Timmy84 said:

Yep...I remember seeing Rick James up there as a presenter at the AMA in 81.

blackguitaristz said:

I loved it when Rick was presenting at the Grammys before he and Grace announced Marvin as the winner of Best Male R&B Vocal Performance.

Countthedays said:

an article from usa today: Vigoda, Arlene. “Photos May Contradict Michael Jackson’s Accuser.” USA Today. 28 Jan. 1994: Pg. 2.

i don't have access to it, but i remember hearing about it at the time. remember, mj had said publicly that he had vitiligo in early '93. so if jordan chandler stated to police that mj's genital's were 'spotted', is it really corroborative evidence? he would have to have been pretty dead on because i, who've never met mj, could make the same assertion and have a better than 50% of being 'right', simply because mj told the world about his skin condition. it is also worth noting that the '94 santa barbara grand jury did not indict mj, with one of those jurors telling a local tv station that the evidence was so unconvincing that he doubted mj would ever be indicted.

if the photos were so damning, why no indictment? an indictment could have been handed down even if mj had settled the civil case and the accuser refused to come forward in a criminal investigation. one really doesn't have any bearing on the other. the police could have put the evidnece out there for everyone to see, but they haven't. i do know that mj thru johnny cochran tried to get those pictures destroyed, and demanded that he know exactly what jordan chandler had said but the police refused to show him the alleged evidence against him.

with respect to the smoking gun, chandler may have in fact said those things, but just saying something doesn't make it true.

i have a feeling this case will be reopened for investigation because there is so much speculation. i remember they did that with jfk and marilyn well after their deaths to try to put certain rumors to rest.

Timmy84 said:

Yeah, Grace Jones damn near kept hitting Rick in the eye with that huge hat she was wearing. Rick even said to Stevie Wonder while Rick was onstage "Hey Stevie, you should see this hat, man."

blackguitaristz said:

Anymore where this came from?

IdentityCrisis said:

Wasn't that from a calendar? I'm thinking I had that mf


.
[Edited 7/12/09 16:42pm]

Timmy84 said:

Yeah,...my man Rick was no joke either.

blackguitaristz said:

I know Rick was a riot.

blackguitaristz said:

I read your post with tears in my eyes. I remember Michael since I wa around 5. I remeber the cartoons on Saturday mornings, I remember trying to get my afro like the Jackson 5. I remember "Looking Through the Windows" and "ain't no sunshine" playing on the radio whilst I ate my breakfast. It was like you I had parallale life to them and that's why when things started to go so wrong with MJ I felt so disappointed and sad.

Prince may be a more talented, Madonna may be more worldly but Michael was there from the beginning bringing me soul, joy and hope.

whatsgoingon said:

All three were there at the beginning of my life.

For those who say LaToya wasn't close to Michael, they actually made up a few years ago after she left her manipulative and abusive husband/manager. Remember, LaToya and Janet appearing dressed all in white along with Michael at his 2005 trial? And those interviews ARE with her and ARE recent, as she is posed with the editor of one of the newspapers in the article.

http://www.latoyalove.com
[Edited 7/12/09 17:16pm]

Jacko Nanny Was Paid For Negative Interview
http://www.showbiz411.com...-interview

Michael Jackson’s longtime nanny and employee, Grace Rwaramba, did indeed sell out to vulture-like celebrity interviewer Daphne Barak.

Barak has posted a clip from the interview on her website and on YouTube as a teaser. The intention is to sell it somewhere. Barak routinely gets her “scoops” by paying her interview subjects, according to sources.

Today Barak started e-mailing the clip around to various Jackson insiders hoping to get them to jump on her bandwagon.

Rwaramba has denied doing the interview. But the clip speaks for itself. She tells Barak how she was fired last spring on a Sunday morning by telephone. The nanny says “the guy”—presumably Tohme Tohme—”terminated” her by offering her a “ridiculous” salary.

