Last Word on M.J.
July 8, 2009 by nina
Filed under Blog It Out, Bitch
I wasn’t going to respond. I really wasn’t. But I just can’t let ignorance pass unanswered. It’s not in my D.N.A to do so (read: I have a big mouth.)
So, on Twitter and Facebook I’ve seen a bunch of tweets and status updates questioning the media coverage of Michael Jackson’s death. I’ve seen some interesting and responsible questions – Jessica Gottlieb, a Los Angelian (is that even a word?) asks, “Who’s going to pay for the police overtime incurred due to his memorial?” Fair question from a citizen of a state that is in dire straits. I can even get behind my friend Kriss’ questioning of people’s fascination with celebrities after death.
But what I can’t get behind are people suddenly questioning the media coverage like they just got here yesterday. Are you new? Did you suddenly think the media was going to change? Between his death and yesterday did broadcast news stop being a business and I somehow missed it while playing Animal Crossing?
As a journalism student I can tell you that news is decided on whether or not it falls into one of three categories: relevance, usefulness, and impact. The problem is, what is relevant to you, what is useful for you, what impacts you, may not mean squat to the masses. And guess what? The news media is always, always, always, gonna go with the masses. Cause the masses mean ratings and ratings mean money. And if 30 million people would tune in to watch something about the six soldiers we lost in war, then all the networks would be running something on them 25/8.
If I see one more comment like, “he could grab his crotch” or “dance good” (and it’s well, by the way, dance well) I might seriously lose my shit. A friend on Twitter logged off rather than unfollow people for their ignorant MJ comments because she happened to like some of the people. Well, I have no qualms about pissing off people I like. Love, even. I do it ALL THE TIME. They’ll be just fine. So, here we go…
I really don’t want to hear from people what he did or didn’t mean in a time when there were NO black artists being played on MTV. Let me say that again. NO black artists on MTV. When I wanted to see a Michael Jackson video, or a Run D.M.C video, or a video by anyone brown, I had to keep my black ass up late on a Friday night and watch the one program on TV that showed videos by black artists. Meanwhile, my white counterparts could turn on MTV at 2 a.m., 3 p.m., or midnight and see a myriad of white artists. Back then, they would have little brown children believe we weren’t making music videos. I remember what it was like to check the back of JET magazine to see when some black people would be on TV because there were just that few of us shown.
He broke barriers. Period. May not be important to you, but it’s important to many black people. He influenced pop culture probably more than any other entertainer in our history. In a country where we exalt anyone that can dance and sing well, anyone that can throw or hit a ball far, anyone that can swim fast, anyone that is really pretty and sometimes famous just for being famous, anyone that can write or draw well, pretty much anyone more talented than we are, is it any wonder that when Michael Jackson died it would dominate the news?
Is it right? Was it too much? I think we can all agree that we wish we lived in a society where the most important things to all of us would get the most attention. Hell, I wish little black girls that go missing got HALF the national media attention that little white girls do. But it’s the world we live in. And we either acknowledge and move on or we acknowledge and do something about it. What we shouldn’t do, is post tweets and status updates with comments based on ignorance and misinformation.We should all feel free to voice our opinions, but when you pull yours out of your ass and based on nothing factual, well, expect to be called on it.
I have well over 100 channels with my cable package. I am sure most of you do too. But what I know for a fact is that his memorial wasn’t on every channel yesterday, and if you didn’t want to watch it you could find a channel that wasn’t airing it, turn to it, and shut the fuck up. It’s what I do when things I could give a crap about dominate the airwaves.
I think another reason you had people traveling from small villages in Africa to larger villages, on foot, to see his memorial and the reason it affected people all over the world, is because it was also about music. And music is the universal language (pig latin is a close second.) Everyone has had moments where they heard a song that took them back to certain moments in their lives. Whether you liked it or not, his music affected people.
