Message from discussion
OT: Bob Herbert on Michael Jackson
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From: F Parella <f_pare...@yahoo.com>
Newsgroups: rec.music.beatles
Subject: Re: OT: Bob Herbert on Michael Jackson
Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2009 08:11:36 -0700 (PDT)
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On Jul 4, 10:40=A0am, Fattuchus <fattuc...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Interesting OP ED in the NY Times:
>
> Op-Ed Columnist
> Behind the Facade
> By BOB HERBERT
> Meeting Michael Jackson in the mid-1980s was one of the creepier
> experiences of my life. I was an editor at The Daily News and had to
> present him with an award in a large room with just a handful of
> onlookers and a photographer at Madison Square Garden.
>
> I wasn=92t put off by the fact that Jackson, then in his mid-20s,
> couldn=92t make small talk. Lots of people have trouble with that. There
> was something about his overall behavior that weirded me out. He
> seemed, even then, to be a person who was trying with all of his being
> to step outside of reality and leave it behind.
>
> Emmanuel Lewis, the child star of the hit TV series =93Webster,=94 was
> with Jackson that evening. The undersized Lewis was probably 13 at the
> time, but he looked much younger, maybe 7 or 8.
>
> Jackson seemed to relate only to Lewis. He made faces at the tiny boy
> and giggled as Lewis hopped around and climbed over furniture, much to
> Jackson=92s delight. I remember thinking as I left the Garden that
> Jackson had treated Lewis almost as a pet.
>
> I=92ve never heard any suggestion of anything improper about the
> relationship between Jackson and Lewis. But what I wish I had thought
> more about in those long-ago days of Michael-mania was the era of
> extreme immaturity and grotesque irresponsibility that was already
> well under way in America. The craziness played out on a shockingly
> broad front and Jackson=92s life, among many others, would prove to be a
> shining and ultimately tragic example. . . . . . . . . . .
>
> Motown was the label that gave us the Jackson 5. But when Michael and
> his brothers released their first album in 1969, the label had already
> reached its creative peak and most of the best work =97 the stunning
> originality of the Miracles, the Marvelettes, Mary Wells, Martha and
> the Vandellas, the Supremes, the Temptations, and others =97 had been
> done. Hip-hop would soon appear, and then the violence and misogyny of
> gangsta rap.
>
> All kinds of restraints were coming off. It was almost as if the
> adults had gone into hiding. The deregulation that we were told would
> be great for the economy was being applied to the culture as a whole.
> Women could be treated as sex objects again as misogyny, hardly
> limited to hip-hop, went mainstream. (Have you looked at network
> television lately, or listened to the radio?) Astonishing numbers of
> men abandoned their children with impunity. Most of the nation seemed
> fine with the idea of going to war without a draft and without raising
> taxes.
>
> In many ways we descended as a society into a fantasyland, trying to
> leave the limits and consequences and obligations of the real world
> behind. Politicians stopped talking about the poor. We built up
> staggering amounts of debt and called it an economic boom. We shipped
> jobs overseas by the millions without ever thinking seriously about
> how to replace them. We let New Orleans drown.
>
> Jackson was the perfect star for the era, the embodiment of fantasy
> gone wild. He tried to carve himself up into another person, but, of
> course, there was the same Michael Jackson underneath =97 talented but
> psychologically disabled to the point where he was a danger to himself
> and others.
>
> Reality is unforgiving. There is no escape. Behind the Jackson facade
> was the horror of child abuse. Court records and reams of well-
> documented media accounts contain a stream of serious allegations of
> child sex abuse and other inappropriate behavior with very young boys.
> Jackson, a multimillionaire megastar, was excused as an eccentric.
> Small children were delivered into his company, to spend the night in
> his bed, often by their parents.
>
> One case of alleged pedophilia against Jackson, the details of which
> would make your hair stand on end, was settled for a reported $25
> million. He beat another case in court.
>
> The Michael-mania that has erupted since Jackson=92s death =97 not just a=
n
> appreciation of his music, but a giddy celebration of his life =97 is
> yet another spasm of the culture opting for fantasy over reality. We
> don=92t want to look under the rock that was Jackson=92s real life.
>
> As with so many other things, we don=92t want to know.
That's the best article on Jackson I've read since his death. I'm
incredibly bored with puff pieces, claims about Jacko's supposed
"musical genius," and with credulous idiots who buy his "Peter Pan"
facade at face value. Thanks, Fatt!
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