1. This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn More.

Michael Jackson dies at age 50

Discussion in 'Entertainment and Technology' started by Greggers, Jun 25, 2009.

  1. beckyg

    beckyg Guest

    Joined:
    Mar 19, 2007
    Messages:
    6,656
    Likes Received:
    6
    Location:
    Middle of Oregon
    Gender:
    Female
    Sexual Orientation:
    Straight
    We heard some MJ at the Pride Festival today also!
     
  2. Helen

    Helen Guest

    Oh gods. I cried when I heard, I genuinely did.

    I was at Glastonbury festival the night it happened, you should've heard how fast the news carried around the entire festival site, it was creepy. My friends and I were even dancing to Thriller within an hour of his death being broadcast, BEFORE we found out about it. Creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepppppppppppppppppppppppppyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

    I always loved MJ though. I think he was an eccentric gentleman with tremendous talent and was another victim of self-loathing :frowning2:
     
  3. Kenko

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Jan 3, 2007
    Messages:
    1,378
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    Canada
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Some people
    Saturday night when I went to the "Rainbow Bar" they were playing MJ. I heard like 4 songs in a row and I was like "please tell me it's not going to be ALL MJ.

    Eventually they started playing some other music.

    Not that I hate MJ's music, just that variety is the spice of life.
     
  4. Maggi

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Feb 8, 2009
    Messages:
    49
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    Illinois/Ohio, USA
    he will be missed very much
     
  5. EM68

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Jun 19, 2008
    Messages:
    3,265
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    Stoughton, Massachusetts USA
    Over the past few days I have been listening to some of his music. With all of the controversies going on I forgot how great some of his songs were.
     
  6. hiker360

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Jun 29, 2009
    Messages:
    57
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    Sebastopol, CA (Northern cali)
    It's so sad! and to think it took him dying for me to realize that he was actually a cool celebrity, before his death i was stuck believing the lies i heard in fifth grade that he was a rapist and evil murder and a alian and other stupid crap like that... sorry micheal...

    and the stupidest thing is that the poor guys dead and all the news can talk about is all the bad mistakes he made! grrrr!
     
    #106 hiker360, Jun 30, 2009
    Last edited: Jun 30, 2009
  7. beckyg

    beckyg Guest

    Joined:
    Mar 19, 2007
    Messages:
    6,656
    Likes Received:
    6
    Location:
    Middle of Oregon
    Gender:
    Female
    Sexual Orientation:
    Straight
    This is an interesting read from Deepak Chopra and his son, Gotham.

    Michael Jackson will be remembered, most likely, as a shattered icon, a pop genius who wound up a mutant of fame. That's not who I will remember, however. His mixture of mystery, isolation, indulgence, overwhelming global fame, and personal loneliness was intimately known to me. For twenty years I observed every aspect, and as easy as it was to love Michael -- and to want to protect him -- his sudden death yesterday seemed almost fated.

    Two days previously he had called me in an upbeat, excited mood. The voice message said, "I've got some really good news to share with you." He was writing a song about the environment, and he wanted me to help informally with the lyrics, as we had done several times before. When I tried to return his call, however, the number was disconnected. (Terminally spooked by his treatment in the press, he changed his phone number often.) So I never got to talk to him, and the music demo he sent me lies on my bedside table as a poignant symbol of an unfinished life.

    When we first met, around 1988, I was struck by the combination of charisma and woundedness that surrounded Michael. He would be swarmed by crowds at an airport, perform an exhausting show for three hours, and then sit backstage afterward, as we did one night in Bucharest, drinking bottled water, glancing over some Sufi poetry as I walked into the room, and wanting to meditate.

    That person, whom I considered (at the risk of ridicule) very pure, still survived -- he was reading the poems of Rabindranath Tagore when we talked the last time, two weeks ago. Michael exemplified the paradox of many famous performers, being essentially shy, an introvert who would come to my house and spend most of the evening sitting by himself in a corner with his small children. I never saw less than a loving father when they were together (and wonder now, as anyone close to him would, what will happen to them in the aftermath).

    Michael's reluctance to grow up was another part of the paradox. My children adored him, and in return he responded in a childlike way. He declared often, as former child stars do, that he was robbed of his childhood. Considering the monstrously exaggerated value our society places on celebrity, which was showered on Michael without stint, the public was callous to his very real personal pain. It became another tawdry piece of the tabloid Jacko, pictured as a weird changeling and as something far more sinister.