I remember the smell of the Thriller album. That’s right, fuckers. I said ALBUM. Not CD. I’m old. I would play that thing till the needle broke after my parents went to bed. I knew every song and imagined they were all for me. Michael Jackson wasn’t just talented – people trying to belittle his abilities to crotch-grabbing and moonwalking, I’d love to see what you can do – but he also hit when the world was changing. Music videos would only be new once. Television channels devoted to music videos would only be new once. It was a big deal. That’s what an innovative artist does. They make themselves apart of the changing culture by showing us things we’ve never seen before and in doing so they end up shaping the culture.
And this isn’t about accusations of child molestation. People generally fall into two categories. They either believed it or they didn’t. One interesting note: I’ve heard plenty of people say that it’s suspicious that he would settle the first accusation out of court for $20 million. Well, at that time, and for Michael Jackson, $20 million wasn’t a lot of money. I have no back-up to one claim that the insurance company (not AEG) had pushed him to settle because it would have been cheaper than going to court and worst than going to court for something you didn’t do and losing. But what I find most interesting is that I’ve not heard one person ponder, “Who accepts $20 million from the man they believe molested their child?” If I truly believed someone had molested Kali or Jack, his ass would have to go under the jail… and I’m broke! Ask a woman who’s been raped if she’d want money from her rapist in lieu of him going to jail.
Again, though, that’s not what this is about. It’s about people who don’t get, but refuse to. It’s about people who don’t get it, and would rather make derisive comments. What I think people should try to remember is that in death, he was just like those six soldiers that died – someone’s parent, child, friend, sibling… and that should always be respected.
Nina is a 34-year-old mother, wife and writer who spends her days blogging, studying, changing diapers and watching ridiculous amounts of TV. She currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband, two children and three TiVos.
Were there haters when Elvis died? Cause I am sure that was all over the place and back then you didn’t have over a hundred channels.
THANK YOU DONNY. I have been thinking about this since a few days after MJ’s death. People are still walking around talking about Elvis is alive. Visiting the home where he died. And dressing up like him to this day, and he died over 30 years ago.
Here is a little tid bit about The KANG Elvis’s funeral:
Before his funeral, hundreds of thousands of fans, the press and celebrities lined the streets and many hoped to see the open casket in Graceland. One of Presley’s cousins, Bobby Mann,[53] accepted $18,000 to secretly photograph the corpse; the picture duly appeared on the cover of the National Enquirer, making it the largest and fastest selling issue of all time.[245] Two days after the singer’s death, a car plowed into a group of 2000 fans outside Presley’s home, killing two women and critically injuring a third.
Hundreds of thousands 30 years ago has to be the equivalent of the Million plus people that sent emails to get tickets to MJs memorial. I am not some die hard MJ fan. I had a crush on him when I was younger like everyone else. wanted his poster the glove the jacket. The media only gives people what they are responding to, and right now its not the war in iraq, its not nukes in korea, nor is it our president making schmoozing in russia, palin resigning or steve mcnair… its the life and death of michael jackson.
For everyone complaining: The world is still pretty much a shambles, and if you only have six channels on tv and they all had mj coverage on them, how bout you turn the tv OFF. Pick up a book or a paper and keep it movin.
ps: I didn’t realize how irritated i was until I started writing this..
That was great Nina. Well said. I’ve refrained from saying much about Michael Jackson other than that I found it all very sad. I worked at the YWCA when Thriller came out as a camp counsellor. I had a day group of eight year old boys and I will always remember us making glitter gloves for craft and lip synching to Beat It. I also remember exactly where I was when I saw him Moonwalk on the Motown special. I was on band tour in a hotel room with all of my closest friends drinking illicit lemon gin and was BLOWN AWAY by both him and Patti Labelle. I remember talking aobut it for months afterward.
White people, myself included, tend to look at the world and think everyone sees it the same as we do – but we look through the eyes that have never been marginalized. I was incredibly moved by Rev Sharpton’s commentary on the changes Michael Jackson brought. It is eye opening to think about in that way as I had never considered that. And I agree with you. I too want to live in a world where the media is as concerned about a black child, or a native child gone missing as they would be a white child.
