Ok, Thanks, I'm going to the store, look at it when I get back. Re-reading these articles, man it's kinda a shock, for some reason, they say the Victory tour was a failure, I guess all i remember is the controvesy, not that the tour "failed". The main promoter had to sell his stadium to recoup. Oh, Michael, poor Michael, when you got a family like he had putting pressue on, it's enough to make you a recluse. In the spin article I love the ending, where Mike see's a newspaper making fun of him in a cartoon saying he never had a date. The journalist watches Michael appear hurt, then giggle and then go in the booth and make all that shit irrelevant as he always did when he was at his best.

mozfonky said:

I've been watching reports about the tour on Youtube and one reporter said that the music was typical black dance pop or something similar... sounded slightly racist

My trip to Neverland, and the call from Michael Jackson I'll never forget, by Paul Theroux

I heard the news today, oh boy, that Michael Jackson had a heart attack – and died of cardiac arrest, at the age of 50, in Los Angeles. I am reminded of a long conversation I had with him at four o'clock one morning, and of my visit to Neverland. The visit came first, the conversation a few weeks later, on the phone.

Neverland, a toytown wilderness of carnival rides and doll houses and zoo animals and pleasure gardens, lay inside a magnificent gateway on a side road in a rural area beyond Santa Barbara. Nosing around, I saw pinned to the wall of the sentry post an array of strange faces, some of them mugshots, all of them undesirables, with names and captions such as "Believes she is married to Mr Jackson" and "Might be armed" and "Has been loitering near gate".
A road lined with life-sized bronzed statuary – skipping boys, gamboling animals – led past an artificial lake and a narrow-gauge railway to Michael's house. Neverland occupied an entire 3,000-acre valley, yet very little of it was devoted to human habitation – just the main house with its dark shingles and mullioned windows, and a three-bedroom guesthouse. The rest was given over to a railway terminus, Katharine Station, named after Jackson's mother, a formidable security headquarters, various funhouses, a cinema (with windowed bedrooms instead of balcony seats), and almost indefinable sites, one with teepees like an Indian camp.

And sprawling over many acres, the Jackson zoo of bad-tempered animals. The giraffes were understandably skittish. In another enclosure, rocking on its thick legs, was Gypsy, a moody five-ton elephant, which Elizabeth Taylor had given as a present to Michael. The elephant seemed to be afflicted with the rage of heightened musth. "Don't go anywhere near him," the keeper warned me.

In the reptile house, with its frisbee-shaped frogs and fat pythons, both a cobra and a rattlesnake had smashed their fangs against the glass of their cage trying to bite me. The llamas spat at me, as llamas do, but even in the ape sanctuary, "AJ", a big bristly, shovel-mouthed chimp, had spat in my face, and Patrick the orang-utan had tried to twist my hand. "And don't go anywhere near him, either."

In the wider part of the valley, the empty fairground rides were active – twinkling, musical – but empty: Sea Dragon, the Neverland Dodgem cars, the Neverland carrousel playing Michael's own song, Childhood ("Has anyone seen my childhood?…"). Even the lawns and flower beds were playing music; loudspeakers disguised as big, grey rocks buzzed with showtunes, filling the valley with unstoppable Muzak that drowned the chirping of wild birds. In the middle of it, a Jumbotron, its screen the size of a drive-in movie, showed a cartoon, two crazy-faced creatures quacking miserably at each other – all of this very bright in the cloudless California dusk, not a soul watching.

Later that day, I boarded a helicopter with Elizabeth Taylor – I was at Neverland interviewing her – and flew over the valley. It says something for Miss Taylor's much-criticised voice that I could hear her clearly over the helicopter noise. Girlish, imploring, piercing, the loud yack-yack-yack of the titanium rotor blades, she clutched her dog, a Maltese named Sugar, and screamed: "Paul, tell the pilot to go around in a circle, so we can see the whole ranch!"

Even without my relaying the message – even with his ears muffled by headphones – her voice knifed through to the pilot. He lifted us high enough into the peach-coloured sunset so that Neverland seemed even more toy-like.

"That's the gazebo, where Larry [Fortensky, her seventh husband] and I tied the knot," Elizabeth said, moving her head in an ironising wobble. Sugar blinked through prettily-combed white bangs which somewhat resembled Elizabeth's own white hair. "Isn't the railway station darling? Over there is where Michael and I have picnics," and she indicated a clump of woods on a cliff. "Can we go around one more time?"

