Urgent Tasks Remain Undone
*
I walk a field of glass,
I buy a diamond ring,
I take a lonesome road,
I'd buy you anything
(He'd buy you anything)
Yeah that's correct!
I'd buy you anything
I walk a field of glass,
Under the sun of steel,
Beneath that mean old sun,
Erasing all I feel.
I've got a winning deal
(He's got a winning deal)
I've got a winning deal
I walk a field of glass,
And how it burns my shoes
My feet been smokin' black,
Since 1892
And I eat razors too
(Yeah he eats razors too)
Yeah I eat razors too
And when my walking's done,
And diamonds turn to coal
I'll dig the deepest hole,
Therein I won't die cold
(Therein he won't die cold)
Yeah that's correct!
Therein I won't die cold
The Triffids.
Urgent tasks remained undone. Age infilitrated everything. His mother had just turned 80 and had begun to talk about arrangements "if I fall under a bus". The Roads and Traffic Authority insists citizens who reach 80 must do additional medical tests in order to get their licence. She was totally distressed by the whole thing; the forms, seeing a doctor, who she regards as the face of the devil and would never go near. The aches and pains of age were catching up with her. Friends were falling off their perches. Joyce, too, was about to turn 85 and the afflictions of age cascaded upon her. Leukemia in your 80s, now there's a short straw. Life lived, you think, at least you've had a life, but mortality is never easy at whatever time it is faced. His own suicidal tendencies had been swamped by the shortness of the human lifespan, the necessity of learning to jump to another frame, transcendence, spiritual longing, the tricks of the Buddhists.
We had grown up expecting the world to end at any moment; scheduled as it was for 1972. The radio voices of the American preachers predicting the end time filled our home, out there in that isolated, bending road amongst the evil trees. Out in the wide worlds were all the signs of the end was nigh, the Beetles, the Rolling Stones, promiscuity, short dresses. How could anyone deny God's warning? He caused consternation when he declared, struggling into adolescence, that he didn't believe anymore, that God was not speaking to him and in fact the whole concept, Moses parting the Dead Sea, Jesus preparing to return for the millenium and the establishment of a new government, it was all too much and he thought he might be an atheist, at the very least an agnostic. He was beaten for his views as he was beaten for everything, once again cowering in the corners with the belts snaking out for having dared to say he didn't see how God could exist, how the concept made sense.
Say you're sorry, say you're sorry now, his father demanded. What, you want me to lie, I'm not sorry, he said, I expressed an honest view. So he was beaten again, beaten into submission, and finally, with the welt marks across him, he sobbed, alright, I'm sorry, but I'm not really. That was when they really layed into him, both of them, his mother and his father going hammer and tongs, the worst beating of his life. All over bloody God. Thanks God. Thanks a lot. Expressing doubt, expressing anything at all, was not permitted. That was when the silences really set in, when his response to everything became yet further silence, when he retreated firmly into a fantasy world, never had his nose out of a book, never spoke unless he absolutely had to. Even now, that beaten, abused child he had once been haunted him, dictated his responses, was there in his reactions to all the ignominies of aging.
If nothing was fair, there was no point embracing justice. If humans were dogs who rounded on the weak, who attacked the most vulnerable, who travelled in packs and thought in blocs, then were was no way he could embrace humanity, socialism, the redistribution of wealth, the mangniminity and ultimate good of most people. He didn't believe it. He didn't trust them. He was alive with promise and the urgency of the tasks ahead. He was alive to all the opportunities that presented themselves. But at its heart was a secret love, a secret fear, that nothing would work, that he was malformed, diseased, a distorted intelligence that deserved to be beaten, a dysfunctional, unlovely creature. That was why he always hid, behind the screens, and that was why it had been such a shock when the screens collapsed one day, and that tiny, atrophied, skinless, hairless creature shrieking in the unexpected light had been so utterly terrified of exposure.