    It's not my place to comment on the troubles Michael fell heir to from the past and then amplified by his misguided choices in life. He was surrounded by enablers, including a shameful plethora of M.D.s in Los Angeles and elsewhere who supplied him with prescription drugs. As many times as he would candidly confess that he had a problem, the conversation always ended with a deflection and denial. As I write this paragraph, the reports of drug abuse are spreading across the cable news channels. The instant I heard of his death this afternoon, I had a sinking feeling that prescription drugs would play a key part.

    The closest we ever became, perhaps, was when Michael needed a book to sell primarily as a concert souvenir. It would contain pictures for his fans but there would also be a text consisting of short fables. I sat with him for hours while he dreamily wove Aesop-like tales about animals, mixed with words about music and his love of all things musical. This project became Dancing the Dream after I pulled the text together for him, acting strictly as a friend. It was this time together that convinced me of the modus vivendi Michael had devised for himself: to counter the tidal wave of stress that accompanies mega-stardom, he built a private retreat in a fantasy world where pink clouds veiled inner anguish and Peter Pan was a hero, not a pathology.

    This compromise with reality gradually became unsustainable. He went to strange lengths to preserve it. Unbounded privilege became another toxic force in his undoing. What began as idiosyncrasy, shyness, and vulnerability was ravaged by obsessions over health, paranoia over security, and an isolation that grew more and more unhealthy. When Michael passed me the music for that last song, the one sitting by my bedside waiting for the right words, the procedure for getting the CD to me rivaled a CIA covert operation in its secrecy.

    My memory of Michael Jackson will be as complex and confused as anyone's. His closest friends will close ranks and try to do everything in their power to insure that the good lives after him. Will we be successful in rescuing him after so many years of media distortion? No one can say. I only wanted to put some details on the record in his behalf. My son Gotham traveled with Michael as a roadie on his "Dangerous" tour when he was seventeen. Will it matter that Michael behaved with discipline and impeccable manners around my son? (It sends a shiver to recall something he told Gotham: "I don't want to go out like Marlon Brando. I want to go out like Elvis." Both icons were obsessions of this icon.)

    His children's nanny and surrogate mother, Grace Rwaramba , is like another daughter to me. I introduced her to Michael when she was eighteen, a beautiful, heartwarming girl from Rwanda who is now grown up. She kept an eye on him for me and would call me whenever he was down or running too close to the edge. How heartbreaking for Grace that no one's protective instincts and genuine love could avert this tragic day. An hour ago she was sobbing on the telephone from London. As a result, I couldn't help but write this brief remembrance in sadness. But when the shock subsides and a thousand public voices recount Michael's brilliant, joyous, embattled, enigmatic, bizarre trajectory, I hope the word "joyous" is the one that will rise from the ashes and shine as he once did.

    Deepak Chopra

    When I was in my second year of college living on campus (at Columbia in NYC) with 4 suite mates, every time the phone rang, there was a race to answer it. Everyone wanted to be the guy to hear the "hello" on the other side just in case it was my friend Michael Jackson calling.

    Most of those days, Michael was holed up on top of the Four Seasons, roughly 60 blocks away from where I lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan just near Harlem. I'd happily drift downtown, gain clearance from security downstairs who knew I was allowed free access to Michael's suite, take the elevator all the way up and start ordering room service and watch movies on Mike's tab. Eventually, Michael and I would get down to work. He was working on a new album and asked me to help him write lyrics for songs. It was an informal relationship - I'd wander downtown with a backpack full of dictionaries, and thesauri, and rhyming books. Michael would hum songs and talk about what he wanted to say with the song and we'd try and marry our skillsets and come up with something. We came up with great stuff. Michael swore me to secrecy those days. I happily complied.

    After we were done with those sessions - they'd usually go until about 2 AM or so - Michael would wander into the bathroom and come out with a sack he'd pulled out from under the toilet. In it, he kept several thousands of dollars. He'd ask me how much I wanted. I just sort of shrugged and he'd hand me a couple of thousand dollars. Soon, I'd be packing my dictionaries and thesauri and rhyming books in my backpack, calling my friends and telling them to meet me downtown. Within an hour, we'd be at Flashdancers "making it rain."

    Michael was always envious when I told him about my adventures with my friends. More than a few times, he'd get dressed up - dawning some sort of quasi-disguise - preparing to go with me, only to back down at the last minute or be held back by his security who would shake their heads and plainly say no to his misguided ambitions. Instead, he'd pour himself a tall glass of orange juice and settle in for the night to watch an old movie on TV, telling me to spend a few extra bucks for him. I happily complied.