“Were you surprised?” Barak asked her. “Not really,” Grace replied. “It had happened before.”

The minute-long clip is interesting because Rwaramba will be offered as an important person in the lives of Jackson’s children when their grandmother, Katherine, goes to court next Monday to establish custody rights. The Jacksons seem unaware that Rwaramba—who was well compensated by Jackson—would turn on him, and for money.

Also, the nanny seems to indicate to Barak that she was “laid off” because she refused to take a low salary. That would certainly bring into question her selfless devotion to the children.

Ironically, Barak now is the common thread between Rwaramba and Michael’s parents, Katherine and Joe Jackson. Back in 2005, Barak interviewed the Jacksons, then sold the interview to CBS. Sources told me then that Barak kicked back a fee to the Jacksons. In 2005 I reported that both Joe Jackson and Daphne Barak were secretly in business with a man named Charles Coupet, who also served as a literary agent for Macaulay Culkin’s father, Kit. A year earlier, in 2004, Barak called this reporter and said, “I have Joseph Jackson on the phone and we want to talk to you about a project.” I passed.

not surprised.

Bryan Loren shares his memories with MJ




Saturday, July 11, 2009

Michael and Me
Current mood: melancholy


Philadelphia, Pa.- Wow. This is really tough for me.

It’s always hard losing someone that you called friend. But even more when you felt that they really understood some part of you that most people don’t. For me, that was Michael.

I spent a lot of time with Michael. Yes, a lot of time in the studio, but a lot of personal time as well. Among other times, Michael spent at least one Christmas and one Thanksgiving at my house. Just the two of us. We spent a lot of time talking. About life, music, art, movies, people, women(yes, women), and what it meant for him to be who he was at the time in which he lived. We talked about Elvis. He actually conjectured as to whether his musical legacy would be considered as great as Elvis'. I always assured him it would. I was with him in N.Y. working on ‘History’ around the time he first started seeing Lisa Marie. I was actually even a little jealous, then. I’d always thought she was very attractive(lol). I was with him when he decided he was going to the Oscars with Madonna. I stayed at, and went back and forth to Neverland. I spent many days at the ‘Hideout’. This was a condo that Michael had in Westwood, in L.A. I remember going with him into a room there where he kept a lot of the wardrobe from the ‘Bad’ tour. He showed me a jacket that I’d seen him wear on stage during the ‘Thriller’ performance. It looked like the one in the video, with the exception that it was loaded with neon lights that he would turn on during the dance routine. I put it on. This jacket was HEAVY. It seemed to have weighed 30 or more pounds. To think, he wore this during a big dance routine. It was then that I realized how strong he was for his very lean frame. On several occasions, we drove in this big white pick-up truck he used to drive, to Tower Records. Before going into the store, he would put on some glasses, a hat and these really weird teeth. Invariably, someone would recognize and watch him, but usually people would repectfully allow him to shop. I remember once being on the 101 freeway coming from the Hideout on the way to the studio in my car, with Michael in my passenger seat. At some point, a man driving on the passenger side of my car looks in the window at Mike, curly hair and Fedora in tow. Does a double-take and shruggs his shoulders as if to say ‘nah, couldn’t be’. Now that was funny. Then, there’s the people. The endless parade of high-profile people I met, just because I was with him when they showed up. From Michael Milken to Eddie Murphy, Steve Wynne, and Little Richard. I did the arrangement on the song he wrote for the Sigfried and Roy show in Los Vagas. The list goes on.

I still have the Fedora I took off his head while he was annoyingly poking at a plate of food I was eating at the studio one day, making him recoil because he had ‘hat-hair’(lol). I remember clearly the day he brought Bubbles(the chimp) to the studio, and Bubbles hit me(open-hand) in my chest(that s$%t hurt!). I wanted nothing to do with the chimp after that. Michael said it meant he liked me. He could not have been more amused. We shared laughter about things that only we knew. We could be in a room full of people, and either one of us could make the other laugh about something that would have others thinking ‘what’s so funny?’ It really made me feel special when Michael told me how talented he thought I was, knowing what the whole world thought of him. Likewise it was a special feeling working with him.

