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Wow, it's been a bad day for the Really Weird Celebrity population. (Farah Fawcett passed away as well... Today, I think.)
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I was really hoping he'd transition into writing and producing more. As great as his voice was, it was really songwriting/production/performing that was his genius.
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I was just talking to my bosses about Farrah and Ed Macmahon passing and we were wondering who number three would be. I never would have guessed Michael. 50 yo seems so young to me.
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I saw him in 1996 in Auckland. My daughter went on the Friday night and came home and woke us up and said "I've got to tell you about the concert!" She said she was going the next night, so I went too and took my 13 year old son. It was an amazing experience, he was a truly remarkable performer. This was before all the scandal came out, whatever the truth of that was. A shame. There's about 750,000 very disappointed ticket holders in Britain right now...
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The first thing I wondered was whether it was a suicide attempt (before it was confirmed he died). Posts: 1261 | Registered: Apr 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Tara: Wow, it's been a bad day for the Really Weird Celebrity population. (Farah Fawcett passed away as well... Today, I think.)
Has anyone checked on Crispin Glover?
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quote:Originally posted by Tara: Wow, it's been a bad day for the Really Weird Celebrity population. (Farah Fawcett passed away as well... Today, I think.)
Forgive me, but how is Farrah Fawcett "really weird"?
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You know, for all the crap that he's taken over the years, and he certainly earned some of it, I've ALWAYS loved his music, even if I wasn't the biggest fan of him personally. I rocked out to Michael Jackson cassettes as a kid, and I probably always will.
On a lighter note, with the King of Pop passed on, does the throne get passed on to Prince?
quote:Originally posted by Tara: Wow, it's been a bad day for the Really Weird Celebrity population. (Farah Fawcett passed away as well... Today, I think.)
Has anyone checked on Crispin Glover?
It's eerie how once you said that, it made a strange sort of sense to me.
I am surprised Michael's dead to say the least, he was a fantastic performer and songwriter. Though I'll never know in this life if he did the terrible things he was accused of, part of me thinks he is probably happier now than he has been for a long time.
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People will refuse to accept that he's dead. He'll continue to make appearances in the oddest of places. "I saw Michael Jackson in a Wal-Mart in Tucson!"
It'll be hard for some to accept the fact that he's gone. We're all led to believe that the greatest of celebrities are immortal, and go in to denial when one of them falls.
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I'm really shocked. The fellow was a cultural icon after all and has had a lasting influence on pop music...
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I have to say, after all the recent rumours that he was trying to find excuses not to do the shows, or hiring multiple duplicates to perform his London tour for him - it's hard to believe that this is true. I keep thinking of the popstar in H2G2 who was spending a year dead for tax reasons.
Anyway, seriously, it's a terrible thing for his kids. Weird as he was, they probably do care very much for him.
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I'm in shock right now. I remember as kid we would gather around the tv to watch his latest music video premiere. They really were cultural events back then. And only 50.
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He was my first concert when I was 12 - the Victory Tour with his brothers. It was amazing. As weird as he got in the end he was a fantastic performer.
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quote:Forgive me, but how is Farrah Fawcett "really weird"?
Nighthawk: She did art where she used her body as a paintbrush. There was an appearance on the Letterman show where people thought she was on drugs.
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quote:Originally posted by Tara: Wow, it's been a bad day for the Really Weird Celebrity population. (Farah Fawcett passed away as well... Today, I think.)
Forgive me, but how is Farrah Fawcett "really weird"?
Did you read A Paper Moon.? Of course the book might not have been 100% realistic, but it did contain some descriptions of Fawcett's and Ryan O'Neil's home life that really bugged me out.
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This is a little like hearing that Peter Pan has died of Alzheimers. "What? Huh? Did I hear you right?"
He was a remarkably talented dancer and musician, however muddied his reputation may have been in recent years. And he seemed to be on the way to making a public comeback. I'm sorry to hear of his passing.
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With all these references to the dude being "weird" -- are we not acknowledging that he was in all likelihood a child molester because it's distasteful to mention it on the day someone dies?
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quote:Originally posted by TL: With all these references to the dude being "weird" -- are we not acknowledging that he was in all likelihood a child molester because it's distasteful to mention it on the day someone dies?
No, I believe that we should remember the man for what we know he did, not what he was accused of. He was the King of Pop, so let's celebrate him for that.
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quote:Originally posted by TL: With all these references to the dude being "weird" -- are we not acknowledging that he was in all likelihood a child molester because it's distasteful to mention it on the day someone dies?
Last time I checked people were innocent until proven guilty. He was never found guilty of child molestation, and to be honest I see it as equally likely that parents used his preference for the company of children to get to his pocketbook.
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I have no idea if he was a child molester or not. Here's what I strongly suspect:
He was never allowed to be a child. He was pressured into a relentless showbiz life and abused with constant performances and rehearsals. I think that once he was in control of his own life - to whatever extent he was - he spent the rest of it trying to have the childhood he didn't get. I think he preferred the company of young boys because that's how he identified himself.
If he did touch children inappropriately, or did abuse children, none of that is any sort of excuse. But that was the impression I had of him.
Brilliant performer, singer, dancer. Tragic nutjob. Possible pedophile.
