Los Angeles - Since news of Michael Jackson's passing, there has been an emotional outpouring not seen perhaps since Princess Diana's death in 1997.

The 24-hour news cycle and social media are probably amplifying the reaction. But the response seems genuinely broad and intense – which may be surprising given the pop star's transformation into something of a bizarre and controversial recluse in his last 20 years.

If the death of a pop star was to be measured by tweets alone, Michael Jackson's would seem to be of monumental importance. About 15 percent of Twitter posts mentioned Jackson when the news broke Thursday evening, noted Harvard researcher Ethan Zuckerman in one tweet, comparing that with hot topics such as Iran and swine flu that never crossed 5 percent.

By Friday afternoon, 9 of the top 10 albums selling on iTunes were Michael Jackson's, Amazon.com had sold out all his CDs, and major retailers coast to coast were running out of his music. Online, Facebook and news websites were swamped with tributes. And Fans gathered across the world, from a mass moonwalk in London to tributes on the Walk of Fame in Los Angeles to vigils in Paris and Tokyo.

The overriding reason is his extraordinary musical influence.

"The reason you are seeing this global outpouring of interest is that Michael Jackson is singular in the history of pop culture. No one even comes close," says Professor James Peterson at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa., who teaches hip-hop culture, African-American literature, and sociolinguistics. Mr. Peterson points out that Jackson's achievement of 750 million in global album sales will never again be equaled because of the absolute change in the music business caused by the Internet.

Besides having had a dramatic influence on such artists as Usher, Chris Brown, and Justin Timberlake, Jackson "at once captures and encapsulates the history of blacks in dance. Any number of popular artists could not exist at the level they have without Michael Jackson," says Mr. Peterson.

For some, Jackson's body of work may trump all the other questionable aspects of his lifestyle – the child molestation charges, facial alteration, and reclusiveness.

"There have been at least three generations of listeners – one for each of his musical incarnations," Peterson notes, adding that he has a 10-year-old son who is now getting immersed in Jackson watching Peterson and his wife in mourning. "A fourth generation of followers is going to emerge because of this," he says.

Jackson was also one of the few musicians to transcend narrow ideas about how a black man should look and act and reach a global audience, says Professor Jeff Melnick, who teaches African American studies and popular culture at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass.

But the intense response to Jackson's death also reveals society's deep investment in celebrity culture worldwide, he says, adding that there is an acknowledgement that the demands of celebrity culture wounded Jackson from the moment he hit the scene as a boy in the late 1960s.

"The outpouring is partly guilt, then – it is a confession of sorts," says Mr. Melnick, "of the culpability of the fan in the premature death of the artist."

With virtually no offstage in his life, "Jackson became a canvas on which fans projected all kinds of fantasies – about proper gender behavior, about racial norms and what we should do with our bodies."

Jackson also gave more than $300 million over the course of his life to charities all over the world, which may have something to do with tributes coming from several world leaders, from Britain's Gordon Brown to former president of South Korea Kim Dae-jung and South Africa's Nelson Mandela.

Other cultural anthropologists and researchers suggest the current economic downturn has accelerated global notions of nostalgia.

"We mourn the loss of ourselves through this pop icon," says Tracy Johnson, Research Director of Context-Based Research Group which studies consumer behavior.

"We recognize that we, particularly in America, have lost a little bit of what we were all about," she says. "Someone like Michael Jackson who so embodied the American Dream just makes that loss all that much more palpable."

Above all, it was his music and unique, energetic performance style that attracted fans around the world.

"One reason Michael Jackson's death is having such a wide impact is because his music had such a wide, and even sustained impact," says John Covach, a music historian at the University of Rochester. "Few artists have so completely saturated the market as Jackson did during the 1980s. It's comparable to the Beatles in the 60s or Elvis in the 50s. When an artist or performer is so well known and loved, the reaction to his or her passing is bound to be strong and widespread."

"One important difference between Jackson's career and those of many others is that he was a child star who became an adult star – a very difficult transition to pull off," says Professor Covach. "Even those who were too young to be fans of Jackson when he was a child have seen the clips of him performing with a mastery far beyond his years. The adult Michael Jackson that fans loved in the 1980s thus already had a bit of history – people felt like they knew him already."

