The Michael Jackson Story: Part 3

Sorry we are a bit behind schedule at the moment with this. And one of the reasons I wanted to write about Michael Jackson in this way was because I really didn't like what I saw written out there, in the mainstream media, the specialist music press or the alternative news which in general dropped the ball a bit with this.

Since last time, the coroner's report into Michael's death is pointing towards an overdose of the general anesthetic Propofol/Diprivan and some other drugs.

This was ruled a homicide which means prosecution can be made against someone else, in this case the focus has been on Jackson's personal physician attending to him at the time, Doctor Conrad Murray.

What's striking about Michael's death is the uncanny similarity to Elvis' death, which I'm no expert on, but I've been looking at too. Their deaths near-immediately before starting a new performance schedule. The prescription drugs, yet according to other doctors being in apparent health only shortly before their death, the focus on the personal physician, the extravagant spending and lifestyle, being the absolute top of the tree but not being in quite the same intensity of public prominence as they were previously and the general similarities of what they meant to others as stars and performers.

And from what I've seen Michael Jackson was acutely aware of what happened to others like Elvis and John Lennon, and was quite concerned about ending up in either of those situations. He was also very concerned about what happened to Princess Diana, and there's some interesting footage about that here.

The other thing of course is Michael has been laid to rest at the Forest Lawn Cemetery near Los Angeles. Obviously, it's a decision for the family, but on a purely personal note, although I understand the controversy around Neverland, I don't feel totally at home with this. And it wouldn't surprise me, if like Elvis you may hear at some point Michael is moved again.

Needless to say, Michael Jackson was one of the great figures of the 20th century, one of the great cultural pillars. In the 1980s, he was the biggest star in the world. There was Michael Jackson, and then everybody else. He was described in news reports, along with President Ronald Reagan, as possibly one of the "two most important and famous men in the world" (6:39).

Back then of course, there was no need to label himself the "King of Pop", Michael was the King of all Stars, all performers, all artists. It didn't need to be said, to say it would be immoderate. (Although it was originally Elizabeth Taylor's description, it's only when things started to move away a bit from those heights you started to hear the term "King of Pop" actually be used.)

I don't think it's possible to underestimate the influence of Michael Jackson, it is so considerable, it is a cultural fundamental and Michael Jackson has become part of the firmament and universal ether of ideas.

And very interestingly, someone slightly younger I know said they didn't fully understand this, and just were aware of the allegations and controversies until his death when some of his stuff was put on TV. You couldn't have a more stark example of the power of the media to turn everything upside down.

Like everyone I grew up with Michael Jackson, as a huge fan, but later on wasn't following his career as closely. I would hear this or that about him, about his music, his first marriage to Lisa Marie Presley, about his children, but there was a sense Michael Jackson had some difficulties knowing where to go after Thriller and Bad. Whatever he'd opened the door to in an MTV world, whatever had come out, although could never come near his status, had somewhat displaced him afterwards on the ground. Indeed Michael's former producer on Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad, Quincy Jones touches on this here.

Perhaps partly as a consequence of that, there was some insistence on more extravagant productions, more Disneyeque qualities , which I personally I think some of that, didn't always necessarily do Michael that many favours artistically, although he was the only person in the world who could actually do that work.




And really when I became particuarly aware again and started thinking again about Michael Jackson, was in 2003 when the Martin Bashir documentary (aka Living with Michael Jackson) was broadcast. And despite everything, however much a chunk of the media had turned against him, however much this was a different Michael from the days of the historic eminence of Thriller and then Bad, however much, despite his incredible success, Michael now seemed more on the outside looking in or rather back, and however uncomfortable and nervous Bashir made everybody feel, I remember at the time the scene when Bashir asks Michael to show him some dancing (5:20+), and I remember getting awakened again to the incredible sense of who Michael Jackson was.

Suddenly all the media nonsense, all the crap, as well as all of the layers of things that perhaps didn't endear some fans over the years just fell away. And I'll be honest this was a very important and moving piece of television for me personally.

