The First Book of Michael (15 page)

As Michael continued, in
The Jacksons
track, ‘Strength of One Man’,

“Now we can’t blame our problems/ On just that chosen few / Cause if we wanna solve them / It’s up to me and it’s up to you.”

It’s perhaps ironic that I haven’t listened to or seen anything of the posthumous ‘Immortal’ campaign. But therein that irony lies the crux of the matter. Michael’s immortality lies in his artistry, not in how he is marketed. Michael fiercely guarded the integrity of the artists in the ATV catalogue, be they
The Beatles
or Little Richard. What right does big corporation have to not now afford him the same level of respect? Michael is being turned into a cartoon character; becoming even more of a commodity than he was when alive.

There are innumerable unsung black artists who wrote songs merely to feed the success and wealth of racist record companies, that preferred a white face to sell their records and make them money. This is the very same racism that resonates in the hypocrisy manifest in the mockery of Michael’s efforts to coalesce the world into harmony through music; a mockery that is in stark contrast to the vaunted statuses of the output of white counterparts, such as John Lennon (and, incidentally, in their vicious recriminations of Michael’s bare-faced cheek in buying the rights to
The Beatles
catalogue).

Michael got up on stage in 2002 and called the contemporaneous head of Sony Music, Tommy Motolla, a racist. Sony Music responded to this, not by chastising their so-called washed-up artist, Michael Jackson, but by firing Motolla, their CEO. It makes one wonder what Michael might have had over them to nudge them into that decision. It’s certainly difficult to believe that - upon the departure of Tommy Motolla - everything was suddenly resolved between Michael and Sony Music.

In 2002, as a black member on the board of Sony Music, Michael blew the whistle and told the world what was happening at the company. Fast forward thirteen years to the present day, and we are amidst the hacked email scandal exposing some Sony executives as harbouring racist views. These events vindicate Michael’s accusations entirely.

Not for the last time will Michael’s mantra, “Lies run sprints, but the truth runs marathons” become realised.

***

There is a divinity in devotion. And by devotion, I don’t mean blind loyalty. On the contrary, to fully appreciate and love someone is to do so unconditionally, in spite of their recognised flaws. Michael was human. He was not perfect. But he believed that nothing was beyond hope if it could be bombarded with love; and it was his insistence on these idealistic beliefs – and in the use of his great power to promote these beliefs - that was surely divinely inspired.

As fans, it is vital to remember that we should not let our devotion be taken advantage of, and be capitalised upon. It is a testament to Michael’s invincibility that his posthumous albums are promoted with all the hype as if he were still alive – which other artist gets that treatment? – but it is our devotion to his wishes as a humanitarian, and the preservation of the iconic art that he signed off himself that keeps Michael alive, not the success of a marketing campaign focussed solely on turning a profit for the people mismanaging his accounts.

Michael’s very soul went into his artistic response to being labelled a child molester. Yet, the Estate are bewilderingly inefficient when it comes to defending Michael from more recent accusations: strangely refusing to engage with the hero Mr. Thomas Mesereau, Michael’s esteemed attorney from the 2005 trial.

The 2014 resurfacing of slanderous stories involving Michael and children offered the slavering tabloid junkies nothing new: merely being rehashed, tired tactics that smacked so recognisably of newspapers in 1993; plucked from the ether and attributed to ‘a source’. Reading their descriptions was akin to listening to someone detail the character of a mutual friend, a person you have known for decades, but who they have only recently become acquainted with. You know this old friend inside-out: their flaws; their tribulations; their virtues – and are therefore dumbfounded by the inaccuracy of this other person’s depiction of them.

Sony Music have invested too much in their sanitised reinterpretation of Michael for them to allow it to be ‘inconvenienced’. For better or worse, they understand that Michael is an industry unto himself – one that provides an opportunity for decades of profit-procurement – and the likelihood is that Sony Music will encourage the Estate to settle the 2014 claims out of court. Sony Music are extremely powerful, and have form – they misadvised Michael back in 1993, when they recommended he settle then.

And Sony Music may well have invested their money in Michael; but we have invested our hearts. We followed him devoutly as he vindicated himself in 2005, and we will not allow our decades of stoic support to be undermined by extortionists. Michael gladly assumed his responsibility as a gatekeeper for innocence. But, noticing that one has responsibilities is the easy part. Engaging with them is an altogether separate matter. It is our responsibility to engage in the defence of our voiceless hero against the ongoing systematic attempts at his vilification.

It is us that will decide if they are doing justice to our devotion.

The battle for Michael’s historical integrity has many fronts. With the defence of the unparalleled capacity for his art to be used as a tool in making the world a better place being as ferocious an argument as any. As loyal fans, we must always bear in mind, that the title ‘artist’ is first and foremost the appellation Michael spent decades trying to earn; not ‘commodity’. Let us not be distracted by the substandard dollar-generating shiny things the Estate dangle before us. We must never forget that it is us who are responsible, through our support of the Estate or lack thereof, for the quality control of Michael’s legacy and his humanitarian reputation.

What do we want Michael’s fame to become? What is our duty as fans? As human beings? Is it to mindlessly promote the current Estate’s trend of him as a money-making vacuity? Or is it to enrich his reputation and memory through the promulgation of him as a politically-conscious, peace-loving leader? One whose mission was prematurely terminated by the very same nefarious ideals motivating the people now making millions off his name? Do we want to see him immortalised as a caricature of twentieth century pop culture and capitalism? Or as a talisman for peace, hope and mutual appreciation? In short: do we want him cartoonified or beatified?