No matter what his life became, he was an important part of mine growing up and when TH was a baby. I’ve probably listened to Black or White a gazillion times. Remember when the video first aired? people criticized but I LOVED it. I used to put it on loud and then get on my rebounder mini trampoline trying to lose my baby weight while singing along.
It created quite the spectacle, let me tell you.
That’s how I choose to remember Michael Jackson. Thanks Nina. You really are Fabulous.
I had no doubt that his memorial was going to be a media frenzy, or that it even should have been. My problem with the whole thing, as with ANYONE’S death, is how all of a sudden people knew and loved him. These same people would not even adknowledge the man when he was going through the accusations and trial.
AND people fail to realize that he was found innocent in a court of law…..his motives for paying up the first time don’t matter. Now, I’m not saying he wasn’t actually guilty, I wasn’t there, but by law he was innocent.
Personally, I liked his music…mostly. I just thought he was far too out there for me later in life.
And in all fairness to that, and I think it explains the fact that celebrities’ music/movies do well after that, people tend to want to hold on to what they can after someone passes. Like, I didn’t talk about him all day, every day, like I did say, back in 1983, but I loved him. And so when he goes (especially when it just never occurred to me that he ever would), I think people express it even more than say, when you expect it. Like Farrah. Her death was no less tragic, but it was completely expected.
I wish that he had different people around him… advising him. I wish that he didn’t have issues with the way he looked. Because he was fine before the surgeries. There wasn’t a damn thing wrong with that big, black, nose.
question i figure you would know this(i wikipedia’d it but couldnt finish reading… it keeps freezing my pc) MJ broke his nose and thats what set off all the nose surgeries in the first place right?
Well said. I was nodding through this whole thing.
What’s been irritating me is people who pretend to be above it all and say things like “does it make me strange or normal that I don’t care about this Michael Jackson stuff?” I want to say, WHO CARES?! WHO CARES that you don’t care?! I don’t expect casual acquaintances to come up to me and say, “does it make me strange that I don’t care that your grandfather died?” No, it makes you indifferent. That’s all. Nothing wrong with that. But realize that there are people who DO care, and unfortunately it’s… like you said… the MASSES.
The only other thing I can add on the child molestation accusations is whenever someone says something like “you do know he molested children, right?” I want to just smack them and say “He was acquitted!” Of course, the common defense is “Well, so was OJ,” and I don’t really have a response to that but 20 million dollars to get people to get off your back… yeah, that’s a lot, but accusing someone of child molestation is the absolute worst thing anyone could accuse someone of. There are other terrible accusations but once someone calls you a pedophile, and, in MJ’s case what made it worse was that people looked at him and his strangeness and said, “yeah, I can see that…” That shit is NEVER leaving your image. You could have 10 alibis that say you were attending a senior citizens event… it doesn’t matter, if someone says “he’s a pedophile!” that’s all anyone will ever hear.
“In my darkest hour, in my deepest despair… will you still care?”
Sorry for the novel, but like you said “this is the last thing I’ll say on MJ” so I thought I’d do the same.
Adam, you are so dead on with this:
What’s been irritating me is people who pretend to be above it all and say things like “does it make me strange or normal that I don’t care about this Michael Jackson stuff?” I want to say, WHO CARES?! WHO CARES that you don’t care?! I don’t expect casual acquaintances to come up to me and say, “does it make me strange that I don’t care that your grandfather died?” No, it makes you indifferent. That’s all. Nothing wrong with that. But realize that there are people who DO care, and unfortunately it’s… like you said… the MASSES.
In fact, I love you for it.
What’s really sad, is that next to no one even knows that the boy who originally accused him of molestion was drugged and forced to contrive that story by his father, who has since tried to kill him as they continue to battle over that settlement money. There is no media coverage exonerating him from that stigma. I was railed for even suggesting that people he welcomed into his home were opportunists who took advantage or him in order to extort him because he was an easy target.
I watched again an Oprah interview he did back in the 90’s where he candidly discussed why he loved being around children so much, and is it any wonder? They didn’t judge him but only saw who he was inside. They helped him enjoy just a tiny bit of enjoyment that he was robbed of by not having a real childhood.
