"Thriller, Beat it, and Bad all in one video!"

"When ever I get angry, this is what I feel like doing."

Apt comments at a YouTube video I turned up in the process of trying to write a bit more to this post that ends with "kinda like Mr. Gower, the drugstore man, in 'It's a Wonderful Life.'" I wanted to add: or Doc at the candy store in "West Side Story."

Michael Jackson "is not in shape enough yet to sing this stuff live and dance at the same time... He's a basket case. Doubt is pervasive."

Emails leak in the legal controversy involving Lloyd's of London, which insured the big 5--concert series that Jackson was supposed to do. Lloyd's is now trying to nullify its cancellation policy based on false claims made by AEG about Jackson's ability to perform.

The documents include Kenny Ortega, the show's director and a close associate of Jackson for 20 years, telling Randy Phillips, AEG Live CEO, that the star was in no state to perform.  He wrote: "There are strong signs of paranoia, anxiety and obsessive-like behaviour. I think the best thing we can do is get a top psychiatrist in to evaluate him ASAP."...

Phillips told Ortega: "It is critical that neither you, me or anyone around this show become amateur psychiatrists or physicians." 

However Phillips, one of the music industry's most powerful promoters, who offered Jackson a £100 million deal for the shows, had seen the first-hand the depths to which the performer had sunk.

Horrible. 

The 14-year-old girl who looks 40... with good reason!

How is Paris Jackson supposed to handle her situation? She's doing really well so far, it would seem.

"In Los Angeles we see many examples of high-profile people losing their lives because of their addiction to prescribed medication."

"To the extent that someone dies as a result of their playing the role of Dr. Feelgood, they will be held accountable," said the prosecutor.

Michael Jackson died, and Dr. Conrad Murray was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Let that be a lesson to all the Doctors Feelgood.

Billy Ray Cyrus speaks a paragraph of strangeness and sadness.

"One more thing about Kurt—Kurt was one of those guys. That's why I'm concerned about Miley. I think that his world was just spinning so fast and he had so many people around him that didn't help him. Like Anna Nicole Smith—you could see that train wreck coming. I was actually trying to reach out to Anna Nicole Smith, because I kept telling Tish and everybody around me, going, 'This is a disaster.' Michael Jackson—I was trying to reach out to Michael Jackson. I knew he had kids, and I was going to invite his kids down to a taping of Hannah—I just felt it would be good for Michael. I don't know why. I met Michael one time at the Grammys. He sat in front of me, in the front row, and a dime rolled out from under and hit my boot—this very boot I've got on—and I reached down and picked up this dime, and looked, he was going through his pockets, and I said, 'Are you looking for this?' 'Thank you.' And he took that dime and put it back in his pocket. I looked at my manager, I just said, 'Why did Michael Jackson have a dime?...' Nobody could tell me."

(Link. "Kurt" is Kurt Cobain.)

"And I said, ‘Why did you let me marry this idiot?'"

"He said, ‘I thought you liked him! You look so happy. Your dress was so beautiful. I don’t know. Let me go!’ And I said, ‘Michael, how could you.’ He said, ‘It’s over, relax.’ Then we looked at each other and we started to laugh, we really started to laugh."

When Minelli manhandled Michael.

Why is The Beatles' "Revolver" the Vatican's idea of the best record album of all time?

Because of the priest and the church in "Eleanor Rigby"? No. Looking at what else they came up with...

Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of The Moon, Oasis’ (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, and Michael Jackson’s Thriller, whose “illuminating simplicity and musical thrust” they hail. Also: U2’s Achtung Baby, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, Donald Fagen of Steely Dan fame’s The Nightfly, Carlos Santana’s Supernatural, Paul Simon’s Graceland and David Crosby’s If I Could Only Remember My Name.

... I'm guessing they're just Baby Boomers like me.

There's no Bob Dylan though. He's okay himself, but he "harshly tested the ears and patience of listeners with their inferior imitations, thinking that their tortured meanderings might interest somebody." Ha ha. Religious opinions.

The Daily News deftly juxtaposes pictures from the American Music Awards.

Check it out. It's like panels of a comic strip:

These pictures don't really relate to each other in the manner the sequence suggests, but the apparent story is hilarious.

In the first panel, Taylor Swift — the perfectly popular girl from whom a man once famously grabbed a phallic symbol — clutches her throat and looks with shock toward the second panel. In that second panel, American Idol also-ran Adam Lambert, clutching a phallic symbol, is angling back to get a look at the head going at his crotch. And, in panel 3, Jennifer Lopez, clutching a phallic symbol and looking quite angry, is falling backwards.

