The Michael Jackson Story: part 1

Ok we've been a bit sporadic recently, and although time has passed, and there's a lot of other issues I want to talk about, I actually wanted to write a bit more about Michael Jackson than we did before, and although it's not traditionally what this blog is about, there is a reason I would occasionally like to talk about stories that may seem not directly political, or important in that way at first.

For sure, I don't want to chase every little negative piece of gossip-mongering some gutter hack writes about this celebrity or that, but I do want to write some more about those stories that I see as important.

I would like to break this into a series of sections and we'll try get some other news in in between.

It's been interesting to see what the press come up with day to day since the death of Michael Jackson of course.

Everyone and their dog, including so called 'close friends' suddenly have a story that is 'really important' they must tell. Everyone from Michael Jackson's dermatologist to the shocking spectacle a couple of weeks ago with Uri Geller who would pull out his own granny's gold teeth if she died in front of him, it's something of a free-for-all.

I see the News of the World today have a story about some dude called Mark Lester who was apparently another one of these 'friends' of Jackson, who claims to be the father of at least one of his children.

I'm not going to get into that topic, but I just wonder how much the News of The World paid Lester for this story. Some friend.

Lester says that he wants, coincidentally, all the same usual 'reasons' poured out in a specific way that the media always construct around this kind of thing, i.e how he 'wants the best for those kids'. Yeah sure he does.

For what it's worth, frankly very little, I don't think any of Lester's own reasons are compelling which makes the whole thing even more wanton, I also think the story is flawed for a number of reasons which if anyone is really interested I can go into, but it's a great example he is setting to his own children and these and as puppet, a tool, and just another anything-for-a-buck hapless maggot trying to make a few pounds out of the death of someone who trusted him as his friend. If he was a friend in any significant way that is.

But this is all de rigueur of course and to be expected. These are the norms that the News of the World encourage, and that sad creatures and hangers on espouse. It's not easy to see a difference between Lester and the family of Gavin Arvizo, who falsely claimed Jackson molested him. Actually there is a difference, Arvizo didn't go to the News of the World. Although I tend to view the kinds of stories appearing now with considerable doubt anyway.

Meanwhile in the Mail on Sunday, Mr Ian Halperin is back again with a 'timeline of death', which internet-troll like includes repeated assertions about Jackson's mental state as 'breaking down', 'on the edge' , 'paranoid'. Whether any of that is true or just a description of Mr Halperin's own problems in this case I don't know but those things are pretty normal fare in a certain way for creatives, artists, creative performers and so on, which a working class hack like Halperin possibly wouldn't understand, hence he reports it as an 'issue'.

It's interesting that Halperin basically picks up the side of the story made by Michael's father, Joe Jackson, exactly as he made it with Larry King on CNN. I wonder if that's where some of the material for this article came from.

Halperin also goes on to claim that Jackson was being threatened "physically and financially" by people around him, presumably to do these shows, and being kept away from his family. If that's true it would explain a lot. But Halperin consistently puts this stuff together and then either simply isn't able to see or deliberately scurries away from the appropriate conclusion that doesn't fit what he or the publisher wants to peddle.

He also claims Jackson was in pain. Pain from what exactly ? You see the way this is written is almost to suggest that Jackson was in pain the way Darth Vader was in pain, as a kind of punishment of being attached to the dark side of the Force.

Again where truth may seep out accidentally from Halperin's poison pen is that Jackson felt he was being coerced into performing these shows, or at least the number or some aspect of the arrangements and that has something of a ring of truth about it, and has been hinted at elsewhere.

Anyway the story seems to subtly change from day to day but generally the story seems to be over the last few weeks, that this Doctor Conrad Murray was administering the general anesthetic drug Diprivan aka propofol as a sleeping aid to Jackson. It is claimed in some reports that Jackson may have been taking this for some time and that various figures around Jackson were aware of this.

