Michael Jackson couldn't land the film roles he wanted, so he brought Martin Scorcese to him. Well, first Michael's manager Frank DiLeo had to push Michael toward Scorcese. Or Quincy Jones did. Quincy says he called Scorcese, busy then editing The Color of Money. "We need you for four days," he explained, to help create a "tougher" image for the first Bad video. Michael wanted George Lucas or Steven Spielberg, but agreed to Scorcese if he could put his stamp on things. Publicly, Scorcese would say only that Michael was "sympathetic, sweet, and open." Shooting started in January. The production budget doubled, then tripled. On Monday August 31, 1987, CBS debuted the 16-minute results with a special called "Michael Jackson—The Magic Returns." That morning, Bad was released: $6.99 for the record or cassette, $12.99 for the CD.
Most critics found the video ridiculous, cartoonish. Even biographer Randy Taraborrelli calls it "a pitiful parody" of the story famed novelist Richard Price wrote around the song. Price's inspiration came from Harlem-born Edmund Perry, the Phillips Exeter graduate killed by a plainclothes police officer. He died a block from home, on Morningside and 113th Street around 9 p.m., June 12, 1986. The prosecution claimed that Edmund and his surviving brother went looking for someone to rob. The defense insisted the white officer was drunk. The courts exonerated him and acquitted the brother. No witness either maintained their story or came to the stand unmotivated. In The New York Times, Brent Staples laments how "Edmund succumbed to the American fascination with angry black men."
"Bad" twists the allure of that monster role. Black-and-white footage follows Michael home to Harlem. He takes the Metro North train from the Duxston School to endure ribbing from his trio of childhood friends. Among them is Wesley Snipes. He taunts "Joe College" about what he's learning at "that little sissy school." Wesley wants to know: "Are you bad or what?" So, Michael searches the subway for a suitable victim to mug only to warn the older man. When Wesley confronts Michael, he screams back, "You ain't bad, you ain't nothin'!" With one cut, there's color and eight sonic bursts. Ethnically diverse dancers jump in from all sides. Michael himself drops from the ceiling. Breathing provides the soundtrack. The camera luxuriates on Michael's sudden transformation. He's a superhero of sorts, awash in buckles, zippers, and black leather. Sound effects attend to his every move. His hair whooshes. The choreography has percussion. He screams over the track. It's not anger as much as rapture. On one of the days Scorcese filmed in Harlem, Madonna dropped by to watch. She was both shocked and delighted by Michael's new conspicuous gesture: "Did you see that? Is he grabbing his balls? Oh my God."
Michael has little investment in realism. His videos dissolve any verisimilitude they create. What seems real implodes with inconsistencies. For example: how can Michael drop down from above in his leather get-up? A couple frames earlier, he was demure in a hoodie. It makes no sense because this quick change artist is much more into referencing or implying. Visual associations can be coy, elusively forthcoming. They work within the provided framework, but infer differently. As "Bad" dancer Casper attests, Michael's inspiration for his subway maneuvers came not from Edmund Perry but West Side Story. Michael would replay scenes "over and over again" for the dancers gathered about him: "When he saw something he liked, he'd let out a yelp. 'Oooh, did you see that? Did you feel that?'"
Just as palpable is the video's debt to The Wiz. Michael's friends banter much like the crow-men do to Michael's Scarecrow. The yellow brick road the film's black Dorothy and crew follow leads them through the same Harlem subway stations. Even the "Bad" video's fantasy of color in-between black-and-white recalls The Wiz's own source material. Michael's certainly aware of The Wizard of Oz starlet Judy Garland. Four pages into his autobiography Moonwalk, he contrasts his ambition with Judy's parents. "I wasn't forced into this business by stage parents the way Judy Garland was," he distinguishes himself. "I did it because I was compelled to do it, not by parents or family, but by my own inner life in the world of music." That inner world makes "Bad" compelling, too, even before the song's mechanical pulse make the video's theatrics colorful. When Michael leaves the Duxston School, the video reveals him in a progressively more personal space. It culminates with the intimacy of his railroad-style apartment. The camera watches him enter from his bedroom, just off the kitchen. He goes in to find a note from his mother on his typewriter. She's working. He holds it up to read it. There's a poster taped to his wall of Luther Vandross.
Michael trades the Metro North train for a subway with the only schoolmate who has similar circumstances. When he leaves Michael, they exchange the following slogan: "Be the man." A similar tenacity everyone expected from Bad's sales. The inevitable Thriller comparisons abounded. On the morning of Michael's CBS special, newsstands carried music critic Jon Pareles' unfavorable verdict. Despite writing eight of Bad's ten tracks, Michael shares even less of himself. Largely impersonal lyrics make way for his singular, isolated voice. Pareles concludes that Bad's "commercial fate depends on whether Mr. Jackson's audience wants shadows along with smooth surfaces."
Those shadows were in the cover shot Michael wanted, the one scrapped by Walter Yetnikoff, then president of CBS Records. It was a close-up of Michael's face wrapped in black floral lace. Red lips are partially obscured. His eyes stare ahead. That picture had to wait five years for Dancing the Dream: Poems and Reflections Written by Michael Jackson. It decorates a fable called "The Boy and the Pillow." When the youngster sells it to a peasant girl for a penny, his father murmurs, "You have learned well." The goose down pillow wrapped in silk brocade is worth far more. But the girl offers her penny "out of devotion."
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
August 30th
Michael Jackson collapsed backstage in costume, taped fingertips and all. He was supposed to be on in a few minutes. Elizabeth Taylor insisted he go to the hospital for an MRI. The crowd waiting hours for his second show in Singapore's National Stadium were told only the following: "He is ill." Of course, disappointment became anger this August 30, 1993. A teenager sulked: "If he's so sick, why did he even go out on tour?" Michael's third canceled show marked a week of allegations and public statements. In private, Michael told a friend he felt "the world hates me now—and it's tearing my heart to shreds."
