Michael Jackson, Freak Show RIP

Sinatra who?

“a self-absorbed creep who did little for others”

This much I can agree with, but because nearly all people had little or no understanding of what he had and why he did to himself the things he did.

Michael had vitilogo. It’s a creeping disfigurement where you lose your pigment. For a white person it means staying out of the sun and not getting tanned. For a black or latino person it is horrific. You’ve seen people like this on the street and you may think they are scarred from burns.

It starts with spots on your hands (hence the glove), then the wrists (hence the long sleeves), then the neck (hence the high collars), then effects your face (hence the bleaching of the skin which doctors tell you to do), in particular if affects the nose (why he cut it down), and then it covers most of your body and requires you to stay out of the sun or risk skin cancer (hence the hats and umbrella). There are doctors who will graft skin from an unaffected part to one that is (like the face). Those are the physical problems.

Then there is the emotional horror of disfigurement for anyone because of this, and how badly people are treated who have it and cannot hide it. Particularly young black and latino kids. Try to imagine what a person goes through psychologically as this creeping disfigurement takes over and they feel like a lepper.

Now imagine you are in your 20′s and are the biggest rock star in the world.

I read crap from Quincy Jones who said that “the excuse of vitiligo was B.S.” regarding Michael becoming white. That is downright stupid. Jackson had no choice. Jones was clearly only a friend of convenience for Michael to say such an ignorant thing.

And that is the problem, Larry. Michael Jackson had no support system of people as he grew older with this condition. Leaches – too many of them – who told him what he wanted to hear and did not dare to challenge him and forfeit their paycheck. I know one of them and leach is a kind word.

Getting back to what you said, “a self-absorbed creep who did little for others.” What Jackson should have done is not just admit to the vitiligo, but to become a spokespeson for it, to raise money, and to find a cure. Had he done this it he not only would have been helping young black and latino kids who have to suffer with it, but it would have been cathartic for himself. But he only felt sorry for himself and did nothing. That is tragic.

Finally, some common sense. I went to CNN site to read on McNamara’s passing, hoping to get some insight on the former SoS – having read his book The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam -, instead I find articles about insignificant MJ and pics on dumbasses holding tickets to the marketing crap show to come.

150+ dead in Xinjinag, 7 US soldiers killed in Afghanistan, US & Russian agree to mayor nuclear arms reduction, Iran continues with arrest of reformers, but CNN gives top billing to MJ. News for the mob, really, just keep them entertained, dumb, but entertained.

I’ll give Michael Jackson this over Presley though, at least Jackson DID write some of his own music. I don’t think Presley wrote a single song.

I`ll buy a ticket to Al Sharpton’s funeral. One less low life racist.

Got the news that Michael died on the internet–maybe it was here. Don’t watch TV anymore, don’t read magazines, don’t subscribe to a newspaper. I was watching TV back when Anna Nicole Smith died, and that non-stop circus followed by the deification of Barack Hussein Obama did it for me. Okay–if, on the hoopla scale, 1 to 10, Anna Nicole gets a 9, what does Jackson rate?

Thanks Larryy for clearing that up for me, I had never seen Michael Jacksons progression into freakdom from the Drag queen angle before, but darn it just might work. And to think i wanted to marry the man when i was 5 (yeesh).

I don`t recall Jamie Foxx saying OJ Simpson was “one of us.”

Thank you, Larry. You pointed out the obvious but it needed to be pointed out because too many people are unwilling to recognize the obvious: We are getting the entertainers and politicians we deserve. We don’t have President in the White House: we have a rock star. And now we are treating a hugely messed up rock star as if he were JFK…an assisinated president. We have gone through the looking glass. This is nuts.

Wow – with all of the hateful comments regarding Michael Jackson, I thought I was on one of those liberal sites that make fun of Sarah Palin, her children and spent the 2008 season calling all women C*nts and Wh*res!

