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July 19, 2009

DownWithTyranny!: Michael Jackson (1958-2009): Thoughts About Peter Pan

INCLUDING THE INSIDE STORY OF HOW MJ'S GROUND-
BREAKING THRILLER FOUND ITS WAY ONTO MTV

by Noah

“An actress is not a machine, but they treat you like a machine, a money machine.”
-- Marilyn Monroe

Every life has its times of misery and its times of joy. With some of us, these peaks and valleys can be more extreme than others. In the case of Michael Jackson, I doubt that we’ll ever know just how much misery he had and what specific demons prodded him along on his path. I do suspect, and I could be wrong, of course, that his highest moments of joy came when he was performing. He seemed driven, if not born, to perform and entertain.

Right now we are being saturated with articles and commentary about Michael Jackson and his tragic death. It’s unavoidable. His life was an important one to so many. I’m only adding to this pile of commentary because, if you choose to read further, I can offer the perspective both of someone who both spends a lot of time shaking his head at what spews forth from the media and of someone who was there at a key moment in Michael Jackson’s career and pop culture in general.

First, though, some comments about the media circus:

(1) In its effort to be “all MJ all the time," the corporate media have set a new low in just throwing stories out there for the sake of boosting sales of papers and magazines and bringing more eyeballs to the tube.

First the cause of death was a daily Demerol shot. Two days later, there was no Demerol. Next we heard that one of the kids saw him die and thought he was just “clowning.” It’s a horrible thought, but now we hear it isn’t, shall we say, based in fact. Then there’s a will. Then there’s two wills. Then there’s no will at all. Now, as I write this, guess what: There's a will!

The media is just intent on filling space. Facts be damned! It goes on and on. It changes daily. What are we supposed to believe? I tell ya what I believe. I believe the media have sunk to a new low in tabloid journalism. What ever happened to fact-checking before you run with a story? It’s a failing that just gets worse and worse, as if everyone in the media looks at the money that sleazy carny hucksters like Rush and Beck and Hannity are raking in from their daily fiction and follows their lead. The same bozos that consistently told us Bush won for eight years now just switch their fantasies daily. Remember when the media was consistent in their lies, for years at a time?

(2) There have also been some really genius quotes in the MJ coverage. My favorites:

* “The concert promoters can’t sue the estate. Once he dies, he doesn’t have any obligation to perform.” That's Bob Rasmussen, dean of the Gould School of Law, USC. Oh well, the football team there is pretty damn good.

* How about this one, from Old Suspenders himself, Larry King: “It was hard to love him, but hard not to.” Yogi Berra he ain’t. But hey, Larry King adores the Bushes, all of them, so let’s not go expecting pearls of wisdom from what’s left of his mind.

* But it’s no surprise that the worst quotes of all in the “all MJ all the time” coverage come from MJ’s own father. “We just lost the biggest star in the world.” True enough, at least, but if I had a son that died, I might first say that I lost my son and what he personally meant to me, etc. Later, at a tribute to his son, Dad struck again, using the occasion not for a eulogy but to announce the formation of his brand-new business enterprise! Smooth! Gee, I wonder why, despite such staggering talent, Michael was so dysfunctional?

(3) What I haven’t heard is anything about the baby-dangling, serving the Jesus Juice to little boys, or even attempting to buy the Elephant Man’s bones.

There has been some brief mention of his legal trials, but, he was, after all, acquitted, so it would be awkward for the media to spend much time dredging up the muck -- not that I wouldn’t put it past them. A modicum of decorum, and respect for the old adage that one is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law from the media? Now, that would be news!

I have also been waiting for someone to tell us, what was the source of such physical pain that he needed to take so many painkillers in the first place? What sent him down that road? I seem to remember that there was a stage accident, back in 1984, which resulted in head trauma and serious scalp burns from an effects explosion during a shoot for a Pepsi commercial. Perhaps no one wants to offend Pepsi. In any event, we get nada on this. In hindsight, things were not the same with Michael after that incident., but instead we get sordid stories of stomach-pumping of multiple-pill combos. To me, the oddest mixture is not what was in his stomach but what is and isn’t reported in a media that has gone tabloid across the board. This man, or more aptly man-child, was in tremendous physical and psychic pain, pain so extreme that it directly led to his death.