In L.A., Michael's private detective Anthony Pellicano and lawyer Howard Weitzman held a news conference. They played a secretly-made tape of Evan Chandler, a "Beverly Hills dentist, who moonlights as a screenwriter," according to People. Even doctored, the recording did nothing to prove extortion. More importantly, it propelled coverage in the direction Michael had with increasing skill since Thriller. A September 6th Time cover story calls that command the "tacit agreement of trust with Jackson as his star rose." That's what draws us into all that Michael does. When we watch him, "we know it's theater."
All the media puns remind us. The subtitle of Time's "Michael's World" article is almost expected: "Is He Dangerous or Just Off the Wall?" We read everything Michael together, as one performance. It confirms what we think we know already. Didn't we already suspect something, anyway? Those near Michael at the World Music Awards in Monaco that May did. During the ceremony Jordan Chandler sat in his lap. Michael hugged him warmly from behind. The National Enquirer carried a picture of Michael with Jordan, his sister Lily, and mother June. It came underneath the headline "Jacko's New Family." Jordan sports the trademark red shirt topped with a black fedora hat.
The more visible and the more talkative, the stranger Michael became in 1993. And the more we watched. His Feburary chat with Oprah galvanized 90 million viewers. The truth of what he said then was less compelling than watching him talk. Bob Merlis, Senior VP of publicity at Warner Bros. Records voiced the consensus on that interview's effect: "I think it made him a sympathetic figure instead of just a total inscrutable weirdo." But even Michael's odd contradictions were part of the act we loved, including the sinckers about his toothless crotch-grabbing. We like to think we're in on the joke. Was this August week just another kind of zipper show-and-tell? His nether regions choreography had already encouraged a close-up on the 50-yard-line at January's Super Bowl. In the "Black or White" video, Michael zipping atop a car he just smashed required its own sound effect.
Reporters listen to Evan Chandler talk on cassette. He explained what the media was still getting their hands around. "It's going to be bigger than all of us put together," he warned. The news "is going to crash down on everybody, and destroy everybody in sight." Another prepared statement drew attention in Las Vegas. Jermaine Jackson wanted to show that "our family has come together in unity and harmony." Missing was sister LaToya. The Jacksons share a "collective, unequivocal belief that Michael has been made a victim." They also want to announce an upcoming reunion concert, the proceeds of which will go to unspecified "children's causes."
Michael leaned on Elizabeth Taylor's shoulders. They made their way through the kitchen of the Raffles Hotel to avoid the throng in front. Inside, there were enough eyewitnesses to see him visibly weak. His physician Dr. David Forecast determined that Michael suffered from "acute vascular migraines." They didn't seem to prevent the daily calls he made to L.A. Michael wanted updates on the transfer of his publishing company to EMI music. This record-breaking deal netted him over $70 million. Over the phone, he sounded "hurt and disturbed by what people have said about him," an adviser testifies. Michael was particularly distraught over "what the press has been doing, all the leaks."
In L.A., Michael's private detective Anthony Pellicano and lawyer Howard Weitzman held a news conference. They played a secretly-made tape of Evan Chandler, a "Beverly Hills dentist, who moonlights as a screenwriter," according to People. Even doctored, the recording did nothing to prove extortion. More importantly, it propelled coverage in the direction Michael had with increasing skill since Thriller. A September 6th Time cover story calls that command the "tacit agreement of trust with Jackson as his star rose." That's what draws us into all that Michael does. When we watch him, "we know it's theater."
All the media puns remind us. The subtitle of Time's "Michael's World" article is almost expected: "Is He Dangerous or Just Off the Wall?" We read everything Michael together, as one performance. It confirms what we think we know already. Didn't we already suspect something, anyway? Those near Michael at the World Music Awards in Monaco that May did. During the ceremony Jordan Chandler sat in his lap. Michael hugged him warmly from behind. The National Enquirer carried a picture of Michael with Jordan, his sister Lily, and mother June. It came underneath the headline "Jacko's New Family." Jordan sports the trademark red shirt topped with a black fedora hat.
The more visible and the more talkative, the stranger Michael became in 1993. And the more we watched. His Feburary chat with Oprah galvanized 90 million viewers. The truth of what he said then was less compelling than watching him talk. Bob Merlis, Senior VP of publicity at Warner Bros. Records voiced the consensus on that interview's effect: "I think it made him a sympathetic figure instead of just a total inscrutable weirdo." But even Michael's odd contradictions were part of the act we loved, including the sinckers about his toothless crotch-grabbing. We like to think we're in on the joke. Was this August week just another kind of zipper show-and-tell? His nether regions choreography had already encouraged a close-up on the 50-yard-line at January's Super Bowl. In the "Black or White" video, Michael zipping atop a car he just smashed required its own sound effect.
Reporters listen to Evan Chandler talk on cassette. He explained what the media was still getting their hands around. "It's going to be bigger than all of us put together," he warned. The news "is going to crash down on everybody, and destroy everybody in sight." Another prepared statement drew attention in Las Vegas. Jermaine Jackson wanted to show that "our family has come together in unity and harmony." Missing was sister LaToya. The Jacksons share a "collective, unequivocal belief that Michael has been made a victim." They also want to announce an upcoming reunion concert, the proceeds of which will go to unspecified "children's causes."
Michael leaned on Elizabeth Taylor's shoulders. They made their way through the kitchen of the Raffles Hotel to avoid the throng in front. Inside, there were enough eyewitnesses to see him visibly weak. His physician Dr. David Forecast determined that Michael suffered from "acute vascular migraines." They didn't seem to prevent the daily calls he made to L.A. Michael wanted updates on the transfer of his publishing company to EMI music. This record-breaking deal netted him over $70 million. Over the phone, he sounded "hurt and disturbed by what people have said about him," an adviser testifies. Michael was particularly distraught over "what the press has been doing, all the leaks."