He was extraordinary and the things he did for others in this world was explemplary. The organization of “We are the World” for USA for Africa was an amazing and beautiful project and unprecidented still today. Even today I hear it and I lose my shit because the world we are today just doesn’t give a shit. What I find truly sad, is that at the end of his short life, he had done more than just about any single person will do in theirs, yet was shown the least amount of respect. Hell even that asshole Martin Bashir whom he invited into his home to interview him made him look like a crazed leper, but had the balls to commentate during the memorial event like they were pals. It was disgusting and I just hope that wherever he is, he knows that many, many people loved him and believed that he was good.
That’s the same reaction that I had to Bashir. Everything he said made me want to smack him in the back of the head. I really don’t know what ABC see’s in him and he’s ruined Nightline for me.
I turned it off until he was done.
His reference to watching Michael “be normal” and seeing kids climbing trees, etc., when I am old enough to remember the expose he did lambasting him after Michael trusted him by allowing him into his home for such a large amount of time. He did so because he didn’t see anything wrong with his lifestyle and had hoped other’s would understand.
Instead of being respectful, Bashir was malicious and disrespectful…and to speak of him as if they were friends now that he’s dead was borderline sinful IMO.
I recently read an article (dont know how credible it was)on the boy (I think his name is Jordan) where he recants his whole story of Michael ever molesting him. He says in it that it was his fathers way of escaping being poor because he knew they would get the money. He said he always wanted to go public with the information and apologize to the him for what happened but his father wouldn’t let him for fear they would have to repay the money. He also says in the article he was only going public now because he felt guilty with Michael’s passing.
I think when Al said “there wasnt anything strange about your daddy..” I have always felt that way about Michael. I think he slept with those boys, but I dont think he had any salacious intent…its just we live in a society that sets what is appropriate and what isnt…and he never could fit into that mold.
and you are right, let someone molest my child and it would be my intent to bring them down..and for him it would have been worse to go through the spectacle of a trial then the jail time ( though that would have destroyed him too ) so the simple fact that they settled spoke volumes to his innocence to me…
Kemari brought up some great points and a list of celebrities who all settled allegations out of court.
“There wasn’t a damn thing wrong with that big, black nose.”
AGREED, TOTALLY!
I still recall the Motown 25 year TV special where Michael did the moonwalk for the very first time, it’s so corny to say this but I swear on my life there was a thrilling vibe in the room that night and when he appeared on stage and picked up that mic…God it still give me chills. I feel Michael in some ways was a tortured soul who in the last 15 years of his life had a inner circle of “friends” that did what Anna Nicole’s “friends” did to her which was stand by and watch someone make foolish mistakes and never step up to tell that person to stop, because in telling that person to stop they would have probably lost that person as a friend but in doing so saved that persons life.
No one will ever know what Michael had to endure in his lifetime, the lost childhood, the constant media scrutiny, the ever wondering of who’s your real friend or just a hanger on? It’s sad that he is no longer with us, I still believe that he had so much more greatness to share with us but I also believe that he has finally found that peace that he was forever searching for.
Great job Nina!
What I remember most from that night was the whole time he was performing w/ his brothers, we were like “Please let him sing Billie Jean, please let him sing Billie Jean.” Then when it was just him and he started talking about how much he loved the old songs… but the new songs… and he put on that hat. GIRL! We went crazy. And the reaction shots of the people in the audience. There was one brother that just went crazy. That was a magical night and all anyone could talk about for a long time.
Well said Nina. Im glad you wrote this. Cuz honestly it was pissing me off reading all those comments. I even had to tell off quite a few people. Glad they werent any of my followers but random commentators.