(4) Then there’s the search for a handle on the meaning of this great pop icon’s life, contribution to the world, and status in some mythical Hall of Pop Culture Icons.

Is Michael Jackson up there with Elvis, James Brown (oddly ignored in the coverage I've seen), The Beatles, and Muhammad Ali (also ignored)? Certainly he is to the '80s generation. So many bought Thrillerthat it became what I call a coffee-table item. It was a "must have" to certain people who bought it, took it home, and, as evidenced by the number of sealed copies of original pressings being offered on eBay, never even opened it. Hell, they probably didn’t even have a record player.

I’m old enough to remember when the Jackson Five first came on my radar screen, with the hit with ABC. I had stopped following Motown at the time, but I thought that song was great and whoever was singing it had broken some barrier of youthful exuberance. I still remember a little kid with his mother dancing joyfully to the song in a park in Boston, where I lived at the time, as it played on their radio. Five years later there was “Who’s Lovin’ You?,” sung by an 11-year-old Michael. At first that gave me pause, but then I put it in the context of a sixth-grader with a crush on a classmate, experiencing the pangs of youthful jealousy. Been there.

I also remember working in a record store and watching kids walk up to the Jackson Five section doing “The Robot.” They tried, often unsuccessfully, to imitate Michael’s every move. They had music made for them by one of their own. The point is that a hell of a lot of people grew up with Michael Jackson, grew up right along with him, and loved him even when he stopped growing up. Like Ali, Michael’s name is known the world over. Everywhere!

************

“I have feelings too. I am still human. All I want is to be loved, for myself and for my talent.”
-- Marilyn Monroe

Walter Yetnikoff, head of CBS Records from the late '70s through the '80s, was publicly ridiculed when he signed the Jacksons for what was then thought to be “too much moola” -- right around the same time another bombastic CEO, George Steinbrenner of the New York Yankees, signed another Jackson, Reggie, for what was also then thought to be a ridiculous amount of money. Both wild and crazy guys apparently made the right move.

Not only did the musical Jacksons, thought by many to be old news, do fine, but in 1979 one of the group, Michael, had a huge, multi-platinum seller of a solo album called Off the Wall. It was a record that could get play on several styles of radio stations, reaching a multitude of demographics. Michael Jackson was about to knock through barriers of age, gender, nationality, and race to an extent that few if any artists could have ever imagined or hoped for.

The next album was Thriller. There was a problem though. By the time it came out, the game of how you reach the most people was changing. The game changer was called MTV. I was a marketing executive at CBS Records at the time. I worked for the Columbia label; Michael was on our sister label, Epic. Yetnikoff ran both. We all knew that Michael could reach across racial barriers if given the chance, but MTV wasn’t about to give him that chance. Some artists just didn’t “fit the format” in the narrow minds of those running MTV in its early days. There was an unspoken barrier, a restricted entry, just like a golf club that doesn’t let in “the Jews.” Today, as exemplified by the current media coverage, Michael Jackson is credited with being the first artist to break down those barriers on such a large scale. But it almost never happened, and Thriller, the album that changed so much for so many, almost never became what it did.

The man that made it happen was Walter Yetnikoff [seen here in his later years, hawking his 2004 tell-all memoir, Howling at the Moon]. I know because I was there. I was in the office of the head of marketing when Yetnikoff conference-called a few of the powers-that-were at CBS Records about the fact that MTV would not play Michael’s videos, no matter how many records he sold. I was allowed to listen in as Yetnikoff announced his simple remedy for this disgusting situation. He pointed out that MTV’s survival at such an early stage of its growth was not assured. He also pointed out that two record companies, CBS and Warners, provided the lion's share of the video clips that MTV relied upon for programming at the time. (Keep in mind that at that point in time all MTV did was play music videos. The ever-popular insipid “reality” shows and the like would come later.) If one of those two record companies were to pull all of their videos from MTV, MTV would die. Yetnikoff then got the lords of MTV on the line and persuaded them to change their minds.