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
August 29th
Jehovah's Witnesses aren't supposed to celebrate birthdays. Nevertheless, here Michael Jackson stands onstage in Copenhagen, August 29, 1997, on his History tour. Shuffling in behind him is a troupe resembling The Band of the Grenadier Guards. They sport red coats and black felt towers strapped across their chins. But their white trousers are the converse of the official uniform for the oldest military band of the British Army. Among other performances, that group's distinctive duty remains the birthday parade for the Queen of England. For the now-televised event, popular since World War I, everyone expects perfection. So does Michael for the musical assembly behind him. On cue, they welcome fireworks and a seven-tiered cake no one eats. He sips from a plastic cup and hides his face with a black towel. The bashful smile we know competes with the big screen projecting it. The pixelated image looms so close to what's transpiring, it pulls everything in.
Nine years earlier, for his 30th birthday, Michael gave to the British charity "Give for Life." Onstage during his Leeds stop on the Bad tour, he presented a check for £65,000 in front of a sold-out crowd. Backstage was Jimmy Safechuck, the blue-eyed, nine-year-old alum of a 1988 Pepsi ad called "Dressing Room." For the television spot, Jimmy dons Michael's shades, sparkly black jacket, and fedora hat. Jimmy's fingers pull the brim down over his eyes. The hat perks up to reveal Michael's face. On tour, Michael brought that transformation fantasy within Jimmy's reach. Michael had his costume designer Greg Upshaw make kid-sized versions of his stage outfits. Once, they both came onstage in strappy costumes modeled after Michael's in the "Bad" video.
In Singapore, Elizabeth Taylor and then-husband Larry Fortensky check into their penthouse suite across from Michael's at 1:30 a.m. This Sunday August 29, 1993, she inspired Michael to eat two slices of carrot cake with butter frosting. With a diet of milk and bread, Michael had lost nine pounds since the allegations commanded global headlines. Today, Michael was panicked that L.A.'s District Attorney would arrange for an extradition. Still, he waved to fans gathered at the colonial Raffles Hotel for a glimpse of the dazed star. He turned 35 in a red shirt and black hat. The media was there, too, of course, but uncertain. Most outlets were uncharacteristically cautious. Michael's reaction to the news became its own safer story. So did a film icon's transcontinental journey to be the stalwart by his side. Journalists made the flight with her. There was plenty of time for platitudes: "He'd rather cut his own wrists than harm a child." She believed in her friend's "integrity, his love and trust in children. I know he will come out all right. Michael is a very proud man, and he has good faith. He's a very spiritual and a very religious man."
In 1969, Michael was in the midst of his own launching. His birthday seemed insignificant. In October, he would make his television debut, introduced by Diana Ross. 18 days before his eleventh birthday, she presented him performing with his brothers at the Daisy, a swanky disco in Beverly Hills. The telegram she sent as an invitation heralded the "brilliant" Jackson 5, "featuring sensational eight-year-old Michael Jackson." He soon understood that "if someone said something about me that wasn't true, it was a lie. But if someone said something about my image that wasn't true, then it was okay. Because then it wasn't a lie, it was public relations." Michael was a quick study. In attendance that evening was Judy Spiegleman, who gushed in Soul magazine about "an eight-year-old kid who became a man when a microphone was in his hand."
Nine years earlier, for his 30th birthday, Michael gave to the British charity "Give for Life." Onstage during his Leeds stop on the Bad tour, he presented a check for £65,000 in front of a sold-out crowd. Backstage was Jimmy Safechuck, the blue-eyed, nine-year-old alum of a 1988 Pepsi ad called "Dressing Room." For the television spot, Jimmy dons Michael's shades, sparkly black jacket, and fedora hat. Jimmy's fingers pull the brim down over his eyes. The hat perks up to reveal Michael's face. On tour, Michael brought that transformation fantasy within Jimmy's reach. Michael had his costume designer Greg Upshaw make kid-sized versions of his stage outfits. Once, they both came onstage in strappy costumes modeled after Michael's in the "Bad" video.
In Singapore, Elizabeth Taylor and then-husband Larry Fortensky check into their penthouse suite across from Michael's at 1:30 a.m. This Sunday August 29, 1993, she inspired Michael to eat two slices of carrot cake with butter frosting. With a diet of milk and bread, Michael had lost nine pounds since the allegations commanded global headlines. Today, Michael was panicked that L.A.'s District Attorney would arrange for an extradition. Still, he waved to fans gathered at the colonial Raffles Hotel for a glimpse of the dazed star. He turned 35 in a red shirt and black hat. The media was there, too, of course, but uncertain. Most outlets were uncharacteristically cautious. Michael's reaction to the news became its own safer story. So did a film icon's transcontinental journey to be the stalwart by his side. Journalists made the flight with her. There was plenty of time for platitudes: "He'd rather cut his own wrists than harm a child." She believed in her friend's "integrity, his love and trust in children. I know he will come out all right. Michael is a very proud man, and he has good faith. He's a very spiritual and a very religious man."
In 1969, Michael was in the midst of his own launching. His birthday seemed insignificant. In October, he would make his television debut, introduced by Diana Ross. 18 days before his eleventh birthday, she presented him performing with his brothers at the Daisy, a swanky disco in Beverly Hills. The telegram she sent as an invitation heralded the "brilliant" Jackson 5, "featuring sensational eight-year-old Michael Jackson." He soon understood that "if someone said something about me that wasn't true, it was a lie. But if someone said something about my image that wasn't true, then it was okay. Because then it wasn't a lie, it was public relations." Michael was a quick study. In attendance that evening was Judy Spiegleman, who gushed in Soul magazine about "an eight-year-old kid who became a man when a microphone was in his hand."
Monday, August 28, 2006
August 28th
On Friday August 28, 1987, London's Daily Telegraph revealed Katherine Jackson's heartbreak, as verified secondhand by "one friend." In Michael, his mother saw only a stranger, "a curious freak" who relished "another personality behind the new face." She was distraught when he disassociated himself from the Jehovah's Witness congregation that May. What little she knew of her son didn't match this man "sharing his home with a menagerie of animals." Now, Michael brandished his peculiarity. It was a conspicuous reminder of just how different he had always been. According to that family friend, the Jacksons had spoiled the "small and fragile" Michael, "but they never understood him." He showed only what he wanted to: "He never allowed them to enter his private world."