Juxtaposed, it looks like a story of sex and betrayal. In real life, the only intentional sex, simulated of course, came from Adam Lambert. He'd like you to believe he's fighting against discrimination:

"I do feel like there's a bit of a double standard in the entertainment community, on television, on radio... I feel like women performers have been pushing the envelope, especially, for the past 20 years. And all of the sudden a male does it and everybody goes 'Oh, we can't show that on TV.' For me, that's a form of discrimination and a double standard. And that's too bad."

The head in his crotch was female, by the way. Lambert subsequently canceled that discrimination by kissing a male.

Swift and Lopez weren't being sexual at all. Swift was expressing surprise — whether she felt it or not, we don't know — for beating out, as Artist of the Year, an artist whose big achievement this year was suddenly dying. And Jennifer Lopez was about to fall on what everyone feels compelled to refer to as her famous ass.

ADDED: The prime example of the womanly pushing of the envelope — in 2003 — reference by Lambert:

Harry Connick Jr. is "pleased with the way [he] handled the situation."

Australia is a little different from America. There was Connick, guest judging on "Hey Hey It's Saturday"....

Four men in blackface and with Afro wigs sang and danced behind a Michael Jackson impersonator wearing white makeup. Connick gave the performance a zero score....

Some Australians said they were embarrassed such a racist sketch had been broadcast, while others said detractors were too politically correct and that the skit was funny.

Connick said he canceled an autograph session and interviews in Sydney after the show to let the controversy die down.

ADDED: Here's the video of the performance and Connick's handling of the situation. (Via MadisonMan, in the comments.)

"This Is It."

Posthumous Michael Jackson, streamable at the official site.

My observations — sorry, Michael:

1. The words are like one of those awful finale songs the write for "American Idol."

2. The singing is not up to your standard. Presumably, if you'd lived, you'd have rerecorded it with more of a feeling of style, varying between urgency and effortlessness, instead of continuing throughout at a medium level of strain.

ADDED: "Based on a tape Mr. Jackson left behind containing only his piano and vocals, a full arrangement was built, complete with swelling strings and his brothers’ backup vocals... It is not clear when the song was written or recorded... and Sony originally believed that the tape was made around the time of Mr. Jackson’s 1991 album 'Dangerous.' But it could have been much earlier, perhaps even as early as the album 'Off the Wall,' from 1979. 'We just found the song... It was titled ‘This Is It.’ It was in a box, and we listened to it.'"

So he didn't think it was good enough even to work on, let alone release. There are terrible penalties attached to dying suddenly, without putting your affairs in order. Artists, destroy the things you don't want to see the light of day:

Sony has rights to release any music Mr. Jackson recorded while under contract....

Oh, no....

"I don't want to be seen now, because I am like a lizard. It is horrible."

"I would like some way to disappear where people don't see me any more at some point."

Of course, there is a way, and Michael Jackson found it.

Madonna: I am Michael Jackson.

Jackson died, and — don't you see? — it's all about Madonna. Her 5-minute speech at the MTV Video Music Awards:

Michael Jackson was born in August 1958. So was I. Michael Jackson grew up in the suburbs of the Midwest. So did I. Michael Jackson had eight brothers and sisters. So do I. When Michael Jackson was six, he became a superstar, and was perhaps the world’s most beloved child. When I was six, my mother died. I think he got the shorter end of the stick. I never had a mother, but he never had a childhood. And when you never get to have something, you become obsessed by it.

I spent my childhood searching for my mother figures. Sometimes I was successful, but how do you recreate your childhood when you are under the magnifying glass of the world?

She tells about the time she tried to befriend the ultra-strange superstar:

I asked him out to dinner, I said “My treat, I’ll drive — just you and me.”

I'll drive. Ha ha.

He agreed and showed up to my house without any bodyguards. We drove to the restaurant in my car. It was dark out, but he was still wearing sunglasses.

Just one more reason why you need to do the driving.

I said, “Michael, I feel like I’m talking to a limousine. Do you think you can take off your glasses so I can see your eyes?”

I feel like I’m talking to a limousine. Ha ha. Brilliant. I wonder if Madonna really does come up with  lines like that in real time or some great comic writer punched up the dialogue. Dead men correct no quotes.

Then he tossed the glasses out the window, looked at me with a wink and a smile and said, “Can you see me now? Is that better?”

[I]n that moment, I could see both his vulnerability and his charm. The rest of the dinner, I was hellbent on getting him to eat French fries, drink wine, have dessert and say bad words. Things he never seemed to allow himself to do. 

What a goody-two-shoes that guy was! Imagine getting lessons in how to be bad from Madonna.