We recorded some twenty-plus tracks together. Sadly, many of these we never finished. But when we did do vocals, beyond his lead work it was always a pleasure to listen to this man lay background harmonies. His voice was truly unique. Really pure tone, and great intonation. On The Simpson's song ‘Do The Bartman’, the background vocals in the bridge are just me(contrary to what the press believed at that time). But, the harmonies in the chorus are performed by the two of us. We are each, singing each part harmony. We did them simultaniously. It was a quick, and painless process. I mixed the record, and I promise you all the vocals are equal gain. That’s two people, and it’s tight! It was really cool for me, as I’d never so easily before doubled with someone doing background vocals. He did the backing chorus voices on ‘To Satisfy You’ from my ‘Music From The New World’ CD because I’d written it for him, for 'Dangerous'. When it was decided he wasn’t going to use it, I told him I wanted to keep his vocals and put it on my record. He said, ‘Of course’. We actually did the finishing work on ‘Superfly Sister’ from ‘Blood On The Dance Floor’ a few years after I’d already done the track, as this was a song that I started writing during the ‘Dangerous’ sessions. Which made me feel it was always possible that we might revist some of the other music we’d started all that time ago. This was not unusual for Michael, as in the case of ‘They Don’t Care About Us’ from the ‘History’ album. This was a song that he’d started even before I joined him for 'Dangerous'. One of the first things I heard was this song, but it got bumped at that time. ‘Earth Song’ was also started during 'Dangerous'.

'Dangerous' was a rough period for me as well. As we’d recorded so much music and none of it was used for that project, and much else occured that I won’t go into here. But, I will say that I spent a great deal of enjoyable time with Michael and made some great music with him as well. There are some songs that even in there unfinished format, you can hear their potential. And over the next few months I will be posting some of those that have enough content to hear that potential.

When we began working, it was my hope to return to a form of feeling that you got from the 'Off The Wall' or even the 'Thriller' Lp. Where there was a very organic feeling about the content. ‘Work That Body’, is complete with Michael repeating(at my behest) the rap from The Jackson Five’s ‘ABC’. He DID NOT want to do this(lol), but realized the toungue-in-cheek fun contained in it. I produced this track, and am performing all of the music. There are no sequencers on it, as I do not generally use them in the course of my work. The two of us wrote the lyric and melody.

Ironically, I’d intended a while ago to post this and other songs that we’d done together because somehow, they’d been leaked to the internet. I would occasionally get email here at Myspace and otherwise asking if I had done this work. Well, to finally and officially answer that question: yes. A bunch of these are my songs, produced by me and co-written with Michael. It is sad that this would be the occasion to finally get to this, but I suppose people who love Michael would especially now like to hear work of his that was unreleased. There is also some amount of catharsis for me in this process.

I am proud to have produced and written for Michael. I am also proud to have called him my peer, and my friend. We shared a friendship that he had with very few people. It was very special to me. I am deeply saddened by his sudden, and untimely passing. My best wishes and sympathy go out to his children and all of the Jackson family. It goes without saying, he will be missed. R.I.P., big bruh...
[Edited 7/12/09 17:54pm]

not sure if posted

La Toya talking about MJ's kids
In a poignant interview, the star's closest sister La Toya reveals how she led Paris, 12, Prince Michael, 11, and seven-year-old Blanket to Michael's side to say goodbye to him just after he died.


"It was Paris who said she wanted to see her daddy 'one last time'," says La Toya. "So I took them into the room. There was a towel over his face. I lifted it and Paris said, 'Oh Daddy, I love you'.

"We hugged, and I kissed him on the forehead and the children lifted up his hands. He just didn't look like he was gone. His eyes were half open, it was as if he was resting.

"The kids had been screaming - but once they were in that room and saw Michael they stopped and became calm."

Today, telling the children's story for the first time, La Toya also movingly reveals how:

* DADDY'S girl Paris, who broke a million hearts with her memorial service tribute, WRITES LETTERS to her dead father.
* THE loving youngster tied a FAREWELL GIFT - one half of her favourite split-heart necklace - onto his arm in the coffin after La Toya had dressed him up in his favourite PEARL- STUDDED JACKET and GOLD BELT.
* ALL three children were so shielded from the world they DIDN'T KNOW until recently their dad was a superstar - and they STILL DON'T KNOW Debbie Rowe is their real mum.


Singer La Toya began by reliving her terror as she heard the news of her brother's death - and how she had an eerie PREMONITION of it.

La Toya Jackson interviewed about Michael Jackson's children

"I was at my home just three minutes from Michael's and was talking to a friend about the fact that Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMann off the Johnny Carson show had just died.

"I said, 'There's going to be another one because they always go in threes'. About an hour and a half later my father called to say Michael had been rushed to hospital.

"I jumped into my car and kept calling my mother's assistant asking 'How is he?' But he wouldn't say.

"Finally, I heard Mother in the background yelling, 'Why don't you just tell her?'

"Then she grabbed the phone off him and screamed: 'HE'S DEAD!' I nearly crashed my car. My legs went weak."

When La Toya got there at first a nurse told her Michael was still alive.

"Suddenly I felt so good," she says. "Then I saw Mother with the kids on her lap who were all crying. They said, 'He's gone'. I fell to the ground and couldn't stop crying.

"But I caught hold of myself after about 20 minutes and realised I had to be strong for the children who were all screaming."

It was then that La Toya - with her brothers Randy and Jermaine and her nephew Austin - took the youngsters to see their father's body. "I asked them, 'What do you want to say to Daddy?' and they said private things to him," says La Toya.

"Paris was holding his hand. We were all sitting around the bed.

"His chest was very red from the attempts to revive him but he was wearing no make-up and looked fine. He was NOT bald as some reports have said. Everything looked fine.

"We all said prayers out loud over him. We did that quite a few times over half an hour. When we walked out that room the kids didn't cry. They were silent. They had closure." Since then, Paris has taken her father's death harder than her brothers. She wears Michael T-shirts every day and the walls of her room are covered with posters and pictures of her daddy.

"She still writes him letters - sweet lovely letters about how much she loves him," says La Toya, holding back tears. "Michael told us Paris always wrote notes for him."

One, written last week, says: "Daddy, I don't think I was doing very well today. I noticed that when I looked over at Blanket he looked a little sad.

" I wanted to know why he was sad but he wouldn't tell me. Do you think you can help me figure out why he was sad, because I want him to be as happy as I am and you are."

La Toya says: "Her letters are brilliant. When you read them you cry.

"I think she'll be an entertainer when she grows up. She is always singing her daddy's songs."

The boys, she says, are trying to cope. "Prince Michael is not breaking down like Paris. After he'd seen his father's body at the hospital, I saw him get stronger as we walked away down the corridor," says La Toya.

"He hasn't cried since that day. But I want him to cry. I've told him, 'It's OK to cry'.

"Blanket is adorable and is coping fine." La Toya reveals how Jackson's youngest son came from a donor egg and donated sperm.

She says: "Michael didn't want to know who the biological parents were. They took eggs from a donor and I believe the sperm came from one of five donors picked from a book. I don't know who carried the child and if the surrogate knew whose child she was carrying.

"Michael was proud of Blanket and of all of his children. They were his prime concern."

La Toya reveals how Paris paid a secret final farewell to Jackson's open casket at Forest Lawn Cemetery on the night before the glittering star-studded memorial service.
Heart

The boys didn't want to go and the only other people there were La Toya, her business partner Jeffre Phillips and brother Randy.

They watched in tears as Paris produced a cheap metallic split-heart mood pendant and started trying to tie it around her father's neck.