Neverland Valley revolved slowly beneath us, the shadows lengthening from the pinky-gold glow slipping from the sky.

Even though no rain had fallen for months, the acres of lawns watered by underground sprinklers were deep green. Here and there, like toy soldiers, uniformed security people patrolled on foot, or on golf carts; some stood sentry duty – for Neverland was also a fortress.

"What's that railway station for?" I asked.

"The sick children."

"And all those rides?"

"The sick children."

"Look at all those tents…" Hidden in the woods, it was my first glimpse at the collection of tall teepees.

"The Indian village. The sick children love that place."

From this height, I could see that this valley of laboriously recaptured childhood pleasure was crammed with more statuary than I'd seen from ground level. Lining the gravel roads and the golf-cart paths were little winsome bronzes of flute players, rows of grateful, grinning kiddies, clusters of hand-holding tots, some with banjos, some with fishing rods; and large bronze statues, too, like the centrepiece of the circular drive in front of Michael's house, a statue of Mercury (god of merchandise and merchants), rising 30 feet, with winged helmet and caduceus, and all balanced on one tippy-toe, the last of the syrupy sunset lingering on his big bronze buttocks, making his bum look like a buttered muffin.

The house at Neverland was filled with images, many of them depicting Michael life-sized, elaborately costumed, in heroic poses with cape, sword, ruffed collar, crown. The rest were an example of a sort of obsessive iconography: images of Elizabeth Taylor, Diana Ross, Marilyn Monroe and Charlie Chaplin – and for that matter of Mickey Mouse and Peter Pan, all of whom, over the years, in what is less a life than a metamorphosis, he had come physically to resemble.

"So you're Wendy and Michael is Peter?" I had asked Elizabeth Taylor afterwards.

"Yeah. Yeah. There's a kind of magic between us."

The friendship started when, out of the blue, Michael offered her tickets for one of his Thriller Tour concerts – indeed, she asked for 14 tickets. But the seats were in a glass-enclosed VIP box, so far from the stage "you might as well have been watching it on TV". Instead of staying, she led her large party home.

Hearing that she'd left the concert early, Michael called the next day in tears apologizing for the bad seats. He stayed on the line, they talked for two hours. And then they talked every day. Weeks passed, the calls continued. Months went by. "Really, we got to know each other on the telephone, over three months."

One day Michael suggested that he might drop by. Elizabeth said fine. He said: "May I bring my chimpanzee?" Elizabeth said, "Sure. I love animals." Michael showed up holding hands with the chimp, Bubbles.

"We have been steadfast ever since," Elizabeth said.

"Do you see much of Michael?"

"More of him than people realize – more than I realize," she said. They went in disguise to movies in Los Angeles cinemas, sitting in the back, holding hands. Before I could frame a more particular question, she said: "I love him. There's a vulnerability inside him which makes him the more dear. We have such fun together. Just playing."

Or role-playing – her Wendy to his Peter. In the hallway of her house, a large Michael Jackson portrait was inscribed "To my True Love Elizabeth. I'll love you Forever, Michael".

She gave him a live elephant. Dr Arnie Klein, his dermatologist, showed me a birthday snapshot taken in Las Vegas, Michael looking distinctly chalky as he presented Elizabeth with a birthday present, an elephant-shaped bauble, football-sized, covered in jewels.

What began as a friendship with Michael Jackson developed into a kind of cause in which Elizabeth Taylor became almost his only defender.

"What about his" – and I fished for a word – "eccentricity? Does that bother you?"

"He is magic. And I think all truly magical people have to have that genuine eccentricity." There is not an atom in her consciousness that allows her the slightest negativity on the subject of Jacko. "He is one of the most loving, sweet, true people I have ever loved. He is part of my heart. And we would do anything for each other."

This Wendy with a vengeance, who was a wealthy and world-famous pre-adolescent, supporting her parents from the age of nine, said she easily related to Michael, who was also a child star, and denied a childhood, as well as viciously abused by his father. There was a "Katherine" steam engine, and a "Katherine Street" at Neverland; there was no "Joseph Street", nor anything bearing his father's name.