Pop culture changed that day.

************

I am reasonably certain at this point that the out-of-control coverage of the death of an out-of-control artist named Michael Jackson has been so confusing and reckless that it will lead to decades of conspiratorial speculation as to what really happened, not unlike the mysterious barbiturate death of Marilyn Monroe. Whatever the specific cause of death (and we may never get the truth), Michael Jackson had a hugely dysfunctional life and a hugely successful artistic career, both creatively and financially.

There have been painters and writers and musicians before who met the definition of severely dysfunctional. Vincent van Gogh went around stalking fellow painter Paul Gauguin with a razor and ended up cutting off one of his own earlobes. It is theorized that he used the color yellow as much as he did because of his overdosing on absinthe, which contains a neurotoxin that causes one to see objects in yellow. He painted some awfully nice sunflowers! In fact, people pay millions for them today, but during his highly unstable and probably bipolar life, he never sold a painting.

The extremes of Michael Jackson’s life might not be equaled for a while.

One last thing I have noticed is that I have been hearing much better music coming out of car radios as I walk around NYC since MJ died. So why not just stop the madness and just let the music speak for itself, and for MJ? That is the legacy that will last the longest.

“A career is wonderful, but you can’t curl up with it on a cold night.”
-- Marilyn Monroe

THE LEGACY LIVES ON . . .

DownWithTyranny!: Michael Jackson (1958-2009): Thoughts About Peter Pan

The Death of Michael Jackson and the Peter Pan Syndrome – The Blogs at HowStuffWorks

The Death of Michael Jackson and the Peter Pan Syndrome

by Josh Clark

June 26, 2009

(Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

I just can’t do it. I can’t not write about the death of Michael Jackson. It’s too big of a deal. I don’t even like the guy’s music anymore, at least not the stuff he released from the late ’80s on. I did worship him for several years, during the Thriller stage. I was replete. My mom made me a white sequined glove as a gift for my First Communion. I also had the clearly unlicensed knockoff of the red jacket he wore following his rough transition from ’50s teenager to a werewolf to a zombie to his ’80s self.

As the years passed, Michael Jackson and I parted ways, what with me growing up and him opting to stay back in the formative years. As his behavior and appearance became increasingly bizarre (dating Liz Taylor, bff with his chimp, the attempted purchase of Joseph [changed] Merrick’s skeleton) and menacing (read: the three sex abuse allegations levied against him from the 1990s to 2003), the public sought to explain it. Well, I don’t have to tell you. You know you wanted to know what precisely was going on in the man’s head just as much as anyone else, especially once child molestation charges began to fly. Then we as a public had a duty to know what was going on.

What we came up with was the “Peter Pan Syndrome.” You’ll note the quotes; the syndrome is a pop psychology diagnosis, not recognized in the diagnostic psychology manual, the DSM-IV. Psychologist Dan Riley coined the term in a book in 1983 to describe the state of arrested development (afflicting men more than women) where, under conditions of overprotective parenting, a person comes to look at the world as too threatening and depressing to take head-on as an adult with all of the responsibilities and terrible consequences associated with maturity.

That definitely describes MJ in aces. I don’t think I’m the only one who await the cascade of revelations about his life that will surely come in the days to follow. I think the worst outcome for the public psyche is for us to find he really was just a gentle, misunderstood and fragile person we wouldn’t leave alone.