What pisses me off about some of these commentators is that theyre busy talking crap about how the soldiers havent gotten any airplay but they dont realize that soldiers have died everyday. For every country. From every country. Michael was one and only. THERE WONT BE ANOTHER MICHAEL JACKSON. (I know theres a 2nd and a 3rd but still. besides the point) Without Michael there wouldnt have been so much of an advancement in music for black people as a whole, for spanish people, for anyone who ISNT white. I know damn well my fellow portorocs were not on MTV for some time well into the 90s. And I only know that because by the time I started watching MTV I was 3 and all I saw were rockbands mainly.
Anyway, there goes my 2 cents. Ill go bk to twitter. I hope Tyrese read this. Its how I realized you even posted this. =)
i just watched the “living with michael jackson” special again and it was the first time I’d considered that he might actually NOT have done anything to those little kids. I like your point that someone who believed their child had been molested is unlikely to be interested in the offender’s money. I also realized during the special how easy it must have been for unscrupulous people to claim abuse in exchange for money. I guess the world will never know for sure…
Thank you Nina!!
I’ve been trying to ask people how much their child’s innocence is worth to them. 20 million? 100 million? 1 billion dollars??? I don’t have children and I can tell you right now, I don’t care how much you offer me, I’m fighting tooth and nail for criminal charges. If 12 members of a jury, 12 members of MY PEERS find you not guilty, then and only then would I be seeing your child molesting ass in civil court and you’re paying me, because if I can’t get yo ass in jail, I’ll be hitting you where it hurts…the wallet. Just like OJ.
I’ve heard or read somewhere that one of the boys came out (after MJ’s death) that he lied and his father told him what to say. Anybody else here this? I could be wrong.
Hey, MJ was a wierd guy, he was definetly not all right in the head, he did things that people found strange. When he did that interview with that one journalist, I remember watching it thinking “Fuck MJ! you just fucked yourself.”
The point is, someone is dead, someone who influenced a shit load of people, someone who CHANGED music, someone’s son, someone’s brother and there are three kids out there without a father. I’m sad for them, because instead of grieving in silence, they will forever be defending the man they knew and loved. He’s dead, let’s let him Rest in Peace.
I heard the same thing also about the kid saying he lied about the whole molestation thing. Mind you it hasnt gotten any press. Why? Because a lot of people dont believe that he lied about it and that MJ probly did do so.
Media=Bastards
If you find anything can you post it?
Sure, I can give you some links:
http://www.techbanyan.com/4554/jordan-chandler-admits-lied-about-michael-jackson/
http://floacist.wordpress.com/2007/08/20/where-is-jordan-chandler-now/
Now, there is of course articles that dispute this, but I’m not here to debate that.
Side bar: This is pretty damn cool:
http://blogs.discovery.com/news_tech/2009/06/michael-jackson-had-a-patent.html
thanks chrissa!!!
I heard that the retraction was in an interview for GQ Magazine. I don’t know if it’s true but I would think that if it was they would be capitalizing on it.
I’m thrilled to have stumbled upon Nina’s blog, and even more thrilled to find the MJ post. I loved him, but wasn’t a superfan. In the last several years I’ve been one of the many following his “weirdness” but never really thought he was all that weird. I assumed, as some have even written about, that he courted much of the press himself, because he is an entertainer, and because, at some point, he must have just said fuck it, they think I’m a freak, so I’m going to do whatever the fuck I want.
Although I winced when he said sleeping with children is normal, I knew what he meant. I’ve been part of placing refugees, and often the children have been orphaned, brutalized, ignored, starved–any number of horrendous things most of us will never know–and they were so very needy. In any home they stayed they wanted to sleep in bed with anyone they could–adult or child–just to feel the closeness and safety. Of course, MJ’s childhood was not this horrendous, but I liken his child-like neediness to this.
And why doesn’t anyone refer to the court appointed psychologist who stated clearly MJ did not meet the profile of a pedophile, but he did seem to be a regressed 10 year old? Unfortunately, it’s just as Adam says, once you are labeled something this atrocious, you can’t ever be rid of it.