'He'll talk to you if I ask him to," Elizabeth had told me. And at a prearranged signal, Michael called me, at four one morning. There was no secretarial intervention of "Mr Jackson on the line". The week's supermarket tabloids' headlines were "Jacko on suicide watch" and "Jacko in loony bin", and one with a South Africa dateline, "Wacko Jacko King of Pop Parasails with 13-year-old". In fact, he was in New York City, where he was recording a new album. This was 10 years ago.

My phone rang and I heard: "This is Michael Jackson." The voice was breathy, unbroken, boyish – tentative, yet tremulously eager and helpful, not the voice of a 40-year-old. In contrast to this lilting sound, its substance was denser, like a blind child giving you explicit directions in darkness.

"How would you describe Elizabeth?" I asked.

"She's a warm cuddly blanket that I love to snuggle up to and cover myself with. I can confide in her and trust her. In my business, you can't trust anyone."

"Why is that?"

"Because you don't know who's your friend. Because you're so popular, and there's so many people around you. You're isolated, too. Becoming successful means that you become a prisoner. You can't go out and do normal things. People are always looking at what you're doing."

"Have you had that experience?"

"Oh, lots of times. They try to see what you're reading, and all the things you're buying. They want to know everything. There are always paparazzi downstairs. They invade my privacy. They twist reality. They're my nightmare. Elizabeth is someone who loves me – really loves me."

"I suggested to her that she was Wendy and you're Peter."

"But Elizabeth is also like a mother – and more than that. She's a friend. She's Mother Teresa, Princess Diana, the Queen of England and Wendy. We have great picnics. It's so wonderful to be with her. I can really relax with her, because we've lived the same life and experienced the same thing."

"Which is?"

"The great tragedy of childhood stars. We like the same things. Circuses. Amusement parks. Animals."

And there was their shared fame and isolation.

"It makes people do strange things. A lot of our famous luminaries become intoxicated because of it – they can't handle it. And your adrenaline is at the zenith of the universe after a concert – you can't sleep. It's maybe two in the morning and you're wide awake. After coming off stage, you're floating."

"How do you handle that?"

"I watch cartoons. I love cartoons. I play video games. Sometimes I read."

"You mean you read books?"

"Yeah. I love to read short stories and everything."

"Any in particular?"

"Somerset Maugham," he said quickly, and then, pausing at each name: "Whitman. Hemingway. Twain."

"What about those video games?"

"I love X-Man. Pinball. Jurassic Park. The martial arts ones – Mortal Kombat."

"I played some of the video games at Neverland," I said. "There was an amazing one called Beast Buster."

"Oh, yeah, that's great. I pick each game. That one's maybe too violent, though. I usually take some with me on tour."

"How do you manage that? The video game machines are pretty big, aren't they?"

"Oh, we travel with two cargo planes."

"Have you written any songs with Elizabeth in mind?"

"Childhood."

"Is that the one with the line, 'Has anyone seen my childhood?'"

"Yes. It goes…", and he liltingly recited "Before you judge me, try to…", and then sang the rest.

"Didn't I hear that playing on your merry-go-round at Neverland?"

Delightedly, he said, "Yes! Yes!"

He went on about childhood, how, like Elizabeth, as a child star he used to support his family.

"I was a child supporting my family. My father took the money. Some of the money was put aside for me, but a lot of the money was put back into the entire family. I was just working the whole time."

"So you didn't have a childhood, then – you lost it. If you had it to do again how would you change things?"

"Even though I missed out on a lot, I wouldn't change anything."

"I can hear your little kids in the background." The gurgling had become insistent, like a plug-hole in a flood. "If they wanted to be performers and lead the life you led, what would you say?"

"They can do whatever they want to do. If they want to do that, it's okay."

"How will you raise them differently from the way you were raised?"

"With more fun. More love. Not so isolated."

"Elizabeth says she finds it painful to look back on her life. Do you find it hard to do that?"

"No, not when it's pertaining to an overview of your life rather than any particular moment."

This oblique and somewhat bookish form of expression was a surprise to me – another Michael Jackson surprise. He had made me pause with "intoxicated" and "zenith of the universe", too. I said: "I'm not too sure what you mean by 'overview'."

"Like childhood. I can look at that. The arc of my childhood."

"But there's some moment in childhood when you feel particularly vulnerable. Did you feel that? Elizabeth said that she felt she was owned by the studio."

"Sometimes really late at night we'd have to go out – it might be three in the morning – to do a show. My father forced us. He would get us up. I was seven or eight. Some of these were clubs or private parties at people's houses. We'd have to perform." This was in Chicago, New York, Indiana, Philadelphia, he added – all over the country. "I'd be sleeping and I'd hear my father. 'Get up! There's a show!' "

"But when you were on stage, didn't you get a kind of thrill?"