The Death of Michael Jackson and the Peter Pan Syndrome – The Blogs at HowStuffWorks

Sex abuse charges plagued, tarnished Michael Jackson's career

BY Larry Mcshane
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Friday, June 26th 2009, 9:00 AM

Djansezian/AP/AP

Michael Jackson goes through security as he arrives at Santa Barbara County Superior Court in Santa Maria, Calif. in 2005

A photo from Jackson in 1994 during an investigation that began when a 13-year-old boy accused the pop star of seducing him.

To one generation, Michael Jackson was a charismatic child star.

To another, he was "Wacko Jacko," suspected child molester.

The sex scandals that plagued the increasingly erratic singer dated to the early 1990s, when he was first linked to the repeated abuse of a 13-year-old boy at his lavish Neverland Ranch.

Jackson, eventually accused of molesting three boys, was never convicted of any crimes.

But multimillion-dollar settlements with two victims, along with his bizarre persona, convinced many something odd was happening at his California home/kiddie theme park - and it crippled his career.

Jackson made no secret of his preference for the company of kids over adults, insisting it was all innocent as he welcomed "many children" into his bed.

His high-profile house guests included "Home Alone" star Macaulay Culkin and child star Corey Feldman.

Jackson - even after his 2003 arrest on molestation charges - seemed clueless about the furor caused by his lifestyle.

Asked on "60 Minutes" if he thought it was okay to share his bed with a child, Jackson replied, "Why not?"

"If you're going to be a pedophile, if you're going to be Jack the Ripper, if you're going to be a murderer, it's not a good idea," Jackson said. "That, I am not."

His explosive 2005 trial on sex charges drew international attention. Prosecutors portrayed the fortysomething Jackson as a sexual predator who plied victims with wine and girlie magazines.

Jackson was accused of molesting a 13-year-old cancer survivor - allegations that put him back in the headlines long after his musical career slowed to a crawl.

During the three-month trial, the teen recounted Jackson giving him wine - the singer called it "Jesus juice" - before fondling him as they lay on a bed inside Neverland.

Jackson reportedly encouraged the boy to masturbate before groping the teen.

Millions in payouts

The jury also heard from another purported victim, who testified Jackson molested him when he was between the ages of 7 and 10.

The young man, the son of a Neverland maid, received a $2.4million settlement from Jackson.

The jury also heard that in 1993, Jackson paid a $20 million settlement to a 13-year-old boy.

The youth's mother testified that Jackson browbeat her into letting the teen share a bed with the pop star - and rewarded her the next day with a gold bracelet from Cartier.

The mom recounted on the stand how the "sobbing, crying, shaking, trembling" singer shouted in anger when she balked at the sleeping arrangements.

"We're a family!" he reportedly yelled. "Why can't [he] sleep in my bed? ... Why don't you trust me?"

The youth then slept with Jackson dozens of times from March to July 1993, she said.

The singer's lawyer insisted the payments were made because Jackson didn't like "courtrooms and lawyers," preferring to focus on his musical career.

"He is idealistic and naive," defense lawyer Thomas Mesereau said.

Mesereau also called Culkin to testify there was nothing sexual about his sleepovers in Jackson's bed.

'Human sexuality'

Jackson's collection of gay pornography was introduced as evidence. One book, prosecutors said, "shows everything one man could possibly do to another man."

Prosecutors charged he provided young guests with unlimited candy and video games by day - and sexual assault by night.

"In the evenings, they entered into the world of the forbidden," prosecutor Ron Zonen told the California jury. "They learned about human sexuality from someone who was only too willing to teach them."

Yet the jury acquitted Jackson, even though some of its members believed the superstar had victimized other children.

"I feel that Michael Jackson has probably molested boys," juror Raymond Hultman said.

"To be in your bedroom for 365 straight days and not do something more than just watch television and eat popcorn, that doesn't make sense to me."

Jury foreman Paul Rodriguez offered the "King of Pop" some unsolicited advice after the verdict: "We would hope he doesn't sleep with children anymore."

Jackson - who never testified at his trial - became a virtual recluse after the verdict. He spent time with his own three kids, but was rarely seen in public with other children.