The speculation about Michael's off-camera life made it contradictory. How could Michael have one when his eccentricities and reclusiveness proved to be so marketable? When everything you do becomes newsworthy, what doesn't become part of the public record? What exactly would Michael do without us watching? Sister LaToya explains: "Even when Michael isn't working, he's working."
So all-encompassing was the anticipation for Bad, it seemed everyone was both on Michael's payroll and an eager spectator. Michael reports worked like promotion and revealed curious investment. For some media outlets, Michael's imminent unveiling pre-empted other breaking developments. For example, the cover of the August 23rd New York Daily News proclaims "EIGHT DAYS TO GO." Deemed less thrilling for New Yorkers that day was Governer Cuomo and Mayor Koch's announcement. A raucous 15-year debate ended with $810 million committed to rebuild the West Side Highway.
A new Michael album carried greater cultural weight. Michael made sure to that with Bad's two-year theatrical buildup. A series of odd public stunts put his known musical talent in balance with his increasingly enigmatic choices. Individuating himself in public like this was a canny tack, an unexpected gamble. Michael's maneuvering undermined the clean-cut accessibility of his most thrilling incarnation. It heralded the trend that New York Times music critic Jon Pareles saw dismantling Michael's own juggernaut wake: "After the big bang of the early 1980's, when music video and pop geared to the widest possible audience led to the world-beating sales of Michael Jackson's Thriller, the pop audience is splintering again." Some worried that Michael himself was cracking. They read Michael's newly-visible plastic surgeries and lighter skin as proof. He was dismantling the very image that already stood for a singular nostalgia, an unrepeatable moment in music history.
Those two years in the studio produced tension and disappointment. Michael wanted Bad to be "as perfect as is humanly possible." He couldn't do the duet he wanted with Barbra Streisand, and then Whitney Houston, for the album's first Number One single "I Just Can't Stop Loving You." Prince declined the invitation to duel with Michael on the title track. By June 1987, the pressure he felt was almost unbearable. According to Randy Taraborrelli, an associate of Michael's explained: "The closer he gets to completing it, the more terrified he becomes of that confrontation with the public."
On August 28, 2002, Michael met with publishers at the Westin in Stamford, Connecticut. The lighting in the penthouse is nightclub dim. Michael's trying to look scruffy, with facial hair punctuating the rhinestone studs on his slippers. He wears shades. To those gathered, Michael seemed disoriented. After they handed him their latest catalogues, he asked what company they represented. Michael wanted to write a real autobiography now. He wasn't ready when Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis "twisted his arm" to do Moonwalk. Michael cried softly when talking about his loneliness. No one understands he's just a regular guy. He was disappointed that Diane Sawyer let him down with the June 1995 PrimeTime Live interview. He confided that he barely keeps in touch with his family. He rolled his eyes at the idea of a Jacksons camping trip. Michael shared his recent horror walking the gaming floor with Chris Tucker in Las Vegas. "It was terrifying," Michael explained in his public whisper. "People had to touch me. They had to keep coming up to me and touching me." He sighed, "I am thoroughly bored with myself."
The speculation about Michael's off-camera life made it contradictory. How could Michael have one when his eccentricities and reclusiveness proved to be so marketable? When everything you do becomes newsworthy, what doesn't become part of the public record? What exactly would Michael do without us watching? Sister LaToya explains: "Even when Michael isn't working, he's working."
So all-encompassing was the anticipation for Bad, it seemed everyone was both on Michael's payroll and an eager spectator. Michael reports worked like promotion and revealed curious investment. For some media outlets, Michael's imminent unveiling pre-empted other breaking developments. For example, the cover of the August 23rd New York Daily News proclaims "EIGHT DAYS TO GO." Deemed less thrilling for New Yorkers that day was Governer Cuomo and Mayor Koch's announcement. A raucous 15-year debate ended with $810 million committed to rebuild the West Side Highway.
A new Michael album carried greater cultural weight. Michael made sure to that with Bad's two-year theatrical buildup. A series of odd public stunts put his known musical talent in balance with his increasingly enigmatic choices. Individuating himself in public like this was a canny tack, an unexpected gamble. Michael's maneuvering undermined the clean-cut accessibility of his most thrilling incarnation. It heralded the trend that New York Times music critic Jon Pareles saw dismantling Michael's own juggernaut wake: "After the big bang of the early 1980's, when music video and pop geared to the widest possible audience led to the world-beating sales of Michael Jackson's Thriller, the pop audience is splintering again." Some worried that Michael himself was cracking. They read Michael's newly-visible plastic surgeries and lighter skin as proof. He was dismantling the very image that already stood for a singular nostalgia, an unrepeatable moment in music history.
Those two years in the studio produced tension and disappointment. Michael wanted Bad to be "as perfect as is humanly possible." He couldn't do the duet he wanted with Barbra Streisand, and then Whitney Houston, for the album's first Number One single "I Just Can't Stop Loving You." Prince declined the invitation to duel with Michael on the title track. By June 1987, the pressure he felt was almost unbearable. According to Randy Taraborrelli, an associate of Michael's explained: "The closer he gets to completing it, the more terrified he becomes of that confrontation with the public."
On August 28, 2002, Michael met with publishers at the Westin in Stamford, Connecticut. The lighting in the penthouse is nightclub dim. Michael's trying to look scruffy, with facial hair punctuating the rhinestone studs on his slippers. He wears shades. To those gathered, Michael seemed disoriented. After they handed him their latest catalogues, he asked what company they represented. Michael wanted to write a real autobiography now. He wasn't ready when Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis "twisted his arm" to do Moonwalk. Michael cried softly when talking about his loneliness. No one understands he's just a regular guy. He was disappointed that Diane Sawyer let him down with the June 1995 PrimeTime Live interview. He confided that he barely keeps in touch with his family. He rolled his eyes at the idea of a Jacksons camping trip. Michael shared his recent horror walking the gaming floor with Chris Tucker in Las Vegas. "It was terrifying," Michael explained in his public whisper. "People had to touch me. They had to keep coming up to me and touching me." He sighed, "I am thoroughly bored with myself."