And despite his fabulous wealth, despite the lavish lifestyle, it was all the more difficult to see what exactly had happened since say Bad, and why this incredible man, who was once the Star of all stars was in a documentary with Martin Bashir trying to explain himself. At the height of Michael's fame, this would have been an unthinkable nonsense.

And I think the Bashir documentary/affair is important in all this, because this is Michael trying to connect to the outside world, trying to share a bit of his universe, trying to make people understand himself instead of through the layers of media venom and he presumably thought Bashir was the person with the right credentials for this. Possibly, as Bashir did the famous 'Queen of Hearts' interview with Princess Diana back in 1995.

(The story I've heard is that Uri Geller effectively sold a meeting with Michael Jackson to Bashir for £200,000.

Again these people aren't friends, same with this Mark Lester character of course, who's ex-wife remarked recently that Lester was actually nuts and had an obsession with Jackson⁽¹⁾.)

But the documentary overall was a PR catastrophe and a depressing catalogue of mindless pointless miseries assembled by Bashir. It all came out as a disaster, and I don't think a lot of people have any idea how that can make someone feel if they are trying to connect to the wider world, but instead it just makes everything worse. It's not a nice experience to be on the end of, especially for very sensitive creative people. And then it lead to more allegations, utterly opportunistic, by, as Michael's former manager Frank DiLeo described as a 'bunch of gypsies passing through', disproved in court, but which took their their toll.

It is said Martin Bashir is a Christian, I actually see this guy as a grade A tool, and you can see how totally uncomfortable he looks throughout the documentary.


It is possible that Michael simply wasn't aware how what he was trying to communicate could be seen, seized upon and presented as, including any unusual relationships with children, a subject that has in general been made hyper-sensitive and a source of day to day paranoia by the media and government across the board anyway. And anything that's seen as a challenge to that paranoia and atmosphere is going to be a problem, and I have unease and concern about that scene in the film as I think everyone did.

But at the same time, there's no question Bashir sees Michael Jackson as a strange curiosity that belongs in a jar on a shelf somewhere with an appropriate label on it in a museum of bizarre curiosities. You wince as you watch Bashir clumsily trying to ascribe this, ascribe that from his text book of moron's crap, and the sad thing is, the really sad thing is, he thinks he's doing a great job as a journalist. Yet ironically it's Bashir who can't seem to participate in anything Michael does without looking extremely uncomfortable and trying to pathologize it.

Bashir (rewarded with a job in the US with ABC) made this film at a time when it seemed to be safe territory to make a provocative documentary about Michael Jackson, and after Michael's death recently made slithering remarks⁽²⁾ towards him about the 'greatest entertainer ever' as if he'd never made the documentary to begin with, perhaps to try to exonerate his own role in Michael's problems.

Part 4 Next....

The Michael Jackson Story: Part 2

We're going to touch on one of the issues that the media brought up in the immediate hours, even minutes following the death of Michael Jackson. And this is a very difficult topic to write about, difficult as it seeps into other fraught areas of the history of music. Suffice to say it's not really a topic about Michael Jackson himself, more to do with some of the media noise.

And right from the get go of the coverage the media made it an issue, where I really don't think it was an overt issue before that.

And that is the controversial theme of race. Needless to say, I suppose generally this theme has been excited by Michael's changing appearance over the years.

Some time back US President Barrack Obama is asked by a reporter why he didn't say more about Michael's passing, as this has caused 'concern in the black community'. Interesting isn't it ? It's been decided that it isn't even an issue that it may have caused concern or be noticed by anyone else.

(As it went, Jackson's image must have became strained enough for Obama to distance himself as far as possible from this even being a serious proposition. In a politically astute way, Obama goes to some lengths to annotate, or rather funnel his tribute to Jackson through a great wariness about his' tragic and sad personal life', and he's 'glad to see that he's primarily being remembered for his entertaining and great gifts'.)

But perhaps some of the race theme is best encapsulated in a CBS interview with director Spike Lee:

Like Obama, Lee says that incredible talent and gifts are accompanied by other idiosyncrasies. That's absolutely correct, and it is very important people understand that. You can't judge certain kinds of people; gifted people, creative people etc through the same lens as you tend to judge everyone else. That's not to say people should be exonerated from anything and everything but at the same time it is simply naive to expect to hold them to the same criteria as everyone else. And I want to come back to this topic later on.

But Lee, injects that in a film he made he has a white guy list his heroes who are all black but goes on to say they are 'more than black'. This is a source of great amusement for Lee, who thinks he's discovered something really cool.

Lee, frankly at least partly at the media goading/fawning of interviewer Katie Couric goes on to suggest that Jackson's 'provenance' is such a sensitive issue and he even has no qualms about recounting some story of some guy getting attacked because he didn't sufficiently acknowledge Jackson's heritage.

Yet in a world where we are constantly asked to be colour blind when that angle suits, or even told that there is no such thing as race, the media's clear determination to revise the death of Michael Jackson into a narrative about racial group identity, rather than a narrative about a great man with a tremendous reach becomes a little conspicuous.

I'm sure some will disagree, and I don't wish to sound like I'm criticising whatever genuine feelings people may have, but clearly at times his death was also being shifted into some other statement, and this was happening immediately.

And this has specific effects, and one of those is that we end up looking at race rather than individuals, and although I understand it in one way, I also find this a slightly distorting emphasis to be placed on anyone, and it also puts something of a fence around the legacy of Michael Jackson.

Repeatedly it has been said in the coverage, that Michael Jackson opened the door to a lot of black artists, and that Michael Jackson broke into MTV where black artists were not generally encouraged previously.

The New York Times quoting Al Sharpton said, "“Before Michael we were limited and ghettoized,” Mr. Sharpton told the mostly black crowd. “But Michael put on a cutaway military jacket, pulled his pants leg up, put on a white glove and smashed the barriers of segregated music."

I think Al Sharpton has said some really wonderful things about Michael Jackson, some of them are said from a certain perspective, but they are poignant, moving and powerful. In one of these speeches says something like "You are Bad Michael Now, you are the Baddest". It was a great line I wish I could remember it properly or find the clip.

But how times change.

If Michael Jackson had a hand opening the door to presumably what came out, and the media are now telling us this is important, it just happens to be Michael Jackson also represented a set of things that like them or not, that I think were rather different.

At times you almost see Michael Jackson, and I don't mean to sound rude, but relegated to history as foot in the door for race-first self-esteem, with his own career as an artist something on the side.

You could almost be forgiven for thinking that's what it was all about if you knew nothing about Michael Jackson and just listened to some of the coverage of his death alone.

As far as Michael Jackson was concerned anything that even smelt like a bellicose 'dose of race' or any kind of specified racial delimiter publicly came much later on when his career was in trouble and I think it also needs to be seen in a certain context which gets even more controversial, because as far I'm aware this never had significant painstaking attention given to it in the music itself before that.

Songs like Black or White, which although I personally didn't care for at all, I generally understood as the opposite to the above, possibly the other extreme of racial comment. As a side note I think Michael was inadvertently playing into the hands of other trends when he made that song, but I believe it was genuine and well intentioned, and I know it has fans.

Michael Jackson is someone who brought light, hope, dazzle, joy and inspiration, instead of nonsense, despair, anger and confusion, and he had a tremendous global following and like a lot of great figures is difficult to categorize.

In his prime he was detached from the atmosphere of political correctness and group banner waving that's applauding him now. He was himself, an incredibly gifted person and it's that that makes someone a 'problem'.

Indeed, it's difficult to disagree with Michael's friend actress Elizabeth Taylor about the real reason at least for some of Michael's difficulties, where she said in 1993 in the interview with Oprah Winfrey, "He is larger than life and some people just cannot accept that" (1:14)

Part 3 Next...