    My friendship with Michael was very special to me, and I like to think it was the same for him. Over the last few years, it always felt awkward to explain the origins of our friendship - that I met him initially when I was fifteen-years-old and that we instantly hit it off. I'd spend days at his Neverland Ranch, my sister, cousins, or other friends joining us in fantastical stretches filled with candy, arcade rides, late night movies and the absolute best chocolate chip cookies of all times. Likewise he'd visit our house in Massachusetts (he was very close to my father as well) where he'd sleep in the guest room. My mom got a great kick out of the fact that every morning Michael stayed, he'd try to make the bed (very badly) and offer to cook breakfast (very badly). Then when I was about 17, Michael invited me on the road with him - he was heading out to Europe on the biggest rock concert at the time (Dangerous tour) and wanted company. I begged and pleaded with my parents to let me go and they eventually said yes. Not a bad way to spend your summer vacation between junior and senior year of High School.

    Over the years, as Michael faced his scandals, I often reflected on my own experiences with him as a teenager. People would ask me if I had endured anything strange or awkward with him. I'd answer truthfully that in all of my years with him, in every single moment, Michael was nothing but dignified and appropriate, never once doing anything that would be deemed scandalous with me. It was really that simple.

    Check that. Back to those college days. One night he did call me in a panic. He had just gotten married to Lisa Marie Presley and needed advice - sex advice. He was incredibly nervous and said that he wanted to make sure that Lisa was impressed with his "moves." He asked me if I had any advice. I answered with one word: "foreplay."

    "Really?" He answered. "Girls really like that?"

    Over the last few years, Michael's and my relationship evolved and matured greatly too. We both became fathers and that was the centerpiece of our most recent conversations the last few months. Returning the favor from my days as his "lyrical advisor," he's the one who monikered my half-Indian, half-Chinese son "The Chindian" which little Krishu Chen Xing Hua Chopra will now forever go by. We'd talk about how great it would be for our kids to grow up together, become as good friends as us, and set the world on fire. Michael admired the fact that I was able to find a wife, keep a wife, and gain her trust. I'd joke it was all about the foreplay! When his daughter Paris befell an accident a few years ago, he called my wife Candice (a physician) pleading for us to come to his house to check her out.

    We did - Paris had fallen from a tree and cut herself deeply beneath the eye. Michael was devastated and confessed to me that he felt like the world's worst father. I calmed him as Candice helped Paris get up from the bed where she lay so we could take her to the Emergency room to get some simple stitches. When I advised Michael of the plan, he pulled me into the bathroom, pulled a sack filled with thousands of dollars from beneath the toilet and asked me how much I needed for the Emergency room.

    I shook my head: "this one's on me."

    RIP in peace my friend.

    Gotham Chopra
     
  8. D_Alejandro

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Jun 16, 2009
    Messages:
    224
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    Connecticut, USA
    Yahoo news has a report of how so far, 12 MJ fans have committed suicide because of his death. This is very sad! MJ would not want them to do this :frowning2:

    I have never cried so hard for someone's death like MJs (luckily nobody in my family that I know well has died).

    I'm still grieving :frowning2:
     
  9. Zac4

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Mar 7, 2009
    Messages:
    60
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    atlanta
    im not suprised. tho i doubt it had any thing to do with them being fans
     
  10. beckyg

    beckyg Guest

    Joined:
    Mar 19, 2007
    Messages:
    6,656
    Likes Received:
    6
    Location:
    Middle of Oregon
    Gender:
    Female
    Sexual Orientation:
    Straight
    I just watched Living with Michael Jackson on YouTube. I highly recommend it if you haven't seen it. A British reporter interviews him over a period of 8 months. I think he's pretty hard on him during part of it. I can understand why he would push for answers about his overnight sleepovers with children but his plastic surgery? That is nobody's freakin' business whether he had one surgery or ten. I don't understand why the press made such a big deal about that. If you watch it, let me know what you think.
     
  11. Chaos

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Dec 12, 2005
    Messages:
    214
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    Saskatchewan, Canada
    I watched "Living With Michael Jackson" when it played in America for the first time. Luckily I get channels like NBC, ABC, CBS, etc. I thought Michael as kooky, but I honestly... felt bad for him? The way Martin Bashir portrayed Michael was pretty lame.

    They released a "Living With Michael Jackson 2" awhile later hosted by Maury Povich. It's unedited and doesn't twist anything the way Bashirs version did.
     
  12. xxxxx

    xxxxx Guest

    Joined:
    Apr 21, 2009
    Messages:
    55
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    UK
    Gender:
    Male
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Respect to michael Jackson!!

    :-(
     
    #112 xxxxx, Jul 7, 2009
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2009
  13. Just Adam

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Mar 17, 2009
    Messages:
    4,435
    Likes Received:
    1
    Location:
    My AV room
    im watching the memorial now :frowning2:

    its very sad :frowning2: