Eric B and Rakim, Mel-Mel, and all the rest—even Fab Five Freddie, clown that he was, was indisputably in the creative core of the music’s origins, and hell, I know close friends of some of these people, and I know that Russell paid dues, and did in fact economically support the music and support some of these artists in the 80’s). The positioning of such a crucial figure, however commercialized, as an outsider and imitator while positioning Larson as an originator, was galling to me, and far too representative of the backward notions of American Kulture.

The article, finally, offers a coherent defense of the Newyoricans poets’ movement of the 80’s and 90’s. Yet, this gesture’s meaning is lost in the appending of this portion to the larger issue of Larson. Thus are the sins of journalism: shallow treatment, hapless captioning, lack of historical detail and clarity. The article would have been decisively more credible had it been more clear and direct. When I called an editor at the Herald to ask why more figures within the movement were not mentioned, such as Pedro Pietri (“The Masses Are Asses”), I was refused access to even the voice mail of Evelyn Mcdonnell. Emails I wrote to her were never acknowledged, and I have no idea if they reached her. Ultimately, I felt, Mcdonnell was trying to say something in that piece about art and CLASS identity, transcending race: that the urban movements of the 80’s (which included Hiphop but also included the Newyorican school, urban chic movements, the poetics revival of the St. Marks Poetry Project, which I once did a reading for) fed into some of the off-off Broadway rebirth that gave us “Angels In America” (that Jon Larson can be contextualized by the new poetics of the 80’s). That multiculturalism is exactly what Hiphop began as in the late 70’s and early 80’s. The promise of all this cultural genesis was destroyed by the hijacking of Hiphop carried out by record companies and by individual Black thugs who gave us so-called ‘gangsta rap’ in the 90’s.

In an early 2003 NPR interview of Hershey Felder (who played George Gershwin a one-man theatrical piece which toured in the early 90’s) Felder recounted how Gershwin encountered Maurice Ravel and wanted to study with him, and Ravel admonished him by saying, ‘why would you want to be a second rate Ravel when you are a first rate Gershwin’? And indeed, Gershwin was little appreciated or understood in his lifetime, despite great commercial success. He was under appreciated as an ARTIST. People like Dvorak, Ravel, and Stravinsky would come to America, and would wonder why Americans were so far behind in understanding and appreciating AMERICAN musical forms as they themselves DID (the Blues, R&B, Soul, Rock and Roll, etc.) I have taught two very important books in the past few years. One is called “Blues People” by Leroi Jones, and the other is “The Death of Rhythm and Blues” by Nelson George. I once talked with Jones (Baraka) when he did a reading at Cornell University in the early 90’s, where I was a graduate student, and I got to talk with Nelson in the late 80’s when he visited Cornell. Both Nelson and Baraka mentioned Jon in conversation as a figure of importance in a multivariate, energetic, and far too brief period of American working class urban culture, which Americans have yet to take seriously or understand.

But then, they still have not really dealt seriously with figures such as Irving Berlin, Hoagie Carmichael, Gershwin, Sondheim, or for that matter, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, and Charles Mingus. I know that my students have never even heard of most of these people. It’s a sad state of affairs, since the rest of the world knows and loves all these people I have mentioned. Perhaps this is one reason the rest of the world dislikes Americans so much. We have so many riches, yet seem not to care about it or show any gratitude for being so blessed.

And the death of a Michael Jackson becomes just another occasion to sell soap with the promotion of spectacle, rather than taking advantage of the opportunity being presented by the event of his death, to examine the historical, political,and cultural context of his life, in all its glory and all its pain.

May he rest.

Michael Jackson: 1958-2009

All,

Any way you look at it the death of Michael Jackson at such a young age is a tremendous loss to world music, to entertainment, to popular culture, and to society in general. Obviously the man was a flatout musical GENIUS (like Stevie, like Marvin, like Jimi, like Sly, like Miles, like John Coltrane, like Charlie Parker, like Sam Cooke, like James Brown, like Bob Marley, like Nat King Cole, etc. etc. etc.). On the other hand what's absolutely NOT surprising, given the truly fucked up society and world we live in is that Michael suffered such a tragically early death.

It's clearly no coincidence that black men like Michael are in many ways doomed by the objective political, economic, cultural, and spiritual deformities of a rancid, greedy, and often clueless society and culture that simultaneously despises and envies us and our talent and reduces ALL to mere commercial commodities and psychological cannon fodder for its pathetic and lethally neurotic fears, hatreds, anxieties, and insecurities masquerading as "superiority", "innocence" and "strength".

(Like always) All we can do now for Michael is to fiercely uphold and extend his tremendously liberating legacy as a great ARTIST (one of the most truly misunderstood and despised words in the the English language) and continue to spread the profound meaning of the word(s) and music that our brother fought so hard to enlighten us with in Life. I'm not afraid to admit that I shed a tear or two for Michael when I heard the news and sat back to reflect on what he was so generously able to give us all. We can never repay the debt we owe for the Joy, Insight, Energy, Understanding, and Light he brought to this world...REST IN PEACE BROTHER. WE LOVE YOU...

Kofi




A Star Idolized and Haunted, Michael Jackson Dies at 50

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/arts/music/26jackson.html


By BROOKS BARNES
Published: June 25, 2009
New York Times

LOS ANGELES — For his legions of fans, he was the Peter Pan of pop music: the little boy who refused to grow up. But on the verge of another attempted comeback, he is suddenly gone, this time for good.


Michael Jackson, whose quintessentially American tale of celebrity and excess took him from musical boy wonder to global pop superstar to sad figure haunted by lawsuits, paparazzi and failed plastic surgery, was pronounced dead on Thursday afternoon at U.C.L.A. Medical Center after arriving in a coma, a city official said. Mr. Jackson was 50, having spent 40 of those years in the public eye he loved.

The singer was rushed to the hospital, a six-minute drive from the rented Holmby Hills home in which he was living, shortly after noon by paramedics for the Los Angeles Fire Department. A hospital spokesman would not confirm reports of cardiac arrest. He was pronounced dead at 2:26 pm.

As with Elvis Presley or the Beatles, it is impossible to calculate the full effect Mr. Jackson had on the world of music. At the height of his career, he was indisputably the biggest star in the world; he has sold more than 750 million albums. Radio stations across the country reacted to his death with marathon sessions of his songs. MTV, which grew successful in part as a result of Mr. Jackson’s groundbreaking videos, reprised its early days as a music channel by showing his biggest hits.

From his days as the youngest brother in the Jackson 5 to his solo career in the 1980s and early 1990s, Mr. Jackson was responsible for a string of hits like “I Want You Back,” “I’ll Be There” “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” “Billie Jean” and “Black or White” that exploited his high voice, infectious energy and ear for irresistible hooks.

As a solo performer, Mr. Jackson ushered in the age of pop as a global product — not to mention an age of spectacle and pop culture celebrity. He became more character than singer: his sequined glove, his whitened face, his moonwalk dance move became embedded in the cultural firmament.

His entertainment career hit high-water marks with the release of “Thriller,” from 1982, which has been certified 28 times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, and with the “Victory” world tour that reunited him with his brothers in 1984.

But soon afterward, his career started a bizarre disintegration. His darkest moment undoubtedly came in 2003, when he was indicted on child molesting charges. A young cancer patient claimed the singer had befriended him and then groped him at his Neverland estate near Santa Barbara, Calif., but Mr. Jackson was acquitted on all charges.

Reaction to his death started trickling in from the entertainment community late Thursday.

“I am absolutely devastated at this tragic and unexpected news,” the music producer Quincy Jones said in a statement. “I’ve lost my little brother today, and part of my soul has gone with him.”

Berry Gordy, the Motown founder who helped develop the Jackson 5, told CNN that Mr. Jackson, as a boy, “always wanted to be the best, and he was willing to work as hard as it took to be that. And we could all see that he was a winner at that age.

Tommy Mottola, a former head of Sony Music, called Mr. Jackson “the cornerstone to the entire music business.”

“He bridged the gap between rhythm and blues and pop music and made it into a global culture,” said Mr. Mottola, who worked with Mr. Jackson until the singer cut his ties with Sony in 2001.

Impromptu vigils broke out around the world, from Portland, Ore., where fans organized a one-gloved bike ride (“glittery costumes strongly encouraged”) to Hong Kong, where fans gathered with candles and sang his songs.

In Los Angeles, hundreds of fans — some chanting Mr. Jackson’s name, some doing the “Thriller” dance — descended on the hospital and on the hillside house where he was staying.

Jeremy Vargas, 38, hoisted his wife, Erica Renaud, 38, on his shoulders and they danced and bopped to “Man in the Mirror” playing from an onlooker’s iPod connected to external speakers — the boom boxes of Mr. Jackson’s heyday long past their day.

“I am in shock and awe,” said Ms. Renaud, who was visiting from Red Hook, Brooklyn, with her family. “He was like a family member to me.”

Dreams of a Comeback

Mr. Jackson was an object of fascination for the news media since the Jackson 5’s first hit, “I Want You Back,” in 1969. His public image wavered between that of the musical naif, who wanted only to recapture his youth by riding on roller-coasters and having sleepovers with his friends, to the calculated mogul who carefully constructed his persona around his often-baffling public behavior.

Mr. Jackson had been scheduled to perform 50 concerts at the O2 arena in London beginning next month and continuing into 2010. The shows, which quickly sold out, were positioned as a comeback, with the potential to earn him up to $50 million, according to some reports.

But there had also been worry and speculation that Mr. Jackson was not physically ready for such an arduous run of concerts, and his postponement of the first of those shows to July 13 from July 8 fueled new rounds of gossip about his health. Nevertheless, he was rehearsing Wednesday night at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. “The primary reason for the concerts wasn’t so much that he was wanting to generate money as much as it was that he wanted to perform for his kids,” said J. Randy Taraborrelli, whose biography, “Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness,” was first published by Citadel in 1991. “They had never seen him perform before.”

Mr. Jackson’s brothers, Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Randy, have all had performing careers, with varying success, since they stopped performing together. (Randy, the youngest, replaced Jermaine when the Jackson 5 left Motown.) His sisters, Rebbie, La Toya and Janet, are also singers, and Janet Jackson has been a major star in her own right for two decades. They all survive him, as do his parents, Joseph and Katherine Jackson, of Las Vegas, and three children: Michael Joseph Jackson Jr., Paris Michael Katherine Jackson, born to Mr. Jackson’s second wife, Deborah Jeanne Rowe, and Prince Michael Jackson II, the son of a surrogate mother. Mr. Jackson was also briefly married to Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of Elvis Presley.

A spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department said the department assigned its robbery and homicide division to investigate the death, but the spokesman said that was because of Mr. Jackson’s celebrity.

“Don’t read into anything,” the spokesman told reporters gathered outside the Bel-Air house. He said the coroner had taken possession of the body and would conduct an investigation.

At a news conference at the hospital, Jermaine Jackson spoke to reporters about his brother. “It is believed he suffered cardiac arrest at his home,” he said softly. A personal physician first tried to resuscitate Michael Jackson at his home before paramedics arrived. A team of doctors then tried to resuscitate him for more than an hour, his brother said.

“May Allah be with you always,” Jermaine Jackson concluded, his gaze aloft.

In Gary, Ind., hundreds of people descended upon the squat clapboard house were Mr. Jackson spent his earliest years. There were tears, loud wails, and quiet prayers as old neighbors joined hands with people who had driven in from Chicago and other nearby towns to pay their respects.

“Just continue to glorify the man, Lord,” said Ida Boyd-King, a local pastor who led the crowd in prayer. “Let’s give God praise for Michael.”

Shelletta Hinton, 40, drove to Gary from Chicago with her two young children. She said they had met Mr. Jackson in Gary a couple of years ago when he received a key to the city. “We felt like we were close to Michael,” she said. “This is a sad day.”

As dusk set in, mourners lighted candles and placed them on the concrete doorstep. Some left teddy bears and personal notes. Doris Darrington, 77, said she remembered seeing the Jackson 5 so many times around Gary that she got sick of them. But she, too, was feeling hurt by the sudden news of Mr. Jackson’s death.

“He has always been a source of pride for Gary, even though he wasn’t around much,” she said. “The older person, that’s not the Michael we knew. We knew the little bitty boy with the big Afro and the brown skin. That’s how I’ll always remember Michael.”

Michael Joseph Jackson was born in Gary on Aug. 29, 1958. The second youngest of six brothers, he began performing professionally with four of them at the age of 5 in a group that their father, Joe, a steelworker, had organized the previous year. In 1968, the group, originally called the Jackson Brothers, was signed by Motown Records. The Jackson 5 was an instant phenomenon. The group’s first four singles — “I Want You Back,” “ABC,” “The Love You Save” and “I’ll Be There” — all reached No. 1 on the pop charts in 1970, a feat no group had accomplished before. And young Michael was the center of attention: he handled virtually all the lead vocals, danced with energy and finesse, and displayed a degree of showmanship rare in a performer of any age.

In 1971, Mr. Jackson began recording under his own name, while continuing to perform with his brothers. His recording of “Ben,” the title song from a movie about a boy and his homicidal pet rat, was a No. 1 hit in 1972.

The brothers (minus Michael’s older brother Jermaine, who was married to the daughter of Berry Gordy, Motown’s founder and chief executive) left Motown in 1975 and, rechristened the Jacksons, signed to Epic, a unit of CBS Records. Three years later, Michael made his movie debut as the Scarecrow in the screen version of the hit Broadway musical “The Wiz.” But movie stardom proved not to be his destiny.

A Solo Sensation

Music stardom on an unprecedented level, however, was. Mr. Jackson’s first solo album for Epic, “Off the Wall,” released in 1979, yielded two No. 1 singles and sold seven million copies, but it was a mere prologue to what came next. His follow-up, “Thriller,” released in 1982, became the best-selling album of all time and helped usher in the music video age. The video for title track, directed by John Landis, was an elaborate horror-movie pastiche that was more of a mini-movie than a promotional clip.

Seven of the nine tracks on “Thriller” were released as singles and reached the Top 10. The album spent two years on the Billboard album chart and sold an estimated 100 million copies worldwide. It also won eight Grammy Awards.

The choreographer and director Vincent Paterson, who directed Mr. Jackson in several videos, recalled watching him rehearse a dance sequence for four hours in front of a mirror until it felt like second nature.

“That’s how he developed the moonwalk, working on it for days if not weeks until it was organic,” he said. “He took an idea that he had seen some street kids doing and perfected it.”

Mr. Jackson’s next album, “Bad,” released in 1987, sold eight million copies and produced five No. 1 singles and another state-of-the-art video, this one directed by Martin Scorsese. It was a huge hit by almost anyone else’s standards, but an inevitable letdown after “Thriller.”

It was at this point that Mr. Jackson’s bizarre private life began to overshadow his music. He would go on to release several more albums and, from time to time, to stage elaborate concert tours. And he would never be too far from the public eye. But it would never again be his music that kept him there.

Even with the millions Mr. Jackson earned, his eccentric lifestyle took a severe financial toll. In 1988 Mr. Jackson paid about $17 million for a 2,600-acre ranch in Los Olivos, Calif., 125 miles northwest of Los Angeles. Calling it Neverland after the mythical island of Peter Pan, he outfitted the property with amusement-park rides, a zoo and a 50-seat theater, at a cost of $35 million, according to reports, and the ranch became his sanctum.

But Neverland, and Mr. Jackson’s lifestyle, were expensive to maintain. A forensic accountant who testified at Mr. Jackson’s molesting trial in 2005 said Mr. Jackson’s annual budget in 1999 included $7.5 million for personal expenses and $5 million to maintain Neverland. By at least the late 1990s, he began to take out huge loans to support himself and pay debts. In 1998, he took out a loan for $140 million from Bank of America, which two years later was increased to $200 million. Further loans of hundreds of millions followed.

The collateral for the loans was Mr. Jackson’s 50 percent share in Sony/ATV Music Publishing, a portfolio of thousands of songs, including rights to 259 songs by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, considered some of the most valuable properties in music.

In 1985, Mr. Jackson paid $47.5 million for ATV, which included the Beatles songs — a move that estranged him from Mr. McCartney, who had advised him to invest in music rights — and 10 years later, Mr. Jackson sold 50 percent of his interest to Sony for $90 million, creating a joint venture, Sony/ATV. Estimates of the catalog’s value exceed $1 billion.

Last year, Neverland narrowly escaped foreclosure after Mr. Jackson defaulted on $24.5 million he owed on the property. A Los Angeles real estate investment company, Colony Capital L.L.C., bought the note, and put the title for the property into a joint venture with Mr. Jackson.

A Scandal’s Heavy Toll

In many ways, Mr. Jackson never recovered from the child molesting trial, a lurid affair that attracted media from around the world to watch as Mr. Jackson, wearing a different costume each day, appeared in a small courtroom in Santa Maria, Calif., to listen as a parade of witnesses spun a sometimes-incredible tale.

The case ultimately turned on the credibility of Mr. Jackson’s accuser, a 15-year-old cancer survivor who said the defendant had gotten him drunk and molested him several times. The boy’s younger brother testified that he had seen Mr. Jackson groping his brother on two other occasions.