And so, people from around the world continue to talk with friends and strangers about this musical legend, their voices spread more widely by new means of communication.

In the hours after Jackson's passing, AOL's instant messaging service was down for 40 minutes due to an increase in traffic. In a statement, AOL also noted that, "Today was a seminal moment in Internet history. We've never seen anything like it in terms of scope or depth."

As if to connect the two major icons of celebrity lost in recent years, the Telegraph in London reports that Harrods owner Mohamed Fayed has announced that he will erect a Michael Jackson Memorial at the store to join the one of his late son, Dodi and Diana, Princess of Wales.

http://www.csmonitor.com/...-usgn.html

LittleBLUECorvette said:

I found it very unsettling because we didn't know exactly what it was but evidently it was bothersome enough for her to speak about it.

seeingvoices12 said:

Sure

dreamfactory313 said:

onenitealone said:

I've seen some footage of auditions & early rehearsal on Youtube.

I feel so sad for what the family has to deal with in the aftermath. I can't fathom how difficult this must be for those closest to him who now have to deal with legalities and such as if his passing isn't enough. The first family of music... my extended family is grieving and I feel helpless.

Wow @ What the nanny Grace had to say.

"THE nanny who became “mother” to Michael Jackson’s three children has told how she regularly had to pump his stomach to remove dangerous cocktails of drugs.

Grace Rwaramba, 42, who flew from London to Los Angeles yesterday in the hope of being reunited with his children, has given a graphic account of the singer’s increasingly desperate final months.

She paints a grim picture of Jackson, sometimes penniless but deluded about his “riches”, leading a nomadic life, moving from country to country and hotel to hotel, before allegedly falling under the increasing influence of the Nation of Islam, the extremist sect.

Jackson is believed to have been taking up to eight different drugs a day, including three narcotic painkillers. Rwaramba, who is expected to be interviewed by detectives about whether she helped administer the drugs, said: “I had to pump his stomach many times. He always mixed so much of it.

“There was one period that it was so bad that I didn’t let the children see him . . . He always ate too little and mixed too much.”

The nanny says she once called in the singer’s mother, Katherine, and sister, Janet, to attempt an “intervention”, trying to persuade the singer to come to terms with his addiction. Instead Jackson turned on her, accusing her of betraying him. “He didn’t want to listen; that was one of the times he let me go,” she said.

Rwaramba, who is from Rwanda, worked for Jackson for more than a decade, starting as an office assistant before becoming nanny to his children, Michael Jr, known as Prince, aged 12; Paris, 11; and Prince Michael II, 7, nicknamed Blanket to distinguish him from his brother.

She was dismissed for a final time last December but still went back to see the children. When she visited them in April she claims Jackson was so hard up she had to buy “happy birthday” balloons for Paris on her own credit card.

On a previous occasion he had sent her to Florence to buy antiques for $1m. “We didn’t even have a home to live in. So we had to put the antiques in storage,” she said.

Yesterday an official with the Los Angeles police revealed the singer had become “heavily addicted” to the powerful painkiller OxyContin and had received an injection of Demerol, another painkiller, an hour before his death. It is now almost certain the police will begin a full investigation into the singer’s death and that Rwaramba will be regarded as a witness. Coroners in the case said yesterday there was no suspicion of foul play but toxicology tests would take several weeks.

One theory is that Jackson was taking an increasing amount of drugs to combat the stress of his forthcoming 50 concerts at the O2 in London. The nanny said: “Fifty performances! I told him . . . what are you doing? He said ‘I signed only for 10’. He didn’t know what he was signing. He never did.”

Detectives have made contact with Dr Conrad Robert Murray, a cardiologist who was with Jackson at his rented mansion when he died, and have made clear they want to interview him. Police denied a report that they also want to talk to a second doctor.

Police will also want to know whether early CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) efforts to save the singer’s life were botched. On a tape of conversations between the Jackson home and the ambulance service, one of Jackson’s staff tells the dispatcher that Jackson is on the bed and that a “doctor is here”, meaning Murray.

Medical experts say it is usual for the patient to be on a hard surface because it is difficult to compress the chest on a soft surface. The operator told the caller to “get him on the floor”. A car towed by police from Jackson’s home is registered in the name of Murray’s sister in Texas.

