Entertainment For Lively Minds
Michael Jackson does not appear to be joking
Vanity Fair currently have a piece about Michael Jackson’s aborted auction, with a gallery of some of the stuff that was due to go under the hammer:
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/culture/2009/05/01/dont-stop-til-you-ge...
With regards the content, I can’t do better than the description on the VF site. I assume I’m not the only one thinking, “You’ve got to be kidding.” Or something slightly more colourful.
Most things that appear in the media about Jackson seem to be somewhat disturbing – even the more pedestrian material (details of concert ticket sales, etc) is tinged with the feeling that there’s something wrong here. The power of history and all that.
I remember reading a report that said Jackson’s financial problems stemmed from the fact that he was a millionaire that lived like he was a billionaire. The stuff that was up for sale would suggest a more complex problem – a breathtaking self absorption with few parallels and no restraint. What drives a man to commission paintings like these?
My own take on Jackson is that he found himself surrounded by people telling him he was wonderful, he started believing them and eventually went on to get rid of anyone who didn’t tell him what he wanted to hear. Regardless of the truth of the molestation accusations, don’t you think there’d be someone in his organisation that might say, “Ah Michael, do really think having the kid in your bedroom is a great idea?” With no-one to keep him grounded and everyone protecting him from anything that might disturb Planet Jackson, he’s just spun off into another plane of reality.
But the basic question: How does someone (anyone?) get this way? Can we even pretend to analyse a man that is this far gone?
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What a waste...
...is the overwhelming feeling about MJ. From late Jacksons to (just about) Bad he was absolutely electric - a genuine once in a generation talent. Some sporadic sparks since then but essentially a busted flush. Maybe, as DH mentioned in a recent column about our expectations of our heroes, it was too much to ask for him to repeat, or even surpass, his peak years. All that was left was the Howard Hughes show.
Michael Jackson's big problem....
...is that unlike most people who ascend to that level of celebrity he never had a manager. He had people he employed to manage him but that's a different thing. As soon as they started to point to his bank statements he got rid of them. And he's also quite breathtakingly vain, even for a superstar.
Fame, eh?
Fame...
...and being a victim of child abuse.
An unbeatable combination...
for screwing someone up completely.
It's just all so sad
a truly fucked-up story - weird, wondrous, beautiful,monstrous,seen, unseen, known, unknown.
All I know is - it was once like this. My jaw dropped, literally, when first I saw this. It still does.
He's miming
and waving his feet around. Oh, and apparently knocking out out through the pocket of his keks. Or is it just me?
the crowd are miming too?
is it just me or do the sounds of amazement and abandonment from the crowd seem to start before the they actually start clapping. Good routine an' all that but this seems to have been the sum total of all his ideas which he has re-arranged ad naseum since.
He never bettered this...
Except, maybe, when he was a cartoon :-)
One aspect of this
that intrigues me is how we the listeners "consume" people like MJ. All the while they're making popular music, we regard their odd behaviour as 'eccentric' with all its connotations of harmless silliness. As their popularity moves down the scale, their behaviour is increasingly seen as moving though 'bizarre' to downright 'Whacko Jacko' status.
It seems like a lot of people must have been aware that all was not well but no one wanted to rock the boat. And I suspect that in great part that's because a lot of those people wanted to get rich on his back and had little interest in jeopardising their big payday. Managers, press, record labels, promoters - none want to risk their piece of the action.
So now we've consumed MJ and seem to have emptied the well, all we've got left to do is to ridicule him and gloat at his predicament. Given his history of apparent abuse, given that he was turned into a money-making machine from an early age, given that he has had to live his life completely divorced from reality it's hardly surprising that he doesn't have the life skills we're all lucky enough to take for granted.
And of course, now MJ's old hat, it's Amy. And there'll be another after her. What price our fun and entertainment?
The exact same thing
happened to Elvis .. he surrounded himself with 'yes' men : the so called "Memphis Mafia" ... he could have whatever he wanted with no restraints. A lot of it had to do with the death of his Mother. He was doomed from then on.
Vanity of the Bonfire*
Is having a huge oil triptych of yourself being crowned and knighted on your dining-room wall really any naffer or more deranged than having a bullfight poster from Torremolinos with your name on it, as half Britain's households probably do?
Isn't it just a question of scale?
* No, I'm not sure what it means, either. Good headline, though.
Is he a Francis Bacon fan I wonder?
.
Off the scale
One says I went on a cheap package holiday, drank too much and this seemed like a good idea at the time, bit of a larf really.
The other says I am an omnipotent deity armed only with a glove and an unfeasibly buffed up sword.
Jacko wins comfortably on both the naff and deranged scale for me. Unless the bullfighting poster is accompanied by one of those donkeys beloved of early 70s Carry On Up the Costa Brava type comedies.
I bought my bullfight poster from...
...the Vicarious Living catalogue that sometimes falls out of the weekend Guardian. It came with my face expertly Photoshopped onto the head of the bullfighter and is signed by a distant relative of Ernest Hemingway.
Just
blame it on the boogie.
Sorry.