And they had been getting away with this for a while, but on this occasion something went wrong, and the problem with this drug, like so many is that there appears to be a relatively narrow window between effective dose and lethal dose. We don't know, but it has been postulated in the press at different stages that terrifyingly Murray wasn't paying sufficient attention and Michael stopped breathing, which is a known result that can occur from this drug. Later reports suggest other drugs were involved as well.

At various points over the last few weeks Murray has become the focus of the affair, with talk of manslaughter or homicide charges, and possibly other people administering drugs as well.

At least this is the official line.

If that's correct, it's a tremendous and insane tragedy of course that Michael Jackson had become reliant on such an extreme drug just to get to sleep.

Part 2 next...

Gutter slurs against Michael Jackson reveal problems of journalistic competence and that there was a campaign against Jackson

I've just about had enough of the Daily Mail.

It really thinks it can write anything it likes and there's no consequences to that.

Its position in the market is one of supposedely representing the interests of conservative middle England, but when it comes to some subjects it represents as much gutter garbage as the Sunday Sport or The Star.

The Mail's latest cracker is a staggering article about Michael Jackson.

I've never actually read an article in any newspaper in my life that's a complete fabrication, a complete heap of nonsense and lies from start to finish, until just now.

This is a rare gem at least in its inability to hide that, it really is. Congratulations to its writer, a so-called celebrity biographer named Mr. Ian Halperin. Unfortunately for Mr. Halperin, nonsense has a certain pattern, it's identifiable, it has a certain smell, it's unmistakable, and it repeats itself.

And this is what nonsense looks like, just mad insane stupid dumb nonsense.

Of course sometimes, journalists are guilty of wanting a particular story to be true, they 'find' they story they want in other little pieces of data. Just so you know that's in exactly the same way as the guy who wants to believe there are heads of C3P0-like robots and domes on the moon does. They want to see what they want to see and they want us to 'see' it too to vindicate themselves.

Sadly I don't even know if I can say for sure that it is the case here, and he hasn't just made the whole thing up whole cloth.

I feel sorry for this guy, because he just doesn't realise in what he's writing what he's writing. He just doesn't get it.

It's fascinating Halperin agrees there never was a real case about Michael Jackson and child abuse. Fascinating as Halperin begins this though by admitting, "I started my investigation convinced that Jackson was guilty".

So he had already come to the conclusion in that case.

But Halperin says aha, but never mind because dah dah DAHH! Jackson was really gay.

Was he ?

Around Michael and around people around Michael there will be lots of different people with all kinds of stories to tell, in exactly the same way that when people are employed in a job somewhere they are going to have a lot of stories and things they have heard about the boss.

Some of that is a kind of subordinate/working class angst and resentment, some of it is just to pass the time of day, or gossip about something at lunch and some of it is to try to make life more interesting than it is.

But I think it's important not to forget the obvious. Michael Jackson was a huge celebrity, perhaps the biggest and greatest of all time. Just like Elvis and others there's going to be a lot of people both women and gay guys who really believe they have had affairs with Michael and they were really part of his life and this just goes with the territory for anyone like that.

Just pretty convenient for Halperin then Michael Jackson can't directly defend himself now.

Ian Halperin claims he has seen a photo of Michael and an 'aspiring actor'. Is it a photo of them having sex ? Show us the photo then. If you have it publish it. Otherwise I've got a photo of me and Britney Spears. We had an affair. I'm telling you it's the truth I swear it so I do. Exclusive to my blog!

The other interesting thing is this idea of 'streams of lovers' coming and going. Funny these celebrities always have insatiable sexual appetites. It's never restrained is it ? And despite how ill Halperin claims Jackson was: i.e he couldn't sing, couldn't dance anymore, could barely talk, walk or think, was regularly collapsing, was drugged up to his eyeballs and not eating (I kind of agree with those last two based on other things I've read) yet had libido and was having plenty of sexual activity.