I guess the liberals aren’t the only cruel, hateful judges of another’s illness or differences!

CAROL HAKA

RIP, MJ. The rest of us still here–let’s keep hollering for news. Not infotainment–news.

Michael Jackson isn’t dead. It was all a fake so he could fade from the limelight and live a normal life. In fact, I just saw him getting a tank of gas at the QuickTrip about an hour ago! When I called out his name, he turned and looked at me nervously before climbing into his Prius and zipping off, but it was him! I’m sure of it!

Well, I think Sharpie should be calling MJ a racist for deliberately arranging for the propogation of white kids.

“We must admit the truth–we are getting the entertainers and politicians we deserve.”

Yep, the Idiocracy has won.

I don’t think Larry is not giving MJ his due as a great performer but truth be told why would ANY entertainer, be it Jackson, Sinatra, Elvis, etc be worthy of a two week media orgy and ALL the news networks covering his memorial? NEWS networks people! ALL of them when there is so much more happening that immediately affects our lives than the passing of an artist.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a firm believer in the arts as a necessity and a gift for the human spirit and great artists should be honored in life and in death, but this is not honoring MJ. This is a mindless, exploitative circus event that only benefits the media and every celebrity or celebrity wannabe now claiming to have been “very close to Michael”.

Our culture is so celebrity obsessed that they can no longer distinguish between true greatness and charisma, or between a proper news coverage and cortege that is given to a sitting head of state and an entertainer.

Great post LJ. May the media that quicklly jumped to report the rumors, who are now hanging on for any bump in ratings they can get on the same person, go down in flames. And soon their cash cow will be over.

So true, we are getting what…oh, I can’t say it, I’m not making these stupid choices, WE are getting what they who voted for the empty ones desserve.

Laughable , with the news that came through, especially about Governor Palin, maybe the HObots have wisened up if they are complaining about leaving a position early. Maybe they realize they voted for that loser in the White House, that came in on all false promises, starting with his pledge in 2005 that he would serve his full 6 year term in the Senate before considering running for president, because he knows he has no experience. And then spent 2 years earning money to campaign for another job and finally resigned his current job after he knew he secured another one. I don’t deserve him, but they confirm every day they do, including the argment I got in to at a BBQ yesterday, because one of the HObots, apparently needed to take frustration out and use every talking point or rumor he could throw out about Palin.

When he ended his tantrum on the “idiot that said she could see Russia from her house” and I said, “you know she never said that, that came from SNL”, he replied, “yeah, I know”. But it sure didn’t stop him from lying, did it? Where’s that lawyer for knowingly defaming the Governor? I’ll cough it up.

”
This list is from Jackson Action and it is a chronology of all of his charitable contributions:

January 10, 1984: Michael visits the unit for burn victims at Brotman-Memorial Hospital in Los Angeles.

April 9, 1984: David Smithee, a 14-year-old boy who suffers from cystic fibroses is invited to Michael’s home. It was David’s last wish to meet Michael. He dies 7 weeks later.

April 14, 1984: Michael equips a 19-bed-unit at Mount Senai New York Medical Center. This center is part of the T.J. Martell-Foundation for leukemia and cancer research.

July 5, 1984: During the Jackson’s press conference at Tavern On The Green, Michael announces that his part of the earnings from the Victory Tour will be donated to three charitable organizations: The United Negro College Fund, Camp Good Times, and the T.J. Martell-Foundation.

July 14, 1984: After the first concert of the Victory Tour, Michael meets 8 terminally ill children backstage.

December 13, 1984: Michael visits the Brotman Memorial Hospital, where he had been treated when he was burned very badly during the producing of a Pepsi commercial. He donates all the money he receives from Pepsi, $1.5 million, to the Michael Jackson Burn Center for Children.

January 28, 1985: Michael and 44 other artists meet to record “We Are The World”, written by Michael and Lionel Ritchie. The proceeds of this record are donated to the starving people in Africa.