Sunday, August 27, 2006
August 27th
Publicly, Michael Jackson was "acutely dehydrated." Privately, some claim he was a heavily medicated combination of angry and devastated. He muttered to himself and sobbed uncontrollably. He wouldn't eat. One of the Oriental Hotel's chambermaids claims to have found him sucking his thumb in a fetal curl. Rumors spread of a suicide attempt. Two canceled shows since Tuesday only stoked speculation. Then, he re-emerged Friday, August 27, 1993. The sold-out crowd in Bangkok's National Stadium was ecstatic to see the choreography Michael hardly strayed from. He plans his performances meticulously.
For "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin,'" he wears the same gold leotard on top of black pants. It looks unfastened from the back. After a couple a cappella hee-hee's, Michael launches into a particularly athletic arrangement. This fast, the routine seems procedural rather than sensational. Only once does his voice and demeanor stand out. He thrusts his pelvis and points to the crowd with an almost menacing stare while he delivers the following lines over a frenzied tempo: "Someone's always tryin' to start my baby cryin' / Talkin' squealin' lyin' / Sayin' you just wanna be startin' somethin.'" He wags his index finger left and right.
Michael didn't talk much between numbers, as usual. Michael never felt comfortable with onstage banter. Once, he explained to Bruce Springsteen when they met in September 1984 that he couldn't tell stories like the Boss. Bruce assured him that fans "like to hear your voice do something besides singing." But Michael balked: "To me, it feels like people are learning something about you they shouldn't know."
After nine months of promoting Dangerous and speaking more in public than he had in a decade, Michael let others do the talking. The lines between spokespeople, the media, and friends were indistinguishable. Private detective Anthony Pellicano claimed the allegations were merely leverage. This was but one of the "25 to 30" blackmail schemes he helped Michael squash. The New York Times likened the media frenzy to "Hollywood's gossip mills churning." Following the Reverend Jesse Jackson's advice, the Los Angeles Times used "restraint" in its coverage. Even the rarely wary New York Post coupled its "PETER PAN OR PERVERT" cover story with another headline inside: "DON'T BELIEVE THE DIRT! THIS IS A GUY WHO DOESN'T EVEN SWEAR!" Also in Michael's defense was actor Corey Feldman, then 22-years-old, who acknowledged he'd slept in the same bed with the thriller: "There was no sexual connection. ... I was molested as a child, and I know the difference." Such good press didn't raise Michael's spirits as much as the knowledge that he would have a special guest for his next performance in Singapore on his birthday: Elizabeth Taylor.
For "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin,'" he wears the same gold leotard on top of black pants. It looks unfastened from the back. After a couple a cappella hee-hee's, Michael launches into a particularly athletic arrangement. This fast, the routine seems procedural rather than sensational. Only once does his voice and demeanor stand out. He thrusts his pelvis and points to the crowd with an almost menacing stare while he delivers the following lines over a frenzied tempo: "Someone's always tryin' to start my baby cryin' / Talkin' squealin' lyin' / Sayin' you just wanna be startin' somethin.'" He wags his index finger left and right.
Michael didn't talk much between numbers, as usual. Michael never felt comfortable with onstage banter. Once, he explained to Bruce Springsteen when they met in September 1984 that he couldn't tell stories like the Boss. Bruce assured him that fans "like to hear your voice do something besides singing." But Michael balked: "To me, it feels like people are learning something about you they shouldn't know."
After nine months of promoting Dangerous and speaking more in public than he had in a decade, Michael let others do the talking. The lines between spokespeople, the media, and friends were indistinguishable. Private detective Anthony Pellicano claimed the allegations were merely leverage. This was but one of the "25 to 30" blackmail schemes he helped Michael squash. The New York Times likened the media frenzy to "Hollywood's gossip mills churning." Following the Reverend Jesse Jackson's advice, the Los Angeles Times used "restraint" in its coverage. Even the rarely wary New York Post coupled its "PETER PAN OR PERVERT" cover story with another headline inside: "DON'T BELIEVE THE DIRT! THIS IS A GUY WHO DOESN'T EVEN SWEAR!" Also in Michael's defense was actor Corey Feldman, then 22-years-old, who acknowledged he'd slept in the same bed with the thriller: "There was no sexual connection. ... I was molested as a child, and I know the difference." Such good press didn't raise Michael's spirits as much as the knowledge that he would have a special guest for his next performance in Singapore on his birthday: Elizabeth Taylor.
Saturday, August 26, 2006
August 26th
The whoop near the start of "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" doesn't just propel that track's crisp drums. It signals an overlooked guile. Its glee contradicts the aw-shucks proposition leading up to it: "You know, I was ... I was wondering, you know, if ... if you could keep on because ... the force, it—it's got a lot of power." By Sunday, August 26, 1979, the joyful force of that cry also pushed the single up to number 54 on Billboard's Top 100. Michael Jackson was fasting that day, dancing until he collapsed on his bedroom floor, sweating, laughing, and crying. He was waiting for the next seven weeks, when "Don't Stop" would top the chart and only whet his ambitious appetite.
He was venturing out with Quincy Jones in the studio and with new looks in public. Michael's favorite disguise then was a black abaya and niqab, Muslim women's traditional dress and veil. It worked better than wigs, hats, and beards, except when someone spotted his white socks and sneakers. A similar discovery made headlines in November 2005 when Michael walked mistakenly into the wrong bathroom in Bahrain. Another accident changed Michael's appearance in May 1979. While on the Destiny tour with his brothers, he tripped during a pirouette and landed face first. A nose job left him with a treasured cartilage souvenir, according to sister LaToya, and a new confidence for the Off the Wall cover. Michael smiles broadly. His thumbs are hooked to his tuxedo pants pockets, but his palms are open with fingers outstretched.