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quote:Originally posted by Chris Bridges: I have no idea if he was a child molester or not. Here's what I strongly suspect:
He was never allowed to be a child. He was pressured into a relentless showbiz life and abused with constant performances and rehearsals. I think that once he was in control of his own life - to whatever extent he was - he spent the rest of it trying to have the childhood he didn't get. I think he preferred the company of young boys because that's how he identified himself.
If he did touch children inappropriately, or did abuse children, none of that is any sort of excuse. But that was the impression I had of him.
Brilliant performer, singer, dancer. Tragic nutjob. Possible pedophile.
Your opinion is pretty close to my own. But you can hardly blame him for preferring the company of children, look what the adult world kept doing to him, endless speculation about his personality, love life, and court case after court case.
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quote:Originally posted by CaySedai: Nighthawk: She did art where she used her body as a paintbrush. There was an appearance on the Letterman show where people thought she was on drugs.
Yeah, but, I don't want to sound mean but it's kinda of a stretch to put her in the same category as MJ, no?
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This is a little like hearing that Peter Pan has died of Alzheimers. "What? Huh? Did I hear you right?"
Not to stomp all over that feeling, but I suspect (can't say for sure of course), that Jackson has been struggling with substance abuse for many years. Most of that has stayed out of the press because of his public relations staff, but some information about it has leaked over the years. I frankly would not be surprised at all if he had a substance abuse problem that contributed to his death. You do have to wonder about anyone who dies so suddenly at 50. Again, I'm not saying I know anything more than you do, but I strongly suspect drug abuse- just my instinct.
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Jackson was crazy. Jackson was as nutty as they come. And it sort of has to be acknowledged. But at the same time we have to acknolwedge that this was the product of the abuse and exploitation he suffered as a child. I consider his life a tragedy. But at the same time I will probably remember him more for his damn good music than the fact that the last years of his life were like watching a train wreck.
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quote:Not to stomp all over that feeling, but I suspect (can't say for sure of course), that Jackson has been struggling with substance abuse for many years.
I suspect you're right. Reports are coming out already that he may have been on painkillers when he died.
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quote:Not to stomp all over that feeling, but I suspect (can't say for sure of course), that Jackson has been struggling with substance abuse for many years.
Oh, it's certainly possible. He's been outside of the public eye for long enough that he could have been snorting half of Columbia and chasing it with qualudes and tequila, for all I know. He's also undergone enough surgeries of various kinds that he could have serious health problems I'm simply not aware of. Still, he was starting to perform again, he was relatively young, and if his weird pallor never exactly suggested glowing health, he never seemed to be particularly lethargic or sickly, either. And partly just that his general peculiarity was an obsession with childhood (and that he was an icon of my own childhood) which can't help but make my own mind associate him with youth.
If you had asked me yesterday for a list of ten celebrities I wouldn't expect to reach sixty, Jackson wouldn't have been on the list.
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It"s all a reuse. Michael Jackson was clearly a space alien. He hasn't died, the mother ship has returned and pick to up. I suspect that he will go on trial for violating the prime directive and interfering with the cultural development of earth. He"ll escape in a few years and be back.
Remember you heard it here first.
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Have you people forgotten that Michael Jackson was for a time married to Elvis Presley's daughter. Isn't it obvious what this means?
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I also suspect that Jackson had been abusing his own body for years. He was painfully thin and hasn't looked healthy in over a decade. Whatever things he did to his body, that can't be good for the heart. It's a shock to hear of someone dying like that, but I am almost 100% sure that it wasn't his genes that led to his early death.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Apparently it's ok to joke about Jackson after 12 hours...
It's always been OK to joke about Jackson. Aside from that, my joke was actually aimed at Elvis conspiracy theory wackos and not really at Jackson specifically.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:Originally posted by TL: With all these references to the dude being "weird" -- are we not acknowledging that he was in all likelihood a child molester because it's distasteful to mention it on the day someone dies?
Last time I checked people were innocent until proven guilty. He was never found guilty of child molestation, and to be honest I see it as equally likely that parents used his preference for the company of children to get to his pocketbook.
It is only in the eyes of the law that people are innocent until proven guilty. The court of public opinion can serve out its own justice, however unfairly and however misinformed.
I've been trying to decide what to say about this since I watched the news last night and I'm just not sure. I remember loving his music in the 80's and there is no question that his contributions to the music industry will never be forgotten. Yet if I'm to be perfectly honest, I have not been able to enjoy his music for at least the last ten years.
In any case, these things are all going to come out again in the wake of his death and there will be conjecture. At the very least, he lived a hard life and had some mental problems.
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In all seriousness, Orincoro, I think you'd almost have to have Asperger's or something to not understand the distinction.
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I understand the distinction. I still find the behavior to be hypocritical- that is to say, I'm fine with joking about death in general, and I'm fine with joking about Jackson too.
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If life were only a matter of what you were fine with, Sartre wouldn't've written a whole book about how annoying it was to worry about what other people thought.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: I understand the distinction. I still find the behavior to be hypocritical- that is to say, I'm fine with joking about death in general, and I'm fine with joking about Jackson too.
Whose behavior do you find hypocritical? I have no qualms about joking about the dead or with criticizing the dead, particularly if the dead person in question was extremely famous.
I will agree that it would be rather insensitive to criticize or joke about the dead to the face of his family members and close friends, particularly at a time when they are mourning their loss. But I think a different standard is appropriate among those of us who only knew this person through the media. If I thought Michael Jackson"s children and syblings frequented this site, I would be more circumspect.
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