1986: Michael set up the “Michael Jackson UNCF Endowed Scholarship Fund”. This $1.5 million fund is aimed towards students majoring in performance art and communications, with money given each year to students attending a UNCF member college or university.

February 28, 1986: After having had a heart-transplant, 14-year-old Donna Ashlock from California gets a call from Michael Jackson. He had heard that she is a big fan of his. Michael invites her to his home as soon as she is feeling better. This visit takes place on March 8th. Donna stays for dinner and watches a movie together with Michael.

September 13, 1987: Michael supports a campaign against racism. He supports efforts of the NAACP, to fight prejudices against black artists.

October 1987: At the end of his Bad Tour, Michael donates some personal items to the UNESCO for a charitable auction. The proceeds will be for the education of children in developing countries.

February 1, 1988: The Song “Man In the Mirror” enters the charts. The proceeds from the sales of this record goes to Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times, a camp for children who suffer from cancer.

March 1, 1988: At a press conference held by his sponsor Pepsi, Michael presents a $600,000 check to the United Negro College Fund.

April 1988: Free tickets are given away for three concerts in Atlanta, Georgia to the Make A Wish Foundation.

May 22, 1988: Michael visits children who suffer from cancer in the Bambini-Gesu Children’s Hospital in Rome. He signs autographs and gives away sweets and records to the little patients. He promises a check of 100,000 pounds to the hospital.

July 16, 1988: Before a concert at Wembley Stadium Michael meets the Prince of Wales and his wife Diana. He hands over a check of 150,000 pounds for the Prince’s Trust, and a check of 100,000 pounds for the children’s hospital at Great Ormond Street.

July 20, 1988: Michael visits terminally ill children at Great Ormond Street Hospital. At a unit for less critical patients he stays a little bit longer and tells a story.

August 29, 1988: At his 30th birthday Michael performs a concert in Leeds, England for the English charity-organization “Give For Life”. The goal of this organization is the immunization of children. Michael presents a check for 65,000 pounds.

December 1988: Michael visits 12-year-old David Rothenburg. His father had 5 years earlier burned him very badly in an act of revenge against his former wife.

January 1989: The proceeds of one of Michael’s shows in Los Angeles are donated to Childhelp USA, the biggest charity-organization against child-abuse. In appreciation of the contributions of Michael, Childhelp of Southern California is founding the “Michael Jackson International Institute for Research On Child Abuse”.

January 10, 1989: The Bad Tour comes to an end. Under-privileged children are donated tickets for each concert and Michael donates money to hospitals, orphanages and charity-organizations.

The list goes on and on!

” -BBFmail

Thanks for your point of view, Larry. I agree wholeheartedly. The media lost it’s way many years ago. I’m sick of the insane coverage of most subjects of the msm these days.

Hey let’s all mourn the passing of a self proclaimed King of Pop who was in life self distructive of himself and his kids, lest we forget his dangling his child over a balcony?

In death, and during his life it is claimed that his life was tormented by the abusive ways of his father and yet this Freak does what with his children, leave instructions in his will that his children are to be raised by his mother, the same woman who to this day still lives with THAT same abusive father!

So to claim you are mourning the passing of MJ the person, what is it you are really mourning, because is life was a disgusting mess as is his death.

To claim you are mourning the passing of an artist, who has done nothing in over a decade and was mounting another comeback, fine, buy a record, but this media crap over someone who was so unstable a human being as there is, is rediculous to say the least!

This Jackson circus has nothing to do with respect and everything to do with making money. It has nothing to do with letting fans express their grief and everything to do with encouraging the purchase of t-shirts, albums, DVDs, plates, who knows what else. The man was a remarkable talent, for sure, but this carnival like atmosphere and the appearance of the likes of Al “a racist around every corner” Sharpton only serve to diminish the positive things Michael did in his life. And where the heck have all these people been for the past 10 years, when it was evident to anyone with a brain in his head that MJ was slowly sinking into a world of drugs and isolation and self destruction? For many of them the mask of grief hides a motive of pure greed. No surprise here.