Off the Wall focused Michael. He'd felt dejected from losing his voice on the Destiny tour that wrapped up in June. Doctors made him lip-synch two weeks' of shows. Brother Marlon sang the upper register with Michael's mouth merely moving, disconnected. Michael never again wanted to be stage decoration. Working with Quincy was one part of that awakening witnessed by writer Gerri Hirshey: "One minute his face had the distant, dazed glint of prophecy; interviewing prospective accountants, it wore the chilly, reasoned mask of Market Imperative." Brother Tito noticed him make that change, too: "It was as if something had snapped in him. ... I don't know. He never did say much. You never really knew what he was thinking."
In the studio, Michael came prepared. Quincy was amazed when Michael would put down two leads and three backgrounds in one day: "He does his homework." For "Don't Stop," Michael recorded a series of "overdubs as a kind of group. I wrote myself a high part, one that my solo voice couldn't carry on its own, to fit in with the music I was hearing in my head, so I let the arrangement take over from the singing." Afterward, he'd sit with Quincy's engineer Bruce Swedien to hear the effect of the mix, then go over the tapes at home.
His mother Katherine was concerned when she first heard "Don't Stop," particularly with what its title could mean. Michael was developing a taste for double entendre. He defended the song and explained he didn't intend anything untoward. Still, "if you think it means something dirty, then that's what it'll mean." Michael used a similarly coy strategy in a Jet magazine interview with Robert Johnson published that August. He makes sure to mention but lament the "nasty rumor" of his sex change operation. Then, he introduces the following fan encounter: "This beautiful girl with blonde hair was trying her hardest to pull me into her to kiss her. She said, 'You're so sexy, kiss me.' When I showed no kind of interest in her she said, 'What's wrong, you fag?' and walked off."
Michael was listening so intently to the melodies in his head then that little else seemed to register. He wore the same jeans and socks for days, with shoes untied. LaToya explains that "when he was twenty, Michael decided deodorant was unhealthy and daily showering excessive." Really, Michael was preparing for his 21st birthday on August 29th. He explained the milestone he'd set for himself to Randy Taraborrelli the month before: "When I become 21, things will be different. I really feel that being a man is doing exactly what you want to do in this life and to do it successfully and to conquer a goal. ... And if it's great, to share it." Michael wanted to be one of the "real men" he admired, not just for their accomplishments, but for "how much joy they have given to other people, how many they have influenced."
He was venturing out with Quincy Jones in the studio and with new looks in public. Michael's favorite disguise then was a black abaya and niqab, Muslim women's traditional dress and veil. It worked better than wigs, hats, and beards, except when someone spotted his white socks and sneakers. A similar discovery made headlines in November 2005 when Michael walked mistakenly into the wrong bathroom in Bahrain. Another accident changed Michael's appearance in May 1979. While on the Destiny tour with his brothers, he tripped during a pirouette and landed face first. A nose job left him with a treasured cartilage souvenir, according to sister LaToya, and a new confidence for the Off the Wall cover. Michael smiles broadly. His thumbs are hooked to his tuxedo pants pockets, but his palms are open with fingers outstretched.
Off the Wall focused Michael. He'd felt dejected from losing his voice on the Destiny tour that wrapped up in June. Doctors made him lip-synch two weeks' of shows. Brother Marlon sang the upper register with Michael's mouth merely moving, disconnected. Michael never again wanted to be stage decoration. Working with Quincy was one part of that awakening witnessed by writer Gerri Hirshey: "One minute his face had the distant, dazed glint of prophecy; interviewing prospective accountants, it wore the chilly, reasoned mask of Market Imperative." Brother Tito noticed him make that change, too: "It was as if something had snapped in him. ... I don't know. He never did say much. You never really knew what he was thinking."
In the studio, Michael came prepared. Quincy was amazed when Michael would put down two leads and three backgrounds in one day: "He does his homework." For "Don't Stop," Michael recorded a series of "overdubs as a kind of group. I wrote myself a high part, one that my solo voice couldn't carry on its own, to fit in with the music I was hearing in my head, so I let the arrangement take over from the singing." Afterward, he'd sit with Quincy's engineer Bruce Swedien to hear the effect of the mix, then go over the tapes at home.
His mother Katherine was concerned when she first heard "Don't Stop," particularly with what its title could mean. Michael was developing a taste for double entendre. He defended the song and explained he didn't intend anything untoward. Still, "if you think it means something dirty, then that's what it'll mean." Michael used a similarly coy strategy in a Jet magazine interview with Robert Johnson published that August. He makes sure to mention but lament the "nasty rumor" of his sex change operation. Then, he introduces the following fan encounter: "This beautiful girl with blonde hair was trying her hardest to pull me into her to kiss her. She said, 'You're so sexy, kiss me.' When I showed no kind of interest in her she said, 'What's wrong, you fag?' and walked off."
Michael was listening so intently to the melodies in his head then that little else seemed to register. He wore the same jeans and socks for days, with shoes untied. LaToya explains that "when he was twenty, Michael decided deodorant was unhealthy and daily showering excessive." Really, Michael was preparing for his 21st birthday on August 29th. He explained the milestone he'd set for himself to Randy Taraborrelli the month before: "When I become 21, things will be different. I really feel that being a man is doing exactly what you want to do in this life and to do it successfully and to conquer a goal. ... And if it's great, to share it." Michael wanted to be one of the "real men" he admired, not just for their accomplishments, but for "how much joy they have given to other people, how many they have influenced."
Friday, August 25, 2006
August 25th
On the evening of Saturday, August 25, 1984, Michael Jackson did more than take the stage with his brothers for the 21st show of their Victory Tour. He justified its existence.
This first night in Buffalo, New York, begins again with a backcloth of white light. Lasers slice through billowing smoke until they find our Michael pulling a sword from a stone. At times, the stage and its star are hard to differentiate. Each sparkle and whir in time. Or, stop as if posing for a photograph exactly three minutes into "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin,'" the show's—and Thriller's—opening number. No sound but the crowd. Michael breaks the pause with insistent phrasing: "If you can't feed the baby, then don't have a baby." The brothers shimmy and the rhythm continues on cue.