Ah, and really none of that is the original reason for my comment. As I said, I was never a superfan, just one who appreciated the music, and really, really loved the dancing and videos, but in the last several years, haven’t listened to him or thought of his music much. But when he died? I can’t explain my grief, and in fact, I am embarrassed by it. Even now, writing this, I am in tears. I have slept little, wake up to his songs in my head, fall asleep to the millionth replay of Man in the Mirror on CNN, have all his music playing round the clock. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the man, his life, the torture he put himself through, and the torture the rest of us put him through. Ultimately I think my despair has more to do with the absolute waste his death is; the consequences of his choices which I’m sure was a combination of poor judgment, him being so kid-like and all, plus so many people taking advantage of him and his naivety.
I’ll stop now, but thank you for giving me space to ramble about what feels like a 2-week memorial I’ve been holding for him.
I’ll admit it now that you have. Ever since he died, I too have been waking up with his songs in my head. It always takes me a few moments to realize I’m doing it. LOL
I also cringed when he admitted to sharing his bed with children, but I also realized right away what he meant. He was way too naive and didn’t have people around him to tell him better. I thought Lisa Marie hit on it perfectly in her blog that he always manage to surround himself with leeches and vampires. That’s really sad. I really hope he had more happiness in his life than it seems from the outside.
1. the jokes are fucking disgusting. i don’t understand how ANYONE could try to make light of ANYONE’S death. ANYONE.
2. from personal experience (not child molestation accusations, however): yeah, it stays with you lonnnng after when you are accused of something fucked up like that. he became a little “weirder” – i’ve become a lot more paranoid about the little things. people handle things differently. but yeah. wtf did everyone expect? for him to bounce back like nothing happened? then he would have been criticized for not “caring” or it would have been brought up that he wasn’t reacting “properly” – you really just can’t freakin’ win with our media anymore.
And for those that say, “But Jordan wasn’t the only boy to accuse him”
No, he wasn’t:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_v._Jackson
He also wasn’t the only one to do it in an effort to extort money from him.
The questions I have are:
1. Why settle out of court if you’re innocent? Giving someone money after they’ve accused you of something is admitting guilt. I don’t care how much it would cost to defend myself; if I was innocent of something so horrible I would fight to prove my innocence tooth and nail.
2. Why didn’t anyone think MJ should maybe see a shrink? Everyone is coming out saying “oh, he was robbed of his childhood and never really grew up”… SO??? That’s an excuse? If you’ve regressed to the point of doing things society does not approve of you seek help. Was he so amazing that he was above seeking treatment?
I understand that someone died who brought so much hope and peace in people’s lives so my questions don’t really matter anymore but I’m still just curious that so many turn a blind eye to things like that. It doesn’t matter anymore if he was a pedophile or not; we’ll never know the answers but it’s ok to question it out of curiosity. *shrug*
Fayth,
Have you been the King of all entertainers and been accused of something so heinous, and at the same time still be fairly young and handled and managed by who-knows-how-many people? There is plenty written about how devastating the first accusation was for MJ, and that he was advised to settle against his own better judgment. No one on this planet can ever know what it was like to be MJ at the time, and frankly, I’m guessing he thought more of Jordan when he settled the case than anyone would give him credit for. Consider that MJ loved kids and knew how devastating a trial would be on a kid who was lying for his father.
At no point was this blog about “turning a blind eye.” I said that the blog wasn’t about the child molestation accusations, but rather the naive idea that the coverage of his death and memorial. It’s like people took stupid pills. Did they forget OJ? Scott Peterson? How bout the Jackson molestation trial where one channel did soap opera-style re-enactments every night because cameras weren’t allowed in the courtroom.
Now, it is my understanding that artists who are attached to record labels/networks/movie studios, etc, are insured. And that it is fairly common for celebrities to weigh what the person wants against the cost of litigation. When they do this, and if a settlement is made, a portion (if not all) is paid by the insurance company. They also weigh in the fact that even if you’re innocent, you could lose at trial and go to jail. I think, if I thought there was any possibility that I could go to jail, I’d choose to be out $20mill and free w/ a taint over me (ok, that doesn’t sound right) vs. having $20mill… in jail and innocent.
But again, why is no one pondering why the parents of a allegedly molested child would even ASK for $20 million dollars?
Who said he didn’t seek treatment? In fact, I believe in the Oprah interview he talked about seeing a therapist. I think we all know that there’s no guarantee therapy works. I thought it was disclosed that he had sought treatment for a pain killer addiction as well. Again, I think most of us know people that have sought treatment for addictions and have it not take.
I’m sorry Nina, I wasn’t responding directly to your blog but to the trend in the comments. I didn’t mean for you to think I was saying YOU were turning a blind eye towards anything.
However, I would rather have that $20 million and know that I didn’t give it away so I didn’t have to go through trial. My integrity can’t be bought. I don’t care how pesky a trial would be… I don’t care if I went to jail… at least I stood by my honesty and didn’t take the easy way out. I’m not bashing Jackson but I’m saying I firmly believe that if you’re innocent you don’t settle out of court. It kinda contradicts anything you have to say to your defense.
And why would a parent even ASK for the money? If it’s true that the boy was never molested why would you use your child to get money in the first place? You just can’t put yourself into the shoes of those parents because maybe they were just batshit crazy and/or horrible parents. So trying to fathom crazy is just impossible.
And just to finish the issue about therapy… he shouldn’t have just seen a therapist… he needed more than that. He might have been so fucked up that maybe an institution would have been best. You don’t hang your own child over a balcony if you’re sane.
I think the balcony thing was more stupid than crazy. I think it was one of those things where you do something w/o thinking it through and you’re just lucky you didn’t pay the ultimate price. I remember when Donny went to Michigan for his grandmother’s funeral. I let Kali ride in the front seat when we went to Blockbuster. She was about 7 or 8. It wasn’t until later did I think about the consequences of my actions. Even a fender bender could have the deployed the air bag and snapped her neck. I was just talking to someone the other day about the balcony thing and he admitted to sometimes getting the urge to put his 2 yr old on the riding lawn mower w/ him. Or what about the parents that forget their babies in the car?
People make stupid, split-second, decisions all the time that don’t make them crazy.
I think what he was lacking, unfortunately, was people who weren’t afraid to lay some reality on him. Someone to be like, “Um, you a grown-ass man. Get those babies out of your bed!” And who knows, maybe he did, but when you think you’re right and have nothing to hide…
I just think for as many plausible and compelling explanations that could point to his guilt, there are just as many to point to his innocence.
I agree with you when you say that your integrity can’t be bought, but your also not a famous musician with a career at stake. So, honestly you can’t say what you would’ve done in that situation. I do believe that most times celebrities have publicists and image consultants who make decisions for them on how to handle high profile situations for them. I’m confident in saying that it wasn’t his idea to just settle and have a dark cloud looming over him with people wondering if he truly is a pedophile.
Nina, I think you just wrote a brilliant piece that should run as a ‘guest editorial’ somewhere major (other than your major blog here).
I watched the coverage from beginning to end and wouldn’t have missed it. You’re right about how the media picks it’s stories and the unexpected death of Michael Jackson was what everyone was talking about…and still are. You’re also right about music being the universal language, and I do remember where I was when I heard a lot of his songs. I had the albums, too, and cassettes for the car. I remember that Rock With You was the first song of the first class I ever taught of aerobics. It had been out a few years, but once you make it part of a class and hear it over and over, you are one with it. All these years later I can hear that song and instantly do the steps as I sing along. Not to mention all the songs of his that I taught dance to. I hear them and my feet start dancing, even if I’m sitting! I remember something intensely personal about Thriller that I can’t divulge, but yet I hold it close to my heart. I also remember taking my tiny kids to the Victory Tour because they just about danced out of me and sang instead of crying. They knew who he was along with the whole Jackson family. They wanted the, no THE jacket, and I went nuts going from Kmart to Kmart to buy two cheap red MJ jackets and little black jeans for them to wear to the concert. My husband was lucky enough to get 4 tickets at work and we had a ball sharing it with the boys. It was an experience that I’ll never forget. And neither will they as they told me this past week. Reminiscing with them was part of my memorial experience, too. I’ll miss his music and can’t imagine the world without Michael Jackson.
