Wypowiedzi mniej znanych przyjaciół Michaela

[kaem]

Deepeak Chopra. Michael dedykował mu Dancing The Dream, swoją książkę z refleksjami i wierszami. Długo nie wiedzieliśmy kto to jest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5pUOWaX0HA

Mówi min. o tym, że Michael był ambiwalentny. Był zadowolony, ale też się izolował i unikał tematu zażywania leków uśmierzających ból.
Wypowiada się z dużym wyczuciem i sercem. To był prawdziwy przyjaciel Michaela.
Deepak zna Michaela od ponad 20 lat. Jest amerykańskim lekarzem, pochodzenia hinduskiego. Zajmuje się medycyną odnoszącą się do sprzężenia psychiki z ciałem. U nas mówi się o tym Praca z ciałem.

[kaem]

Randy Phillips- wypowiedź dla Sky News

R.Phillips to kierownik AEG. To on namówił Michaela na powrót na scenę. W wywiadzie mówi o ostatnich dniach Michaela, reakcji dzieci i mamy MJ.
Wspomina też o This Is It. Koncerty, jak to u Michaela, miały być najlepszymi występami, które kiedykolwiek miały miejsce. Uważa, że świat powinien to zobaczyć. Marzy mu się koncert z rodziną, gwiazdami, na zasadzie tribute to. Mają kostiumy, techniczne rozwiązania; wszystko, co wiąże się z This Is It.

Tu komentujemy.

[kaem]

Wypowiedzi wiceprezydenta fundacji Heal The World:
http://healtheworld.us/members/htwf

i prezydenta tejże fundacji:
http://healtheworld.us/members/htwf/blo ... l#00000003

[huczek]

Hołd Deepeaka Chopry ku czci Michaela:

A Tribute to My Friend, Michael Jackson
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.
2009-06-29-picmjdeepak.jpg

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.

Żródło

[kaem]

Wspomnienia vice prezydenta Pepsi, Clay'a G. Small'a:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... f78ce.html

Code: Select all

In 1986, Clay G. Small was vice president and division counsel for Pepsi Cola Co., the beverage division of PepsiCo. He was 36 and had been in the job about two years. He was also a big Michael Jackson fan.
Michael Jackson's menagerie included his chimp, Bubbles, and a bulldog. He also had zebras, giraffes and a touchy llama in his home zoo in Encino, Calif.
He worked as general counsel for Frito-Lay Inc. from 1995 to 2002. Now 59 and the senior vice president of legal affairs for PepsiCo, Small lives in Dallas.
After Jackson's sudden death last week, Small decided it was right moment to put into writing details of the night he spent with Michael in 1986. He says he wrote the story because "the experience was so unique. Sitting and watching TV with a chimpanzee was unique."

Michael and Me
In 1986, Pepsi-Cola's young and charismatic president, Roger Enrico, called me to his office and summarized the telephone call he had just finished with Jay Coleman, a talent agent for rock stars.
"You're not going to believe this, but Michael wants to do another deal with us," he said.
In 1984, after the release of Thriller, Pepsi had sponsored Jackson's reunion tour. The Victory Tour was an enormous success for the Jacksons and Pepsi. But the success was muted by an unfortunate incident during the filming of a Pepsi ad. Wayward pyrotechnics badly burned Michael's scalp. The commercial, and the incident, added to Michael's fame but, more important, made Roger a media darling – a hard-charging executive with his finger on the pulse of pop culture.
Unfortunately, the burning incident had also created distance between the parties, especially after Michael sent us a draft of the complaint he intended to file in Los Angeles Superior Court. To avoid further adverse publicity, we agreed to pay $1.5 million to the Michael Jackson Burn Center at Mount Sinai Hospital.
Michael was planning a new tour to support the release of Bad and needed cash, which was no surprise. Roger's idea was simple: We'd fly to L.A. to meet with Michael and leave the next day.
On the Pepsi jet, we were joined by Michael's agent and attorney.
These two could only exist in L.A. Frank DiLeo had been the promo man at Epic Records for Thriller and was Michael's new agent. Round-shaped, with a cigar prop at all times, DiLeo carried himself like a bit player in The Sopranos .
John Branca, Michael's longtime, long-haired attorney, was DiLeo's laid-back foil. Branca has a famous uncle: Ralph Branca, the Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher who threw the fastball that Bobby Thomson hit over the fence – "the shot heard around the world."
Roger got to the point – "how much?" DiLeo answered that $10 million for the tour sponsorship (double the price of the Victory Tour) was non-negotiable and that Coke was ready to pick it up if Pepsi hesitated. The flight was spent negotiating Pepsi's tour sponsorship rights.
When we landed, stretch limos took us to the Jackson family compound in Encino.
Before describing the Jackson family house, a little chronological perspective is helpful. 1986 was post Thriller but pre-Neverland. Michael was one of the most famous people in the world, had undergone only one nose surgery, and was just beginning to pale. He was a lovable oddity.

Mom and the mummy
The family's fenced, French chateau-style compound was wedged into a middle-class neighborhood and, of course, had an enormous wrought-iron gate and guard house. John Branca let us into the house and guided us to the living room. We passed the kitchen where Michael's mother, Katherine, was frying smelt – unfortunately, smelt was not on our menu.
Plainly dressed in a starched white shirt and jeans, Michael quietly greeted us and led us to the dining room. My first impression was that his skin was like none I had ever seen. It was translucent. He was in his 20s but still didn't shave. His hair, at this time his own, was long, sparkling and perfectly coifed. He sat down, nodded to Roger, and said nothing while DiLeo described the tour plans. His first words were to ask if we were ready for dinner – then the mummy appeared.
Wrapped from head to toe in gauze, a silent young woman carried to the table small tea cups and a large urn through which she poured us yogurt tea. Michael explained, in his whisper voice, that dinner would be one of his favorites – yogurt tea and cookies made without sugar. I yearned for a smelt or two.
After "dinner," the talk returned to tour plans, and Michael began to warm up. While describing his plans to tour the globe, Michael said that this time he would "set the world on fire" and then said "oops" as he touched the top of his singed head. I laughed out loud until I fielded a sour glance from Roger and realized no one else was even smiling. But Michael gave me a secret wink – I was the only suit who had appreciated his irreverent joke. As the conversation slowed, Michael asked if we would like to go to his room and watch TV.

Bubbles in overalls
Remember, this was 1986, and some of the events that made Michael a paparazzi magnet had not yet occurred.
But his bedroom was far from normal. Throughout the enormous room were 18 mannequins of multiple colors, including purple and green, in various states of undress. I suspect that Michael spoke to and played with these "friends." In the middle of the room was a floor-to-ceiling cage housing Bubbles, Michael's 3-year-old chimp.
Dressed in a diaper and Oshkosh bib overalls, Bubbles joined the party looking and acting like a normal 3-year-old, except awfully hairy. DiLeo and Branca had begged off, so sitting on the couch were Michael, Roger, Bubbles, me and Jay Coleman. And there we sat for an hour and a half, silently watching a John Wayne Western. Roger asked Michael if he was interested in the World Series, and Michael responded, "What's the World Series?"
Michael asked if we would like a tour of the house. Bubbles went back in his cage while the rest of us began the tour with the room next to Michael's bedroom – the Diana Ross shrine.
With a convex ceiling and white brick walls, the room looked like a wine cellar. Every square inch was covered with photos of Diana Ross from her earliest years with the Supremes. On shelves, tables and the floor were hundred of candles that Michael kept burning 24/7 to "honor his friend." We were speechless.
The next room was his dance studio with an elaborate sound system. With shiny floors and ballerina bars, it looked like any other dance studio with one exception – there were no mirrors. I asked Michael about the lack of mirrors and he responded that he did not like to watch himself dance.

A real zoo
Down the back staircase we entered the garage with the cleanest floor I have ever seen. The 12 cars were of every imaginable luxury model, from Ferrari to Mercedes, and they were all white convertibles. I asked Michael which one he liked to drive. He giggled and whispered "only that one," pointing to a VW Rabbit in the far corner.
Before entering the theater, we stopped to examine his 10-foot candy counter stocked with every type of candy known to man. On display were Michael Jackson trading cards, and I asked if I could take some to my kids. Michael grasped his hands together beside his face and said, "Yes, please do, that's exactly what they're there for." With its red plush velvet chairs and full-size movie screen, the theater was a perfect replica of a neighborhood cinema.
On the way out of the theater, we were joined by DiLeo on the way to the zoo. With zebras and giraffes, the zoo was filled with gentle animals. Except one. As we walked toward the llamas, Michael whispered that we should not get too close. Ignoring Michael's advice, DiLeo waddled right up to one and was promptly spat on and then bitten. No one even tried to stifle their laughter.
We said our goodbyes and promised to meet again the next morning. Roger steered us to the hotel for his Sambuca, espresso and cigarettes. At around 1 a.m. he announced he was leaving for New York in the morning and directed me to stay in L.A. until the contract was signed.
A few days later, Branca and I sent the contracts to our clients. I never spoke with Michael again, but two weeks later, he sent each of my children an autographed photo and sent me tickets for his show in Madison Square Garden.

[Secret Man]

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