Later we went back to my house to watch a movie and sat on the couch like two kids, and somewhere in the middle of the movie, his hand snuck over and held mine.

It felt like he was looking for more of a friend than a romance, and I was happy to oblige. In that moment, he didn’t feel like a superstar. He felt like a human being.

Who knew the peak moment of Michael Jackson's life was the moment Madonna made him feel — at last! — human?

We went out a few more times together, and then for one reason or another we fell out of touch. 

Dead men tell no anecdotes.

(Here's video of Madonna's speech.)

Michael Jackson's death a "homicide"... you mean, in the sense of assisted suicide?

Smoking Gun:

A search warrant affidavit sworn by a Los Angeles detective provides a detailed account of the police probe into the death of Michael Jackson, whose doctor told cops that he had been treating the pop star's insomnia by intravenously administering the powerful anesthetic propofol in the weeks before Jackson's June 25 death. The affidavit of LAPD Detective Orlando Martinez was included in a search warrant application filed last month in Houston, Texas, where Dr. Conrad Murray maintained an office and a storage unit. A copy of Martinez's affidavit, prepared last month, can be found below. Murray, reportedly the subject of a criminal probe stemming from Jackson's death, told investigators that he "felt that Jackson may have been forming an addiction to" propofol, and tried to "wean Jackson off the drug." The affidavit notes that Jackson "was very familiar with the drug and referred to it as his 'milk.'" The affidavit also quotes an L.A. coroner's official saying that preliminary toxicology results showed that "Jackson's cause of death was due to lethal levels of propofol." The coroner has classified Jackson's death a homicide, according to a law enforcement source cited today by the Associated Press, which reported that the ruling makes it "more likely" that criminal charges will be filed against the 56-year-old Murray.

Not to say Murray doesn't deserve criminal punishment, but wasn't he acceding to Jackson's demands?

"'Do you have my beet juice? Do you have my beet juice? Do you have my organic green apple lemon ginger for energy?"

You know, maybe a steak?

"Do I want the kids? Hell no. Does it look good for me to ask for them? Absolutely."

"I don't want to look like the woman who gave away her kids and just forgot about them."

Does it look good for you to ask whether it looks good for you to ask for them? Hell no!

ADDED: Rowe says she didn't write that email.

Was Michael Jackson murdered?

I used that headline the day after the death was reported, and today I see "LAPD not ruling out homicide in death of Michael Jackson, top cop says":

Depending on "corroboration from the coroner's office as to the cause of death," [Police Chief Bill] Bratton suggested the investigation could lead to criminal charges. Detectives are focusing on five doctors who had treated Jackson in the past and whether they supplied him with the powerful sedative Diprivan.

Bratton is certainly not saying that the doctors may have intentionally killed Jackson.

"Talking Points is just about fed up with all the [Michael Jackson] adulation."

O'Reilly has had it.

"It was an unbeLIEVable motorcade. I mean there were 3 Rolls Royces — FIVE Rolls Royces in it. 3 Escalades."

Yes. I'm watching the Michael Jackson Memorial. Isn't everybody?

12:15 CT: ABC takes us to the "service." Smokey Robinson is stumbling through reading condolences from Diana Ross, Nelson Mandela, etc. Now, nothing's happening, and the ABC newsfolk decide maybe that wasn't the service already beginning. So let's question Martin Bashir, the documentary filmmaker whose work led to Michael's arrest. Yeah, great to see you, Bashir. You're certainly welcome on this occasion. Bashir rambles, and Charlie Gibson interrupts with the assertion that Michael Jackson "probably had the singular greatest influence on the music business over the last 25 years as anyone." "Singular greatest influence"? Shouldn't that be "single greatest influence"? And if he was the single greatest influence, what do the words "as anyone" mean at the end of that sentence? Can't anybody talk anymore?

[I'll update this some more later, with a DVR assist. I can't sit in front of the TV all afternoon.]

UPDATE: It's 9 p.m. now, and I've fast-forwarded through the show, pausing occasionally. I listened to a bit of Brooke Shields talking about going out on dates with Michael when the 2 of them were teens. I listened to a bit of singing by Stevie Wonder and Jennifer Hudson and much of the "We Are the World" extravaganza. And I cried when the young daughter paid her tribute and broke down. Exploitative? I can't say it's not, but still...

The ghost of Michael Jackson.

Here's the video everyone's talking about:



Elvis-y, no?

For added eeriness, there is a Michael Jackson song "Ghost." Video here.

ADDED: Presumably, Neverland will become a tourist attraction, and Michael Jackson's ghost will be part of the allure.

Magazine cover.