Rwaramba claims the Nation of Islam, the sect that had become increasingly prominent in Jackson’s life, told him it cost $100,000 (£60,000) a month to rent the mansion, but she believes similar properties were on the market for no more than $25,000 a month.

The sect has supplied bodyguards to the singer and allegedly intimidated auction houses that were selling Jackson memorabilia.

“Michael had no idea about money,” Rwaramba said. “He got a proposal to make an appearance in Japan for $1m . . . By the time everyone took their share, he ended up with $200,000.” At one stage Jackson and his entourage flew economy class to Germany. One of the worst periods was after Jackson was acquitted following a five-month trial in 2005 on charges of sexually abusing a boy during sleepovers at his Neverland ranch.

Jackson, Rwaramba and the children went to Bahrain as guests of Sheikh Abdullah, a son of the king, who hoped to make a CD with the singer.

People there described yesterday how they sometimes saw Jackson walking through a mall, his frail body draped in a woman’s abaya, or robe, which covered part of the face. He drew a crowd since he did not walk like a woman.

When the singer and the sheikh fell out, Jackson and his family moved to Ireland to stay with friends of Rwaramba and then in a small house in New Jersey where Jackson slept in a downstairs room while she and the children shared a bedroom.

When Jackson did have money, he hid it in black rubbish sacks and under the carpets at the Los Angeles house. Rwaramba says Katherine Jackson rang her in London at 7am on Friday to ask where the money was, possibly to stop it being stolen.

Sources close to the Jacksons yesterday told the TMZ entertainment website, which broke the news of his death, that the children would stay with their grandmother and grandfather Joe at the family home in Encino, California.

They said: “We’re told the family is 100% behind this - feeling that Katherine and Joe Jackson are the only people who can help the children understand who their father was, help them grieve, and teach them to deal with life in the spotlight.”

Wow, that's sad and it seems more and more the things that some didn't want to believe were true. This may also explain why some saw Michael fit and active and others saw him lethargic and weak.

JackieBlue said:

Thanks for explaining, Jackie



.
[Edited 6/27/09 15:21pm]

Time Magazine Cover

vainandy said:

so true, the org has some people who just don't care to think

This is sad news very sad news

Michael Jackson album heading for No. 1 in Britain
4 hours ago

LONDON (AFP) — Michael Jackson is set to top the British album chart on Sunday following a surge in sales sparked by his death, the official chart compilers said.
The greatest hits album, "Number Ones" is set for top spot and the Official Charts Company said "up to half a dozen" of the singer's other albums could also make the Top 75.

Jackson is also likely to feature prominently in the singles chart as fans download tracks from his back catalogue, with "Man In The Mirror", "Billie Jean" and "Thriller" climbing rapidly.

However a spokesman for the compilers said on Saturday that fans seemed to be snapping up Jackson's albums more than singles.

The late singer's albums were dominating the British version of Apple's iTunes download chart, filling nine of the top 10 places with "Number Ones" on top of the pile.
Jackson also had the top-selling album in most of the rest of the world, according to the iTunes website.

Gennaro Castaldo of retailer HMV said the true impact of Jackson's sudden death might be more clearly seen in next week's charts.

He added: "We always find where a great icon dies that there's a massive uplift in their music sales as fans want to connect and express their grief through the records.

"We've seen this with people like John Lennon, Elvis, Johnny Cash and Frank Sinatra over the years. With Michael Jackson in particular, he was just on the cusp of a big comeback anyway and we were already beginning to see a lift in sales."

Jackson, who died on Thursday aged 50, had been scheduled to play the first of 50 comeback concerts in London on July 13.

Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »


We miss u mike

The more I read about Michael I am amazed at how much pain he had in the last days of his life. The obvious ones we all know about , but the health problems ouch. And financial problems. And Michael would always deny everything. I really think MJ lost touch with reality a while ago and sadly it eventually led to his demise. Which is so sad because he gave the world so much happiness. I also see more similarity with his death and the death of Bruce Lee than I do with the death of Elvis. But anyway none of that will bring him back. I hope he is at peace.

just a lil' something to cheer ya'll up a bit:

Cinnamon234 said:

Nice.