Michael's hands-on direction was a prerequisite for his participation in a tour he'd wanted to call The Final Curtain. His meticulous theatrics wowed crowds but disappointed everyone else Jackson on the tour. Days before the Buffalo show, in Detroit, Michigan, the brothers wanted to accept a multi-million dollar offer to videotape and release the tour. Not only did Michael refuse, he threatened he wouldn't perform if they went ahead without his consent. Now, however, there were enough cameramen onstage with them that brother Marlon nearly stumbled over one.
Michael was already producing his own off-stage videos. He amused himself between shows not with his brothers, who traveled separately to the next city, but with another kind of choreography. He staged things to tape. On camera, he didn't feel "lost to the world," as he worried Broadway actors must feel after the curtain falls. With theater, "you don't capture that moment," he explains in an August 1982 interview. With film, you can; and its "shown all over the world and it's there forever. Spencer Tracy will always be young in Captains Courageous and I can learn and be stimulated by his performance."
In 1984 and 1985, Michael practiced his later public fascination with military imagery through his Victory shenanigans. He studied by watching them again. In each city, he'd don a flashy band major uniform and march with local police officers, all straightfaced, with matching shades shielding their eyes. At the Detroit police station, he filmed himself surrounded. Officer Allan Booze remembers Michael: "Some people might say he looks like a fag, but I would never say that. He looked frail, almost sickly. But he had a real big hand. I'm a big guy, but when we shook hands, his went all the way around mine."
The Victory tour changed only our perception of Michael, the defunct lead singer for the now 5-less backing band called The Jacksons. He always loomed over his brothers, years before his height or record sales did. He moved precociously long before he moonwalked. Sliding backwards was just another example of him looking forward. So was his onstage prelude to "Beat It," which started the finale of "Billie Jean" and "Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)." Michael writhes beneath a mechanical spider with searchlight eyes, then levitates, overcome and lifeless, until he vanishes. He's resurrected in red leather and zippers, just like he still is in the music video.
In Moonwalk, Michael complains that "fans imagine you to be almost an illusion, this thing that doesn't exist." But twelve years before Victory, he knew the lasting power of reproducible images. An almost fourteen-year-old Michael knew somehow that optical sensations can focus our feelings. When touring with his brothers behind his first solo record, "Got To Be There," he was already marketing himself. He had an idea his tour manager nixed: "Before I sing that song, let me go offstage and grab that little hat I wore for the picture on the album cover. If the audience sees me wearing that hat, they'll go crazy." Michael's still proving that insight. His iconicity stands not only for him, but also for our connection to him.
This first night in Buffalo, New York, begins again with a backcloth of white light. Lasers slice through billowing smoke until they find our Michael pulling a sword from a stone. At times, the stage and its star are hard to differentiate. Each sparkle and whir in time. Or, stop as if posing for a photograph exactly three minutes into "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin,'" the show's—and Thriller's—opening number. No sound but the crowd. Michael breaks the pause with insistent phrasing: "If you can't feed the baby, then don't have a baby." The brothers shimmy and the rhythm continues on cue.
Michael's hands-on direction was a prerequisite for his participation in a tour he'd wanted to call The Final Curtain. His meticulous theatrics wowed crowds but disappointed everyone else Jackson on the tour. Days before the Buffalo show, in Detroit, Michigan, the brothers wanted to accept a multi-million dollar offer to videotape and release the tour. Not only did Michael refuse, he threatened he wouldn't perform if they went ahead without his consent. Now, however, there were enough cameramen onstage with them that brother Marlon nearly stumbled over one.
Michael was already producing his own off-stage videos. He amused himself between shows not with his brothers, who traveled separately to the next city, but with another kind of choreography. He staged things to tape. On camera, he didn't feel "lost to the world," as he worried Broadway actors must feel after the curtain falls. With theater, "you don't capture that moment," he explains in an August 1982 interview. With film, you can; and its "shown all over the world and it's there forever. Spencer Tracy will always be young in Captains Courageous and I can learn and be stimulated by his performance."
In 1984 and 1985, Michael practiced his later public fascination with military imagery through his Victory shenanigans. He studied by watching them again. In each city, he'd don a flashy band major uniform and march with local police officers, all straightfaced, with matching shades shielding their eyes. At the Detroit police station, he filmed himself surrounded. Officer Allan Booze remembers Michael: "Some people might say he looks like a fag, but I would never say that. He looked frail, almost sickly. But he had a real big hand. I'm a big guy, but when we shook hands, his went all the way around mine."
The Victory tour changed only our perception of Michael, the defunct lead singer for the now 5-less backing band called The Jacksons. He always loomed over his brothers, years before his height or record sales did. He moved precociously long before he moonwalked. Sliding backwards was just another example of him looking forward. So was his onstage prelude to "Beat It," which started the finale of "Billie Jean" and "Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)." Michael writhes beneath a mechanical spider with searchlight eyes, then levitates, overcome and lifeless, until he vanishes. He's resurrected in red leather and zippers, just like he still is in the music video.
In Moonwalk, Michael complains that "fans imagine you to be almost an illusion, this thing that doesn't exist." But twelve years before Victory, he knew the lasting power of reproducible images. An almost fourteen-year-old Michael knew somehow that optical sensations can focus our feelings. When touring with his brothers behind his first solo record, "Got To Be There," he was already marketing himself. He had an idea his tour manager nixed: "Before I sing that song, let me go offstage and grab that little hat I wore for the picture on the album cover. If the audience sees me wearing that hat, they'll go crazy." Michael's still proving that insight. His iconicity stands not only for him, but also for our connection to him.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
August 24th
Tuesday, August 24, 1993, found Michael Jackson straddled across the International Date Line, between today and yesterday. He may not have been awake that morning in his penthouse suite at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok when the news broke with the L.A. evening news. KNBC scrambled for any information about a police raid at Neverland for the 4 p.m. broadcast. By 5 p.m., they showed officers hauling boxes marked "EVIDENCE" from Michael's condo in Century City. Los Angeles Police Department Commander David Gascon said little to explain the footage. He was "not disclosing any aspect of the investigation at this point."