The pendants come in pairs. Friends or lovers each wear one half of the heart - which changes colour when it touches the skin - as a symbol of their devotion to each other.

Paris was wearing her half-heart at the memorial service. La Toya says: "Paris had bought the pendant as a farewell gift for her daddy. At first she tried to put it around his neck, but it didn't tie up, so she wrapped it around his arms.

"Then she connected her half heart and his together, said, 'Daddy this is for you', and pulled them apart again.

"She told me, 'I want one half to go to Daddy and I will wear the other half forever. On Daddy it will be blue because he is cold. On me it's purple'.

"She then pulled out a bag of children's play gemstones and put them on Michael's chest and around his body. It was very moving."

La Toya had made sure Jacko's farewell was as flamboyant as one of his stage appearances.

He was decked out in a cream- coloured, bugle-beaded and pearl- encrusted military jacket, a big gold belt with a buckle adorned by two angels and black trousers with sequins.


She also dropped a pair of the superstar's trademark gloves and sunglasses into the £25,000 casket.

"He looked like the regular Michael - he looked fabulous," she says. La Toya brushes aside questions about his nose and his obsession with plastic surgery. "He was teased about his nose as a child so he had it altered, that's all," she said. What La Toya is keen to talk about is how how Paris stunned the world by speaking at her dad's memorial service.

She says: "Either when Smokey Robinson or Stevie Wonder were performing Paris whispered to me, 'Auntie La Toya I wanna go up there and say something about Daddy'.

"I didn't want to disappoint her, so I said OK. I knew Paris would do something like that because we knew how much she loved her father. She showed the world how much he meant to her with that speech.
Masks

"All that week she had asked, 'Why did they take him away?', but what she said about Michael being the best daddy in the world was perfect."

La Toya explains why all the children turned up without the trademark masks her brother always insisted they wore. "They didn't wear masks at the funeral because we want them to live a normal life now," she says. "If we'd kept the masks on, people would have been hounding them. By taking the masks off we are hoping people will leave them alone to heal. We are hiring a special grief counsellor to help them deal with this."

She reveals how the children were so protected from the world around them they NEVER realised Jacko was a superstar. "You must remember these kids have never seen their father perform as Michael wasn't touring after they were born," says La Toya.

"Michael was waiting to surprise them in London. I recall them saying recently, 'Auntie La Toya - guess what? Our daddy is a superstar'.

"The children don't even watch mainstream TV. They watch Nickelodeon, which is monitored, or movies. Michael never allowed them to watch TV as there are so many disturbing things."

He also ensured that Paris and Prince Michael were kept well away from Debbie Rowe - the nurse he married to have them - and never knew that she was their mother.

"The children don't even know who she is," says La Toya. "They have met her but Michael never introduced her as their mother. HE was their mother, their father, their whole world."






It’s NO to Neverland


GRIEVING La Toya has vowed her brother's body will NOT be buried in Neverland.

And she slammed reports that he was to be cremated and his ashes dropped by helicoper over his old home.

"He will absolutely not go back there - he made it clear he never wanted to," said his sister who has sole control over where he goes.

"Once his trial was over he said, 'This place helped destroy me'. He will be buried - and I've suggested to the family something Michael told me he wanted."
Brain

La Toya confirmed that his brain, removed in the autopsy, is back in his body. "So is his liver," she said. "Stories that his heart was removed are not true."

Meanwhile she said the family was surprised by his 2002 will stating Diana Ross should be back-up to Katherine Jackson as mum.

La Toya said: "Michael always wanted his eldest sister Rebbie to look after the children. He updated his will every five years - so we expect another one to emerge from 2007."


I’ll never let Debbie get his children

BATTLING La Toya has vowed to fight Debbie Rowe all the way in the biological mum's bid to get custody of her two children.

And she believes she should stay away from them for good.

"These are not Debbie's kids," stormed Jackson's sister. "Like everyone else in Michael's life she was motivated by money.