Cinnamon234 said:

I need to get this.

I sadly only had Thriller on CD,and when i went to go to Walmart to get copies of the others,they were sold out,and the only other music place in town was also cleared out of all there MJ CD,and vinyl. I looked on Ebay,and some of the CD's are selling for big $$. I am hoping to get copies without having to pay out the nose.

http://www.etonline.com/n...index.html

Jackson Family Issues Personal Statement to Fans



http://www.people.com/peo...69,00.html
Originally posted Saturday June 27, 2009 06:15 PM EDT
Michael Jackson

Photo by: Colin Knight / JPI
The Jackson family issued a statement Saturday, conveyed by family patriarch Joseph Jackson. In full, it reads:

In one of the darkest moments of our lives we find it hard to find the words appropriate to this sudden tragedy we all had to encounter. Our beloved son, brother and father of three children has gone so unexpectedly, in such a tragic way and much too soon. It leaves us, his family, speechless and devastated to a point, where communication with the outside world seems almost impossible at times.

We miss Michael endlessly, our pain cannot be described in words. But Michael would not want us to give up now. So we want to thank all of his faithful supporters and loyal fans worldwide, you – who Michael loved so much. Please do not despair, because Michael will continue to live on in each and every one of you. Continue to spread his message, because that is what he would want you to do. Carry on, so his legacy will live forever.

In addition, Joseph Jackson wishes to personally convey: "My grandchildren are deeply moved by all the love and support you have shown for them and their father, Michael Jackson."

Joseph Jackson & Family

Spike Lee on Michael Jackson: http://www.time.com/time/...topstories

LondonStyle said:

I have my personal anger feelings toward Joseph amd Kat here but I want to express them another time. Meanwhile I feel bad for him and Katherine that they have to bury their son. Not suppose to be!

dreamfactory313 said:

Michael Jackson called me up and said, "Spike, I want meet you, I'm coming to New York." I said, "Well where you want to meet?" He says, "I want to come to your house." I live in Brooklyn! He wants to come to my house! So, Michael Jackson came to my house in Brooklyn, New York — this was when I was living in Fort Greene. And he said, I want you to direct a video for me. My new album's coming out, pick a song. So we listened to all the songs and I picked "Stranger in Moscow." And he said, I don't want you to do that one. And I said, "Michael, just tell me which one you want me to do! Why ask me to pick one?" And he laughed and he said he wanted me to do "They Don't Care About Us." That's how it happened.

good story

Scorpion of Windimoto's tribute to Michael

Saturday June 27th, 2009

It has taken me this long to get my thoughts together.

I'm not trying to make this some definitive tribute statement, either...I'm just speaking from my soul...

Another Black man is gone before he could grow old...that in itself is a tragedy...but what makes it significant is that that Black man is the greatest entertainer ever...

Yes, I said it.

Michael Jackson is the greatest entertainer ever.

I definitely do not wish to shortchange James Brown. James Brown is the blueprint of modern Black music. Michael knew this and studied JB's every move. He loved James—as a mentor, as an entertainer, and as a person. To me it speaks volumes that Michael came out of his exile to honor James when he passed....

Michael put his own issues aside and came out for JB when so may of JB's disciples and progeny were shamefully absent....

James Brown lived a long life, and good sense would tell you that JB was older than what he said he was....so when JB passed, it was major but not unexpected...

I haven't told anyone this until the last couple of days...Michael Jackson introduced me to music...It was because of him that I made up my mind early in my childhood that I would make music...

I've heard quite a few other people, famous and not, say the same thing over the past few days...

Over the years, I have defended him against unfair and false criticism...the thing that angers me the most about his life is the willful ignorance of those who hate him...

I've never seen anyone be hated with the fervor I've seen some people hate Michael Jackson...

I've heard people call for his death...and now that it has happened, I've heard people say that they are glad...

and they base these feelings on what exactly?

Because he was eccentric? I bet you there are weirder people in your family...

this didn't start with the allegations, this hatred of Michael Jackson has been building steadily since 1987....I've watched it with my own eyes...

I watched the press start going out of their way to make it seem like everything he did was cat shit crazy...