I think that LJ’s comments may be a little extreme. Aside from that, I mostly agree with him. The MSM’s deification of MJ is ridiculous. As for the uproar over his will, the motivation is simple – money. Not the money currently in the Estate. Watch for Neverland to be made into an AA Graceland.

Michael Jackson was a talented performer. A decent singer (not great, and certainly limited to a particular genre) and a fabulous dancer/choreographer. But that’s it. His personal life was a disaster.

Sorry, Larry, but you could pretty much say the same thing about Elvis Presley. I would like to know which “particular genre” you mean. Pop? That’s actually a pretty expansive genre. R&B? That, too, is a pretty expansive genre. Michael was one of the VERY few African-American artists to really break through at mainstream rock radio (thanks to help from Eddie Van Halen on “Beat It” as well as Steve Stevens on “Dirty Diana” and Slash on “Black or White”).

Sinatra made music over a span of 60 years. Jackson? Barely 30 years.

Again, sorry, but you’re missing a few key points here. A hell of a lot of Sinatra’s work was mediocre AT BEST, especially in his last 20 years. Sinatra didn’t even record a new album between 1984 and 1993, and that first new one was the Duets album which was little more than a “product” (Sinatra didn’t actually record with any of his Duets partners). Further, during the majority of Sinatra’s era, the album was little more than an afterthought–you released a single, then you put out an album featuring that single and maybe (MAYBE) another hit single and a whole lot of filler, so it was very easy to produce two or even three albums in a single year. Unfortunately, this meant the bulk of released albums was quite unremarkable (bear in mind that the biggest-selling albums up to the mid 1960s were Broadway cast recordings and film soundtracks–even a number of classical albums sold better than most “pop” recordings). Most people (and critics) agree that Sinatra’s best recordings came in the 1950s, with only a handful of live recordings in the 1960s and 1970s coming close to his 1950s work.
Further, if you want compare hit singles, during the whole of the rock era, Sinatra only produced 28 Top 40 hits (from 1955 to 1958, this includes hits from 4 different pop music surveys; from 1958 on, only the Hot 100 is referenced), and his last Top 40 entry came in 1980 (interestingly enough with a cover of “Theme from New York, New York”, a song first made famous by Liza Minnelli–Liza’s version is, far and away, superior to Sinatra’s recording IMO). (Trying to compare the pre-rock era hits with the rock-era hits is like apples and oranges since two-sided singles were a regular feature, but often songs, even those that made the Top 10, would only spend a few weeks on the charts. There were points in the 1940s when Sinatra would release a dozen singles in a single year with anywhere from 5 to 10 of those songs actually charting, with some of those songs being B-sides. During the rock era, however, such numbers were unheard of for most artists, even Sinatra. A typical year would see only 3 to 5 singles released, with about half actually making the charts.)
OTOH, Jackson had 29 SOLO hits from 1979 to 2001 (that figure does NOT count his 2 duets with Paul McCartney or his duet with his sister, Janet)). Counting his earlier solo work plus his chart hits with his brothers, that increases Michael’s total hits by another 28 (and going back only 10 more years). (I’ll also point out that, if you include Michaels’s appearances with the Jackson 5, he was on the charts for nearly 33 years. That is a bit more than “barely 30 years”. Sinatra’s first single was released in 1939 and he died in 1998, so he didn’t quite make “60 years”.)
Did Sinatra make any impact on the R&B charts? Not really. Three R&B chart hits in the span of a quarter century isn’t saying too much. I’d also like to know how many “genres” did Sinatra do? He did pop. That was it. Nothing more. He was NOT a jazz singer. He didn’t do R&B; he didn’t do country. So Sinatra can also be said to have been limited to a “paritcular genre”.
Oh, and one other point about Jackson. HE wrote or co-wrote many songs recorded wither solo or with the Jacksons, especially from the mid-1970s. He handled vocal and instrumental arrangements for some of his own works. He wrote or co-wrote AND produced works for other artists. You can’t really say any of that about Sinatra.