As much as the Estate continue to insist on this cartoonification of Michael, the fans’ reaction must be to further exalt him - that with their every insistence on insulting, they merely fortify his martyrdom. We must counteract with equal might. Michael was a totem; a conduit for the divine. He understood sacrifice as aspirational. He willingly sacrificed himself. Not only did he tour the planet a sick man, rescuing his reputation from slanderous smears whilst simultaneously promoting his message of peace; not only did he later die attempting to do the same thing; but throughout his adult life he used his abyss of self, a tragic side-effect of a pillaged childhood, to construct a mirror for humanity. He gave us the opportunity to reflect upon him.

He was the mirror in the man.

John Branca’s time at the helm is bound to ephemerality. It is us, the fans, who are the true gatekeepers of Michael’s legacy. It is us who are the heroes.

It is us, Mr. Branca; it is us that are Michael Jackson now.

***

I’ll be honest. I still don’t think I’ve properly grieved for Michael. The initial heartbreak reverberated into a militant need to defend him against the soul-parasites leeching off his legacy, which is precisely at the point I remain.

Michael’s death broke my heart for two reasons: firstly, with the acknowledgment of the positive qualitative impact that the man indubitably had on my life; and secondly, at the recollection of his life as one that contained such unquenchable sadness – one in which a five year old boy was whipped into shape for our listening pleasure. Why could Michael convey the pain of heartbreak at such a young age? Ask the man stood behind him holding the switch. It was a veritable tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. Michael carried the hopes of his family. He would grow up to take on that mantle for the world; a world that started in the palm of his hand, before eventually becoming the weight on his shoulders.

The June of 2013 was an especially intense one for us fans: a strange song of nostalgia and defiance, with only the heartening bridge of the 13th providing us with brief respite before the emotive crescendo that is the 25th. We followed a similar trajectory in the preparation for the
This Is It
concerts; journeying as we did from the press conference, to the excitement of hearing reports from fans listening to rehearsals, to watching him starve with stress in front of our eyes; fans telling Michael it wasn’t worth it; to stop putting himself under all that pressure. As had become the pattern, we accompanied the man on his rise to an angelic apex, before descending alongside him in his fall from grace.

And this time he died.

The AEG Live trial was an attempt by Katherine Jackson and Michael’s children to uncover the truth as to why and how this happened. It
saw Michael's elderly mother having to once again defend her family from an onslaught of unwarranted abuse. She is a stoic woman. Not only is this a woman who has given birth ten times, she is also someone who has managed to cope with the grief of losing two of these children. It’s easy to see where Michael got his gentle leadership attributes and ‘rhinoceros skin’ from (though I personally prefer the analogy of that other pachyderm, the elephant – I imagine Katherine leading her herd, as they hold each other’s tails, yet independently making their own way through life - reconvening on occasion to rejoice or mourn).

But the AEG trial was the first time the eighty-three year old had been in court every day as a plaintiff. The previous occasion in which Katherine had attended court every day was in 2005, as a supporter of her son the defendant: throughout which, she remained composed and gracious in her stolid knowledge of the truth. Yet the salacious details Katherine had to endure through the AEG trial put even the 2005 accusations in the shade. The pornographic details describing her son’s physical and mental demise towards death evoked painfully evident tears, both for justice and remorse. Her recounting the moment she learned Michael had died was nothing short of harrowing, “everything went dark, and I just heard screaming.”

It was those people with pitiful hearts that believed greed - rather than the anguish and agony of a family who have lost a son and a father - was the motivating factor behind Katherine’s mission for justice. Why is it that the Jackson family aren’t afforded the same basic level of humanity as others? Why are other families - families that haven’t donated sometimes self-sabotaging amounts of money to charity - entitled to the idea of their grief and right to compensation being genuine, whilst the Jacksons aren’t? “Never for money, always for love” was a lived philosophy that inspired Michael’s often profligate philanthropy, and helped to steep him deep in financial difficulties. Well, that and the way his money was siphoned off by thieves.

Katherine regaled many intimate details to the AEG court - of which, she was the veritable queen - including such anecdotes as the sleeping arrangements of the poverty-stricken
Jackson 5
: a triple bunk bed – Jackie on his own in one, with the other four brothers sharing the other two. (Perhaps Jackie smelled a bit.)

***

The heady days of the confidence of Katherine Jackson’s attorney, Brian Panish, and his self-assured arguments for the prosecution seem an age ago. The general fan consensus at the time was of watertight faith in the plaintiff’s case; a seeming inevitability that justice would prevail.
Karen Faye was the last person standing from Michael’s employed inner circle, and there she was taking a stand for the Jackson family in an attempt to get justice for them.
The expectation to win was almost palpable; it being practically inconceivable that the Jackson family could lose the trial. The facts, after all, were starkly evident.

However, upon AEG being backed into a corner by the terrible truth, they became a dangerous animal. Although wounded, the company possessed a great deal of power within the media; a power they were not afraid to wield. Thus commenced the first of several smear campaigns, the first one promulgated by AEG-affiliated UK tabloid newspaper,
The Mirror
. The timing of the rehash of twenty-year old allegations was deemed ‘suspicious’ by Michael’s 2005 attorney, Tom Mesereau. AEG stooges had to up the ante in their Public Relations war, hence the front-page tabloid frenzy. Oblivious as usual to fact-checking, and with the requisite attempt at maximum reputation assassination, the truth was that the tapes forming the foundation of this slandering had been discredited ten years ago: to the extent that they were dismissed as useless and baseless by investigators involved in the farcical 2005 trial.