"Yes. I loved being on stage. I loved doing the shows."

"What about the other side of the business – if someone came up after the show, did you feel awkward?"

"I didn't like it. I've never liked people-contact. Even to this day, after a show, I hate it, meeting people. It makes me shy. I don't know what to say."

"But you did that Oprah interview, right?

"With Oprah it was tough. Because it was on TV – on TV, it's out of my realm. I know that everyone is looking and judging. It's so hard."

"Is this a recent feeling – that you're under scrutiny?"

"No," he said firmly, "I have always felt that way."

"Even when you were seven or eight?"

"I'm not happy doing it."

"Which I suppose is why talking to Elizabeth over a period of two or three months on the phone would be the perfect way to get acquainted. Or doing what we're doing right now."

"Yes."

At some point Michael's use of the phrase "lost childhood" prompted me to quote the line from George William Russell, "In the lost boyhood of Judas / Christ was betrayed", and I heard "Wow" at the other end of the line. He asked me to explain what that meant, and when I did, he urged me to elaborate. What sort of a childhood did Judas have? What had happened to him? Where had he lived? Who had he known?

I told him that Judas had red hair, that he was the treasurer of the Apostles, that he might have been Sicarii – a member of a radical Jewish group, that he might not have died by hanging himself but somehow exploded, all his guts flying.

Twenty more minutes of Biblical apocrypha with Michael Jackson, on the lost childhood of Judas, and then the whisper again.

"Wow."
http://www.telegraph.co.u...eroux.html

mozfonky said:

cool!

a friend of mine made this site

http://www.the-michael-ja...ntent.html

he's been collecting for years

Michael Jackson's Deep Freeze

Posted Aug 15th 2009 2:15AM by TMZ Staff

Michael Jackson has not been buried, multiple family sources tell us. We're told he's above ground at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills and is being kept in a freezer.

We're told Katherine has frequently visited the temporary resting place.

As for where the body is eventually going ... no decision yet. We're told Jermaine is the lone family member who wants Neverland as Michael's final resting place. The rest of the family is appalled by Jermaine's wish, because M.J. hated Neverland after the molestation trial and wanted nothing to do with it.

Increasingly, Jermaine is becoming estranged from the rest of the Jackson brood.

Jackson Doctor Didn't Live at Michael's Place

Posted Aug 15th 2009 2:00AM by TMZ Staff

Sources tell TMZ Dr. Conrad Murray was not living at Michael Jackson's home when the singer died.

As we first reported, paramedics found Jackson in Dr. Murray's room. The doctor had administered Propofol to Jackson while Michael was laid out on the bed.

When EMT workers arrived -- and subsequently when police came on scene -- there was no evidence that the doctor had been staying in the room. There was no luggage, no clothes of Dr. Murray's ... no signs he had been staying there.

Authorities believe Dr. Murray generally showed up in the evenings to administer drugs and left during the day. We're told the doctor had administered Propofol to Jackson in the room numerous times. Essentially the bedroom became a home clinic for Jackson, with drugs -- including Propofol -- hidden in the closet area.

As for where Dr. Murray was staying, law enforcement sources say they have evidence he was living in Santa Monica -- approximately eight miles from Jackson's Holmby Hills home. Interestingly, Nicole Alvarez -- the woman who bore Dr. Murray's 7th child -- lives in a Santa Monica apartment.

Jackson Family Shut Out of Jermaine's Plans

Posted Aug 15th 2009 1:20AM by TMZ Staff

Jermaine Jackson is learning a hard lesson -- the Jackson family doesn't take kindly to kinfolk who make promises on their behalf without even bothering to tell them.

You know the big flap over the Vienna Tribute concert -- where Jermaine was spearheading a special show and touting that members of Michael Jackson's family were behind it? Well family sources tell us the family is ticked that Jermaine used them to sell tickets. The family, we're told, never agreed to participate. In fact, Tito told us he was never even invited.

The family isn't happy with J.J. because the concert may now be in jeopardy and stories are being written that the brood caused the concert to crumble.

Bottom line -- Jermaine was out on his own (again) pitching his stuff and the family was out of the loop.