I can’t believe I am saying this but I agree with you Larry, 100%—–enough is enough!!!!!!!!

Amen, Larry Johnson.
And, Larry, you’ll have to excuse the trolls on the thread. They only just got over the break up of the Archies and put away their copies of “Sugar, Sugar.” The death of Jackson is a very traumatic moment for them. Even though he’s got no song of lasting value. No “Hey Jude,” no “Let It Be,” no “Yesterday,” no anything.
Reality: As part of a craze, a bad album sold. And yet, the song publishing industry gives awards to Carly Simon and not Michael because, unlike Jackson, Carly Simon’s songs still get played on the radio. “Anticipation” ranks up there with “Yesterday” in radio plays.

Jackson wasn’t just a singer/dancer/choreographer, he was also a brilliant pop songwriter. Unlike some others, I am capable of separating the man’s horror movie of a personal life from his brilliant body of work.

As Larry said, Michael Jackson was a phenomenal dancer chorographer, a great music writer, musician and showman but I was never offered a free Jackson concert or CD, I paid cash for this entertainment for years. I grew up listening to Jackson and loved the music however, in California where IOU’s are on the menu for the next three months, why is it that the estate of Jackson worth an estimated $250 million on the downside expect the taxpayers to pick up the tab on this?

$2 million for security alone! Nope, these costs should be subordinated by the City with the direct costs going to the estate of Michael Jackson thanking the fans that made him and his family wealthy. Take, take, take, take, take…….

JMHO

The one gloved hand was one thing, but Jacko wearing a jockstrap or womens undies or whatever the hell it was on the outside of his street cloths is pure freakish. He shoulduv been named jocko instead. Or did he have elephantitis where he needed the extra ball(s’) support just as he needed the glove to protect his yanker hand? A singer, a writer, or a wild horse rider? makes no diferrence because a freak pedophile under any other name is still a pedophile. Tis a sad day when the likes of a pedophile are glamorized and idolized by our national media.

Al “coat tail rodeo champion” Sharpton. Blech!

ok michael..its over. now just BEAT IT!

I’m sure a few diehard MJ fans on here will be happy to donate.

one of a kind.r.i.p.

Michael Jackson sacrificed his life for music and for us. He came to believe that we wanted perfection, and he hurt himself trying to live up to the image. We who build people up have the responsibility of treating them with dignity. It’s like he offered himself up in a stage dive, but then his people dropped him. You who don’t care about these things, go opine on another blog topic. MJ, many of us felt your pain for some time. I had hoped something or someone would rescue you. I hope you will live in peace now. With love…

Hey Obama: Dubya 2 Electric Boogaloo–

What was the longest running album on the billboard charts at 15 years (yes–15 years)?

“For instance, 80 to 90% of Americans believe OJ was guilty of Nicole’s death even though the timeline (the window of opportunity) established that it was impossible for him to have committed the crime.” Absolutely not true.

to all that think MJ was a child abuser…you should watch this you tube video and stop spreading lies. I promise once you finished watching you will feel really ashame of yourself…

http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/Stocks_(A_to_Z)/Stocks_B/threadview?m=tm&bn=2267&tid=18817&mid=18817&tof=10&frt=2

I avoided as much of the coverage as I could this past week. I’m just not interested in the sordid details of MJ’s life, death and estate. But I caught bits of the ceremony today and the music was absolutely beautiful. Comments were touching. What I saw was dignified and moving.

MJ may be the most infamous example of the price children pay who are exploited for our viewing and listening pleasure. Too many of them grow up to be very troubled adults. I hope this man, who was loaded with talent, is resting in peace now.