Great editorial, Nina!
This is just in my opinion but…
Who the hell are we to feel in titled to knowing why he would settle outside of court? Or why he decided to get the surgeries? Or why he supposedly left his father out of the will? Or why he married who he married? He’s a person. People like to forget that when they can profit from it. Everyone is in tilted to PRIVACY. Which he had absolutely none of. He was a man with a child like spirit and great talent. We were LUCKY that he shared his talent of music and dancing with us and the rest of the world and that we got to feel close to him. We feel to much like these people OWE us explanations to every freaking detail of their life. It’s sad.
My heart is aching for his children.
I love MJ. I didn’t cry but I teared up. lol
The black MJ appealed to me more than the white one.
Amen!
My thing with this whole circus surrounding his death is that all those people who talked shit about him while he was alive all flipflopped REAL quick. Those same people are saying how MJ was amazing, MJ was this, MJ was that…that pisses me off! The way I see it, if you feel a certain way about someone (especially due to the severity of some of those allegations) why would you just so quickly feel the exact opposite? If he was shit in life his memory is now shit. If he was great in life his memory is now still great. Its that simple. I just find it disgusting that so many people just can’t have the balls to say they didn’t like him before his death and death hasn’t changed that.
You make an excellent point about accepting money from a man who molested your child. You just changed my mind, literally, and that is an incredibly difficult thing to do.
What I said to Kemari the other day is this: my gut instinct around MJ was that he was one of those artists that just wasn’t made to live in the world and all of its ugliness without going off into la-la land. I think for some people to contain that amount of creativity and talent, there has to be a ‘give’ somewhere else. There are very few artists that have existed in the arena that MJ did without being eccentric or self-destructive in some way. To add to the mix the amount of his life that was lived in media scrutiny and the energy of the adoration of masses that surrounded him in one way or another every moment of his days – I think it is wrong to say ‘Well, if it was me, I would have gotten help” and assume that this ‘help’ would result in him looking the way we wanted him to. Some artists are able to walk that fine line, others, like MJ, had too much going on in one body – like a conduit with too much friggin’ electricity running through it.
Personally, I never thought of him as a pedophile, I thought of him as a Peter Pan and there is a part of me that totally understands ‘not wanting to grow up’ and deal with the world as it is. There is a lot of beauty but there is a lot of ugly to match stride with the pretty.
My opinion is not based on intensive scrutiny of MJ’s life, the media reports, etc. just my gut reaction over the years to watching him.
Thanks for making me consider things from someone else’s standpoint. I wasn’t aware that there were no black artists on MTV before Michael Jackson as 1. MTV was only shown on satellite tv and 2. We were too frigging poor to have satellite tv.
I have been sickened by some of the things I’ve seen written about MJ since his death. Did no one bring these people up right?! My mum taught me not to speak ill of the dead. It seemed people believed what they wanted to believe about those Jordan Chandler allegations, and I said that if I had a child and someone had molested him or her I’d sooner die than take money off their alleged attacker. I smell a rat there, and I hope that family mans up and comes out with the truth now, but would they EVER admit to being money-grabbing arseholes? Unlikely.
I think I’m a bit late to the party, but I’ll echo Donny’s sentiments. Elvis’s death was the first time I ever saw my father cry (I was maybe 10 at the time.) ‘Celebrity’ does have an impact. People remember events in their lives based on the songs that played at the time. And surely some of those times included MJ’s body of work.
Also, we have Sony, I beleive it was, for getting MJ on MTV. They threatened to pull their whole catalog from them if they wouldn’t play the music. Good for them! Because regardless of MJ’s odd behaviors (and I don’t claim to know the answers about those), he was one hell of a talent.
Soon, pieces of toast bearing MJ’s likeness will be selling on eBay. Mark my breakfast, it will happen. And they thought MJ was strange…
nina, with this blog, it just suffices to say…
and THIS is WHY we all love you so much!
very well said!
HUGS!
Chris