“Bizarre singer Michael Jackson flew a kite in his yard today...the famously weird singer for some odd reason flew a kite for about an hour this afternoon ….some found the scene disturbing...”

Silly shit like that...

A real life example is when Michael bounced his baby on his knee to calm his crying...Martin Bashir acted like he was choking the baby...

Who DOESN'T bounce crying babies on their knee?

I think the thing I found most disturbing about the venom directed at Michael Jackson was the Black people who turned their backs on him...

Michael Jackson represented for Black people all of his life.

His career is based on his Blackness...

He paid for David Ruffin's funeral.

John H. Johnson (publisher of Ebony and Jet) was one of his advisers.

He owned Sly Stone's publishing and made sure Sly was taken care of.

His heroes were James Brown, Jackie Wilson, and Sammy Davis., Jr...he spent his 50th birthday listening to James Brown...

There are rumors that after acquiring the publishing rights to Little Richard's songs, Mike gave them back to Richard...not sold, gave...

Michael would bring in busloads of poor children South Central, Watts and other black populated areas of LA county to Neverland to have their run of the place...

Saul Williams said that his education was funded by part of a 25 million dollar donation by Michael to the United Negro College fund.

Michael was friends with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

He loved to vacation in Africa and tried to spread the word about the historic and physical beauty of the continent...he stated that he believes all things come from Africa....

He made a song called THEY Don't Care About US (feel free to read between the lines)

He loved the documentary Unforgivable Blackness about the story of Jack Johnson.

He made street dancing popular long before the breakdancing phenomenon of the mid-80s....in the mid-70's, Mike was popping and locking. He always gave credit to the dancers in the streets, many times hiring them for his videos.

He made a video with real gang members, long before gang-banging became chic.

He made a video showing Black people as royalty in Africa.

His vocal style with all the ad-libs, scatting, and slang is undeniably Black.

Michael NEVER looked down on hip-hop...he reached out to, collaborated with, and mentored many young hip-hop artists.

He called Tommy Mottola a devil, loved to eat KFC (with the skin removed) and drink Crown Royal, his first date with Lisa Marie was to go see the Temptations and The Fifth Dimension in Las Vegas.

She asked him, “Where will we stay?

“In my room.”, he replied.

“Will we sleep in the same bed?” she continued

“Hell yeah, girl!...” was his answer...

was he not Black?

He had a perm and married a white girl...how Black is that?...LOL

I kid....but I never felt that Michael did not want to be Black.

I don't want to focus on the controversy because that cheapens his legacy...as a man, he had faults...but who among us does not?

The plain in simple truth is the reason why Michael touched so many of us in such a personal way is because what his mission was....

he summed up it here, very succinctly:

http://www.youtube.com/wa...6TzvE6b_lM

“Love is my message....”
-Michael Jackson, 1980

he told us many times over the years...

“All the colors of the world should be lovin' each other/wholeheartedly/Yes, its all right/take my message to your brother and tell him twice/Spread the word and try to teach the man/who's hating his brother/when hate won't do/When we're all the same/cause the blood inside of me is inside of you...”

Michael Jackson was not just a simple singer and dancer...he was a revolutionary...

As a songwriter and producer, he does not get his due...HE is the definitive force behind the sound...HE is the funky one...HE is the one with the gift...

he used Quincy to articulate his intent, but he did it without Quincy, before and after Quincy....

He is a musical genius...bar none...

His lyrics are rich with meaning and emotion...people get caught up in the spectacle and miss what he was saying...

“something's soon to come over you/you just cant please the world and yourself/gotta start doing what's right for you/cause life is being happy yourself...”
-Bless His Soul

“live inside cryin' eyes/your touch/your heart/your warmth/lullaby/love to dream/don't it seem/the tears/the pain/reality/

don't cha know/these dreams I wish could be/the real you and me/I come running back to you/you push me away/you push/you push me away...”
-Push Me Away

“I am the damned/I am the dead/I am the agony inside the dying head/this is injustice/woe unto me/I pray this punishment will have mercy on me...”
-Who Is It

“this time I'm leaving all of my cares behind/I taste the good life and its fine/no more this pain and strife/this life's willing to be/and I've got enough/and I know what's right for me

I've done my time and I have paid the price/all you have to do/is state my name out loud/forget your worries/and let's dance and shout/cause we're here to live so free/Ive got to let me be...”
-Everybody

“the world keeps changing/rearranging minds and thoughts/predictions fly of doom/the baby boom/has come of age/we'll work it out

I told my brother/don't u ask me for no favors/I'm conditioned by the system/don't you preach to me/don't scream and shout

she pray to God/to Buddha/then she sings a Talmud song/confusions contradictions/the self/do we know right from wrong?