The people who called Hard Copy correspondent Diane Dimond would. The one who worked for California's Department of Children and Family Services urged Diane to meet the other. The voice insisted that "enough is enough. He's got to stop getting away with this." Just after 7:00 p.m., Diane and her producer Steve Doran met the go-between at an Italian restaurant in Santa Monica. Diane spent two hours taking shorthand by candlelight. Steve kept the conversation going with ice tea and appetizers. In Diane's hands was an "Emergency Response Referral" and notes from an interview with the reporting child and his father. At first glance, they looked legit. Diane's notes include the following sentence: "Minor says MJ and he got erections after rubbing each other."
Michael had arrived in Thailand on the 21st without Jordan Chandler, his 13-year-old friend Diane Diamond calls "stunningly handsome." Instead, he landed with tour staging that takes three days to assemble. The media took longer to get a story straight. Unknown to most then, the L.A.P.D. ventured outside their jurisdiction only hours after Michael's jet took off. Santa Barbara District Attorney Tom Sneddon learned about the raid when the BBC called for comment. By the time Diane and Steve Doran paid the check, the sun was setting on the 23rd in LA. As they left the restaurant, it was also approaching noon on the 24th in Bangkok. That evening was the scheduled launch of the second leg of his Dangerous tour.
Soon Michael would do his vocal exercises. His longtime voice coach Seth Riggs was always impressed with Michael's three-and-a-half octave range, "from basso low E up to G and A-flat above high C. A lot of people think it's falsetto, but it's ... all connected, which is remarkable." But when he traveled with the Bad tour, Riggs was perplexed by Michael's new addition to the routine. He was holding both a note and his arms up in the air while spinning about. Michael explained to him, "I may have to do it onstage, so I want to make sure it's possible."
Microphones were all around. "We don't want to feed any wild speculation on this matter," maintained Commander David Gascon. Michael's attorney Harold Weitzman explained the allegations the L.A.P.D. would not confirm: "What has transpired here is the result of a rejected demand made by the father of one of Michael's young friends." Private detective Anthony Pellicano echoed that Michael was the subject of "extortion gone awry."
The Dangerous show opens with the "O Fortuna" section from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, those infamous driving strings used in The Omen, and so many of the horror films Michael loves. Michael has them open his Dangerous video collection, too. They provide the sound for mute, frenetic shots of fans screaming, crying, overcome. Michael catapults himself from underneath the stage for the sold-out crowd filling Bangkok's National Stadium, and stands, as if frozen. No music. Sure, Michael may be known for his moonwalk, and his crotch grabs, but that stare is as much a signature move. He watches us take him in. The crowd roars, but he waits, center stage. At roughly the same time in L.A., his voice comes through Howard Weitzman: "I am confident the Department will conduct a fair and thorough investigation, and its results will demonstrate that there was no wrong-doing on my part."
The people who called Hard Copy correspondent Diane Dimond would. The one who worked for California's Department of Children and Family Services urged Diane to meet the other. The voice insisted that "enough is enough. He's got to stop getting away with this." Just after 7:00 p.m., Diane and her producer Steve Doran met the go-between at an Italian restaurant in Santa Monica. Diane spent two hours taking shorthand by candlelight. Steve kept the conversation going with ice tea and appetizers. In Diane's hands was an "Emergency Response Referral" and notes from an interview with the reporting child and his father. At first glance, they looked legit. Diane's notes include the following sentence: "Minor says MJ and he got erections after rubbing each other."
Michael had arrived in Thailand on the 21st without Jordan Chandler, his 13-year-old friend Diane Diamond calls "stunningly handsome." Instead, he landed with tour staging that takes three days to assemble. The media took longer to get a story straight. Unknown to most then, the L.A.P.D. ventured outside their jurisdiction only hours after Michael's jet took off. Santa Barbara District Attorney Tom Sneddon learned about the raid when the BBC called for comment. By the time Diane and Steve Doran paid the check, the sun was setting on the 23rd in LA. As they left the restaurant, it was also approaching noon on the 24th in Bangkok. That evening was the scheduled launch of the second leg of his Dangerous tour.
Soon Michael would do his vocal exercises. His longtime voice coach Seth Riggs was always impressed with Michael's three-and-a-half octave range, "from basso low E up to G and A-flat above high C. A lot of people think it's falsetto, but it's ... all connected, which is remarkable." But when he traveled with the Bad tour, Riggs was perplexed by Michael's new addition to the routine. He was holding both a note and his arms up in the air while spinning about. Michael explained to him, "I may have to do it onstage, so I want to make sure it's possible."
Microphones were all around. "We don't want to feed any wild speculation on this matter," maintained Commander David Gascon. Michael's attorney Harold Weitzman explained the allegations the L.A.P.D. would not confirm: "What has transpired here is the result of a rejected demand made by the father of one of Michael's young friends." Private detective Anthony Pellicano echoed that Michael was the subject of "extortion gone awry."
The Dangerous show opens with the "O Fortuna" section from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, those infamous driving strings used in The Omen, and so many of the horror films Michael loves. Michael has them open his Dangerous video collection, too. They provide the sound for mute, frenetic shots of fans screaming, crying, overcome. Michael catapults himself from underneath the stage for the sold-out crowd filling Bangkok's National Stadium, and stands, as if frozen. No music. Sure, Michael may be known for his moonwalk, and his crotch grabs, but that stare is as much a signature move. He watches us take him in. The crowd roars, but he waits, center stage. At roughly the same time in L.A., his voice comes through Howard Weitzman: "I am confident the Department will conduct a fair and thorough investigation, and its results will demonstrate that there was no wrong-doing on my part."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