"She has always said she's not their mother. My understanding is that she is now going after the kids.

"I know a few things about Debbie and I will prevent that from happening. Michael was paying her every year. He loved those children.

"I have never met Debbie. She has only seen the children a handful of times. She has no interest in the kids and I'm afraid if she does take them she won't treat them right.

"In all honesty, Michael was the father of those kids in the same way Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt raise their adoptive children. Michael always said he was a single parent.

"I remember seeing him change nappies. It was funny because you never see him that way. He knew how to do it. He was quite an expert dad."
Deal

Rowe, 50, has been in secret discussions with the Jackson family and the superstar's estate lawyers over the weekend.

Her legal team is trying to broker a deal for her to see Prince Michael and Paris. But their grandmother Katherine, 79, hopes the former nurse may give up her bid in exchange for a $5 million payout.

The two women have agreed to put back the custody hearing for seven days until July 20.

Meanwhile child services in Los Angeles have investigated short-term custodian Katherine and Jackson's father Joe after an undisclosed complaint about their suitability to raise the three kids.

Rowe has already expressed her fears about Joe - who whipped and beat Michael as a child - having any control over the children.

A Jackson family source said: "Katherine and Debbie are talking. They want to sort out a deal away from the courts.

"Katherine feels that Debbie wants cash. Debbie says she wants the family to be raised in a safe home.

"It's likely Debbie will also push for Joe to be removed from the home permanently to avoid long term contact with the kids."


http://community.livejour...36101.html

errant said:

Who is this painting by and where is it from??

oh for fuck's sake, LaToya

babybugz said:

My god Latoya was gorgeous. Her and Michael were definitley the stunners of the family. Is it positive that interview is for real?

I still don't get why MJ was such a magnet for crooks and leeches, but celebs that are much richer than him seem to know how to keep that stuff away from them. If Bono had owned the Beatles catalogue I couldn't see him having the problems MJ had.

Arnotts said:

Right.....

mookie said:

well, for one thing he's always had that naive man-child thing going on. he probably was too trusting.

but even since he was a little boy, he's been surrounded by entertainment industry scum (hell, he was raised by some of them), so he maybe didn't know anything else and maybe just considered it the cost of doing business.

midiscover said:

Prince had a crush on her at one time. Could you imagine if that had worked out?

apparently there is a memorial at the O2 tomorrow i think it kinda just started with a few fans saying they wanted to meet up there because it was the first day of the concerts (or would have been ) and has grown and now the O2 has said they will show some footage and have put up board for people to sign etc think i am going to go down myself

b3xy said:

Actually the first day was supposed to be July 13, remember there was a delay.

errant said:

that's what i think it was. i mean, think about the things that you and i take for granted, something like a checking account. do you think he actually had one where he was in charge of balancing it each month? no. i'm sure there were a myriad of things, just like marlon spoke about at the memorial, that we could never imagine. suzanne de passe talked about how the other boys were able to maintain their friendships with people back in gary but mj couldn't. janet went to school with john singleton at one point; she was just a regular person going though relatable things like we all do. even though famous as a kid, it wasn't like her brother. i think that's why there was such a turn around in management, advisers, etc. because after a while he didn't know who to trust, and unlike most of us who have b.s. detector on some level, i don't think he had one at all. i mean look at some of these people - rowe, schaeffel, dr. klein, bashir. they exude slime and yet he couldn't seem to see that until it was too late.
[Edited 7/12/09 20:28pm]

Can someone please explain to me why people think Michael Jackson is a musical genius???

midiscover said:

what is YOUR definition of a musical genius?

DesireeNevermind said:

Beethoven, Bach, Stevie Wonder, Maurice White etc.

midiscover said:

Okay you have writers, composers, singers, musicians. Why shouldn't MJ fit in with that bunch. he played piano, he wrote and composed songs and he danced and sang. I mean if you're gonna put Maurice White in there (absent Prince which is odd) then you ought to give MJ that same respect.