I just want you to recognize me in the temple/you cant hurt me/Ive found peace within myself...”
-Jam

“Now, I'm a man whose for all seasons/and what the city offers me/ain't naturally/I live to greet the stars but there's no stars to see/ I'm gonna search this world until I find my destiny...

If its the rich life/I don't want it/happiness ain't always material things

I want destiny/its the place for me/gimme the simple life/I'm getting 'way from here/let me be me/cmon/let me feel free...”
-Destiny

These are words that came from his heart and his pen...incredibly profound words....a lot of us were listening...

This is why we felt Michael, because he reached out and did his best to make us feel, to unite us, to make us dance...

His voice is instantly recognizable...a beautiful, soulful instrument of both joy and pain...from his first songs to his last...

When I listen to Get On The Floor, I am captured by the breakdown....he breathes and and scats in amazing rhythm...then he begins to chant:

“get up/wontcha gon' get down/shake ya body/wont cha gon get down....”

he repeats this over and over....his vocal percussion blending in with the the drums and tom-toms...

he keeps repeating this until you feel like you are in some kind of voodoo ritual....he brings the groove back with a scream...he's still chanting but harder...urging you to move...

the groove climaxes and he is whooping and screaming as if possessed...

when he comes back to the lyrics he is so exhilarated that he is laughing out loud while he sings...

he was feeling the groove as much as we were...we had no choice but to surrender...

many other folks my age, when we were kids, and we watched Michael sing and dance, he seemed to be a supernatural force of nature...he seemed more than human...

it was the little things...the glowing socks...the glowing pavement when he walked on it...the laser light behind him in Rock With You...it felt real....it felt natural...like he was some kind of funk sorcerer who knew magic...

Magic.

That's the word that keeps coming up when people talk about Michael...his mystique and his brilliance made us think somehow, someway magic was real....

You watch him in The Wiz...and you realize that he really is The Scarecrow...

His music at its core...was primal...there was a combination of darkness and light behind it all...he could do the ballads and the smooth stuff....but when he was unleashed over a funk groove, that's when we got the raw Mike...

songs like Workin Day And Night, Wanna be Startin Somethin', Heartbreak Hotel, Remember The Time, Everybody...

We fed on his energy and we couldn't get enough of it...

If you really listened to his music...I mean REALLY listened...he told us everything we needed to know...

One of his most enduring and heartbreaking songs is That's What You Get (For Being Polite)...it is pure autobiography...

“love's not harsh/love's not bad/ but what he's doing for love is so sad...

he wants to be so bad/he wants to be so bad/all the time/gettin in/thinks he can get out/something's deep in side of him/eating up the pride in him/that makes him buy things for the girls/that's what you get for being polite...”
-That's What You Get For Being Polite

But even though we are grown men and women and we know that he is human just like us...we still have the notion that he is really some kind of spiritual force in human form...as we all are really...

But now that he has passed, it underlines with mean finality that underneath it all, he was flesh and blood...

All of that wisdom, artistry, energy, excitement, sensitivity and love seems like its been taken away from us....

People, my heart is heavy...because for all that the brother gave to us all,we did not return his love like we should have...

It is not just that it ends this way for Michael....for all the respect shown, the media still will not let go of their bigotry and disdain....they still allude and make innuendo...they fear his power and refuse to let the brother shine and go on to his glory like he deserves...

But then I think about it, and all of that wisdom, artistry, energy, excitement, love, and sensitivity will never die...Michael will live on forever...

We will never forget him.

We will still sing along, we will still dance, we will still watch and listen.

We mourn the loss of him not as a celebrity, but as a friend....he was a friend to us...