JACKO FAMILY WAR ERUPTS INTO BRUTAL HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT

Jacko former nanny and big sister Rebbie brawl over the children!

The former nanny for Michael Jackson's three children got into a brawl recently with Jackson's sister during a heated dispute over how the children are being raised, The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively.

In the ugly incident, longtime nanny Grace Rwaramba came to blows with Michael's 59-year-old sister Rebbie after an argument between the two women exploded out of control, say sources.

What started as a confrontation over the parenting skills of the singer's mother Katherine - who has been named permanent guardian of his children - quickly turned violent. After heated words were exchanged, Rebbie punched Grace, starting a nasty donnybrook, according to a Jackson family insider.

Sources told The ENQUIRER the fight erupted last month at Katherine's home in Encino, Calif., where Prince Michael, 12, Paris, 11, and 7-year-old Prince Michael II (nicknamed Blanket) have been living since their father's June 25 death.

"Grace the nanny paid a visit to check on the children," disclosed the family insider.

"She had been fired by Michael a few weeks before his death, but she still loves the kids and is concerned about their welfare.

"The family had even considered re-hiring Grace to help with the transition in the aftermath of Michael's death - but that's now out the window after what happened between her and Rebbie.

"Grace went on a tirade about how the kids should be cared for. Grace questioned Katherine on what time the kids were going to bed and everything else.

"Katherine was trying to be civil, and said, 'I'm the grandmother, and it was me who Michael appointed to raise them should something happen to him.'

"But Grace kept on being critical, and Rebbie became incensed with the way she was speaking to her mother.

"Rebbie finally had enough and smacked Grace, and Grace fought back and the two women came to blows!

National Enquirer at it again

http://www.nationalenquir...rity/67121

^Its hard to imagine Rebbie laying the smack down

if it was LaToya then I would have believed it

rebbie hasnt done anything crazy has she? she sounds more normal thats only b/c shes outta the spotlight

tangerine7 said:

Yep and remember A Current Affair? The tabloids have been rampant since I was born!

ehuffnsd said:

since there is a trust as well as a will, mj's will won't have to be probated which is more public. but he had already named three executors to the trust when he drew up the docs, and one has dropped out.

mcmillan is trying to pressure branca and mcclain to add a family member to the mix, saying that the family 'should' have someone as an executor b/c after all, the presley family and james brown's family have a say in the management of their estates.

i say that's not a legal argument, but an emotional one. i understand that the jacksons aren't happy that mj did not name anyone in his family - no immediate relative or even a cousin - as part of the estate's management team. under cali law, mcmillan has asked the judge to first decide if katherine's motion to question the suitability of the executors constitutes a challenge to mj's will. if the judge determines that it isn't, mcmillan will further press his arguments that branca's return to mj's employ right before his death is 'suspicious', that mj and branca had a tumultuous relationship and mj didn't trust him in the past, and he did trust katherine so she should be made an executor.

as an executor, i'm thinking that she would be able to put forward a family member to take her place when she passes. i think the court, and perhaps the other executors, would have to approve.

but something tells me the judge will probably say that katherine is challenging the will since their is no real evidence, only her allegations, that branca is 'suspicious'. she has no evidence that mj didn't want branca or was intending to update his will, and so what that mcmillan didn't know about the will, or whatever other argument she makes. there is no evidence that there has been any misconduct on the executors' part thus far; they've brought in $100 million in deals for the estate in two short months. evidence of misconduct, i think, would be the only credible argument to challenge these executors. therefore, i think she is challenging her son's wishes, and therefore his will, and under the no contest clause, she could be disinherited.

suga10 said:

I don't think he was.

mookie said:

why do you think Janet avoids the family. i remember old rumors of Lisa Maria and Janet getting into it becasue Lisa thought Janet should help out more if Michael was.

[Edited 8/15/09 11:13am]

I just found this incredibly rare picture of Mike and Lisa.

Timmy84 said:

Wasn't Current Affair when America was first cursed by Bill O'Reilly?!
[Edited 8/15/09 10:57am]

Man I can not believe this shit. I was just over at the KOPD! Some have the nerve to put Liz's sad old ass as "the culprit" for introducing MJ to Klein therefore helping him die. I swear to God I read that. I don't know if I can even BELIEVE that. We're dealing with a guy who didn't know who to trust, who to talk to, or what, and yet we're so quick to point fingers at...everybody. I'm sure Liza Minnelli will be blamed next.