Needless to say I don't believe that, and we're starting to see what Mr. Halperin's article is.

As for predicting ill health, I'm no medical expert but I would imagine predicting when people are going to die due to medical reasons, even people who are quite ill is going to be difficult, yet Halperin claims he not only 'knew' Jackson was going to die, he knew when Jackson was going to die. You see to me, if anything, that raises alarm bells of a different kind and I'm wondering why (if Halperin can be believed at all) that someone was leaking him stories about Jackson going to die. This makes me concerned.

As Halperin wants to present a checklist of things I think that has to be a reasonable stigmata about the direction of the article/writer/publisher on the subject and he goes on to suggest that 'Michael Jackson was bad because he didn't pay for some hospitality provided to him by some sheik'.

Who cares ? There's a story like that about every celebrity under the Sun. As someone I know said, when Michael Jackson bought those enormous £600,000+ pots (someone remind me was it Harrods?) in that terrible Bashir documentary he almost certainly didn't pay for them, just as almost no other celebrity would either.

The only interesting thing in the whole article is this:

"Sony have been in a position for more than a year where it can repossess Michael’s share of the [Beatles] catalogue. That’s always been Sony’s dream scenario, full ownership.
‘But they don’t want to do it as they’re afraid of a backlash from his fans. Their nightmare is an organised 'boycott Sony' movement worldwide, which could prove hugely costly.'"

This statement I think is somewhere around the truth, and we know that because Michael talked about this himself in a fascinating interview with Jesse Jackson back in 2005. And I believe this is the key to a lot of this stuff and this negative publicity which is fed out to the press in a very specific and deliberate way, and we know Michael complained heavily about a conspiracy against him, which has almost been forgotten since his tragic death.

Apparently Halperin seems actually unaware that this is an area that would account for that negative publicity and the things in his own article. Like I say sometimes we make the story we want in our mind for our own reasons because we want it to be true and we miss the big picture.

Some people, like Halperin will undoubtedly say 'well you're only saying that because you want to believe the best about Michael, and Michael was only talking about a conspiracy because he was just trying to blame something for his own difficulties'

Was he ?

Again this is another one of those cases where you can't have it both ways. Halperin just said in his article at the begining, he just said:

"I could not find a single shred of evidence suggesting that Jackson had molested a child. But I found significant evidence demonstrating that most, if not all, of his accusers lacked credibility and were motivated primarily by money."

I don't know about you, but if those allegations are false, then it makes me wonder about the others and it makes me wonder why Halperin doesn't see that as a serious problem in his article.

No one wishes to be rude, but I think Mr Ian Halperin has demonstrated himself to be not a credible journalist and if not an all out fraud which I think remains a real possibility, a sad desperate opportunist, juvenile flibbertigibbet, gutter tabloid hack, a tool and an actually after reading what I have, frankly something of a moron. Somehow by accident he's actually managed to publish one paragraph of truth amongst a sea of very well-trodden, prototypical, formulaic, dribbling tabloid gossip, slurs and attributions (that are not celebrity specific) which actually explains the rest of his article, yet seems completely unaware of the fact.

There you go.

And the Daily Mail have demonstrated themselves yet again as a vehicle for all of the above.

Although I do enjoy some opinion in the Mail, I have thought for some time that the Mail has actually not served conservative England properly at a number of times. There's a gap in the tabloid market for something more serious, and if people ever start making real newspapers the Mail is in trouble, and I'm sorry to say that as someone who has more or less supported it implicitly. Unfortunately it's shameless opportunism, its ability to leave things out that are politically inconvenient and its showbiz stuff gone so extreme is just making it look like it's begging for readers, and its affecting the thin but vitally important bit of credibility of everything else it publishes.

I'm sure we will quote the Mail here in the future partly out of convenience, and sometimes they do have some good headlines and opinion but we deserve real newspapers as well and the Mail has demonstrated it's simply not up to the description of a real newspaper.