After 14 weeks of such testimony and seven days of deliberations, the jury returned not-guilty verdicts on all 14 counts against Mr. Jackson: four charges of child molesting, one charge of attempted child molesting, one conspiracy charge and eight possible counts of providing alcohol to minors. Conviction could have brought Mr. Jackson 20 years in prison. Instead, he walked away a free man to try to reclaim a career that at the time had already been in decline for years.

After his trial, Mr. Jackson largely left the United States for Bahrain, the island nation in the Persian Gulf, where he was the guest of Sheik Abdullah, a son of the ruler of the country, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa. Mr. Jackson would never return to live at his ranch. Instead he remained in Bahrain, Dubai and Ireland for the next several years, managing his increasingly unstable finances. He remained an avid shopper, however, and was spotted at shopping malls in the black robes and veils traditionally worn by Bahraini women.

Despite the public relations blow of his trial, Mr. Jackson and his ever-changing retinue of managers, lawyers and advisers never stopped plotting his return.

By early this year, Mr. Jackson was living in a $100,000-a-month mansion in Bel-Air, to be closer to “where all the action is” in the entertainment business, his manager at the time, Tohme Tohme, told The Los Angeles Times. He was also preparing for his upcoming London shows.

”He was just so excited about having an opportunity to come back,” said Mr. Paterson, the director and choreographer.

Despite his troubles, the press and the public never abandoned the star. A crowd of paparazzi and onlookers lined the street outside Mr. Jackson’s home as the ambulance took him to the hospital.


Reporting was contributed by John M. Broder from Washington; Randal C. Archibold from Los Angeles; Susan Saulny from Gary, Ind.; and Melena Ryzik, Ben Sisario, Brian Stelter and Peter Keepnews from New York.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: June 27, 2009
An article on Friday about the death of Michael Jackson misstated the number of songs from his album “Off the Wall” that became No. 1 singles. There were two, not four. The article also misstated part of a comment that Mr. Jackson’s brother Jermaine offered for Mr. Jackson after speaking with reporters. He said, “May Allah be with you always,” not “May our love be with you always.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: June 30, 2009
An obituary on Friday about Michael Jackson misidentified the area of Los Angeles where he was renting a home. It is Holmby Hills, not the adjacent Bel Air.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: July 3, 2009
Because of an editing error, an obituary last Friday about Michael Jackson misstated the title of one of his hit songs. It is “Black or White,” not “Black and White.”




http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/michaeljackson/theydontcareaboutus.html

All,

One of my favorite MJ lyrics alltime (and I personally have many favorites because the man was also an absolutely brilliant lyricist in addition to his many other talents.) are the words of the stunning song "They Don't Care About Us" from his extraordinary 2 CD collection entitled HIStory: Past, Present, & Future, Book One recorded in 1995. Listen & Learn...RIP Michael...

Kofi


"They Don't Care About Us"

Skin head, dead head
Everybody gone bad
Situation, aggravation
Everybody allegation
In the suite, on the news
Everybody dog food
Bang bang, shot dead
Everybody's gone mad

All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us

Beat me, hate me
You can never break me
Will me, thrill me
You can never kill me
Jew me, sue me
Everybody do me
Kick me, kike me
Don't you black or white me

All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us

Tell me what has become of my life
I have a wife and two children who love me
I am the victim of police brutality, now
I'm tired of bein' the victim of hate
You're rapin' me of my pride
Oh, for God's sake
I look to heaven to fulfill its prophecy...
Set me free

Skin head, dead head
Everybody gone bad
trepidation, speculation
Everybody allegation
In the suite, on the news
Everybody dog food
black man, black mail
Throw your brother in jail

All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us

Tell me what has become of my rights
Am I invisible because you ignore me?
Your proclamation promised me free liberty, now
I'm tired of bein' the victim of shame
They're throwing me in a class with a bad name
I can't believe this is the land from which I came
You know I do really hate to say it
The government don't wanna see
But if Roosevelt was livin'
He wouldn't let this be, no, no

Skin head, dead head
Everybody gone bad
Situation, speculation
Everybody litigation
Beat me, bash me
You can never trash me
Hit me, kick me
You can never get me

All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us

Some things in life they just don't wanna see
But if Martin Luther was livin'
He wouldn't let this be

Skin head, dead head
Everybody gone bad
Situation, segregation
Everybody allegation
In the suite, on the news
Everybody dog food
Kick me, strike me
Don't you wrong or right me

All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us

All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us

All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us
All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us