I listen to the people who knew him personally and I hear their devastation...I listen to what THEY say about him and I know I was right about him...if he wasn't as special as he seemed to be, this might be just a little easier to take...

I'm not ashamed to say that I love Michael Jackson...and the world doesn't feel the same without him here...

you kind of always expected him to be here...

Through his life, he taught me so much about life, music, compassion, survival, expression...and I feel I'm a better person for being a Michael Jackson fan...

I pray for his family, especially his parents, and his children.

I pray that people will show respect, restrain, and compassion now that he has moved on.

I pray that people will move away from the spectacle and really and truly re-discover his music and his gift...and even though its far fetched, maybe see him for who he really is.

Michael Jackson sacrificed his life to entertain us, to make us happy, and possibly teach us a thing or two...no matter what you thought of him, that deserves respect....

Michael Jackson is the greatest entertainer ever.

We will not see a phenomenon like him again.

Michael Jackson was more than the greatest entertainer ever...he was a great man...

and the world was a much better place when he was here with us.

He is The King.

I don't know if these words made any sense to anyone, but I felt they needed to be said.

Rest In Peace, Brother Michael

Thank you. For everything.

Shango said:

exactly, it's BOUND to leak, considering it was his last creative work. I mean, basically all the costumes, the vocals and the tracklist - ALL must be ready!?
I can't imagine no dancer or musical producer will ever speak about it.

Joe Jackson, the father of Michael Jackson, is speaking out about how the Jackson family is handling the death of the pop icon.

"We're holding a family meeting now," Joe Jackson told People.com. "We don't like what's going on."

Members of the Jackson family, including Michael Jackson's mother Katherine, have gathered to mourn at the family's Encino, Calif. home, says People.

A source close to the Jackson family tells People.com that on Friday the adult family members tried to contain their emotions in front of Jackson's three children -- Prince, 12, Paris, 11, and "Blanket," 7 -- but that by Saturday, their emotions could not be contained.

"The kids have fallen apart today," the source tells People. "They have taken it so, so hard. Yesterday everybody was being really strong for the kids, but today it just hit everybody. There are so many tears."

The unnamed source goes on to tell People: "There is so much sadness in the house today, it's unreal. They are so confused. They are so in the dark…The family has no access to the will. [Michael's lawyers] won't let the family see the will ... The family has no idea what to do. They don't even know when to bury him. They don't know what to do about anything. They aren't getting any answers from Michael's lawyers."

Citing a Jackson family source, People says that Michael's mother Katherine visited the late superstar's home to pick up clothing for his burial, but was rebuffed by members of the star's camp.

People, citing a family source, reports that the Jacksons are equally concerned that Debbie Rowe, Jackson's ex-wife and mother of his two eldest children, will try to raise Jackson's kids.

"They haven't heard from Debbie Rowe and don't know what's going on in that respect, either. Joe and Katherine really want the children," the source tells People. "They for sure want the children."

People, citing another family source, says that Joe Jackson will request an independent autopsy. The source said: "They're in shock and they want answers…The issue is the people around him: vampires and blood suckers."

www.etonline.com

Cinnamon234 said:

This is horrible that the attorneys won't even let MJ's mother near his belongings. His family and children are grieving for goodness sakes. This news is so disgusting and sad. The attorneys did not give birth to MJ, Katherine did, and she should have the right to visit her own child's estate. Something tells me some of MJ's attorneys used him viciously. The family better get their attorney investigating this fast. The family can't even be in peace in burying their own child. Just horrible. Even in death, the snakes still try to come out to bite.
[Edited 6/27/09 16:24pm]

bboy87 said:

I can now go to bed with a smile on my face thanks bboy87 great post again!

MJ R.i.P

I don't understand how people have rights over family. If there is no spouse don't your parents still have say?

JackieBlue said:

I know. That is what I don't understand. This sounds like the same fiasco, when James Brown and Anna Nicole Smith died. Just ridiculous and sad.
[Edited 6/27/09 16:22pm]

Does anyone know of the mafia approaching Michael Jackson,
during the make of Thriller? Rumor has it they wanted
a piece of the action, Michael said no! Later on the
mafia laid low to sabatoge Michael's career
years later with the molestation accusations.

bboy87 said:

That is just beautiful...bboy...