He had to grow a new defence as quickly as possible, whether it be a fantasy or reality. He had to find a way to put layers between himself and the outside world. To adopt a charmed persona. To work out something that would work in the real world. He was gracious, he was kind, as only the suffering can be kind to those who suffered, and his own eccentricities, mirrored in the tight interactions of an unforgiving, unrelenting, unrewarding place full of thankless tasks and pointless errands, it was why he had survived. The climate was not welcoming or appreciative. He couldn't believe how little general reporters were regarded by the paper's hierarchy, though their names were in the paper everyday and they were relied on for their reliability, accuracy, profligacy. They filled the pages but they were not thanked. Outsiders may have been impressed by the repeated bylines, but nothing was given and nothing gained. He had become just another eccentric in a long line of eccentrics, in a profession where eccentricity was virtually a requirement. And he stood quietly in the rain, watching the mist swirling around the street lights, not knowing where it would end.
THE BIGGER STORY:
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25754693-5001021,00.html
AS the Jackson clan continue to feud over where the King of Pop should be buried, private Christmas photos have emerged with truths about his kids and health before he died.
The Jackson family cannot decide where Michael's body should be laid to rest, but Jermaine Jackson has stated he wants Michael's final resting place to be Neverland, but local laws prevent burial on the private property, according to RadarOnline.com
It is possible that Michael could be cremated and his ashes spread over Neverland.
But Michael's mother Katherine doesn't want her son's ashes or body anywhere near Neverland, a source tells RadarOnline.com exclusively.
"Michael left Neverland for good, never to return," the source said. "He felt violated by law enforcement after his molestation trial.
He felt this place he had built had been tainted. Katherine continues to be her son's protector even after his death."
Meanwhile, Michael Jackson's dermatologist has denied he is the biological father of his children.
"To the best of my knowledge, I'm not the father," Dr. Arnold Klein told Good Morning America today.
He also shot down accusations he prescribed Michael some of the medication that led to his untimely death. He said he warned Michael against using certain drugs, like Dilaudid, telling him they were "poison."
He went on to call the doctors who prescribed all the unnecessary medication to Michael "criminals."
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25753212-2703,00.html
LOS ANGELES: For all the hasty preparations, security, media and star performances, Michael Jackson's memorial came down to 20 powerful seconds: when Paris Michael Jackson inched up to the microphone. In a statement no one saw coming, the 11-year-old referred to the controversial megastar as "Daddy".
Jackson rarely brought his three children out in public.
Now here they were, unveiled before millions around the globe, in front of their father's golden coffin. Starting out seated in the front row, the children joined the family on stage as the two-hour service wound to a close.
Dressed in the same dark suits and yellow ties as the Jackson men, Michael Joseph Jr, 12, known as Prince Michael, chewed gum and toted the service program; Prince Michael II, 7, known as Blanket, clutched his program and a Michael Jackson doll.
Paris, wearing a black dress with white trim, turned a small leather purse over in her hands.
The crowd hushed as the family whispered that the little girl wanted to speak.
She emerged from the tight circle of relatives, who rushed to lower the microphone. With her uncle Randy on one side and aunt Janet on the other, Paris stood centre stage. "I just wanted to say," she began.
"Speak up, sweetheart, speak up," Janet encouraged, sweeping the girl's long hair back. "And get close."
Paris put one hand behind her neck, another on the microphone: "Ever since I was born, Daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine," she said, her voice cracking.
Rebbie and Marlon Jackson comforted their niece as she shut her eyes tight. Paris wrapped her hands around the microphone and fought the tears: "And I just wanted to say I love him - so much." She collapsed into her aunt's arms. "It's OK, baby. It's OK," Janet Jackson said. Prince joined in on the hug.
And all at once, Jackson wasn't the King of Pop or Wacko Jacko. He was a father who had left three young children behind.
The service was not spectacular, extravagant or bizarre. It was sombre and spiritual. Entertainer superstar, humanitarian: that was how 20,000 people in the Staples Centre remembered Jackson, whose talents were often lost in the spectacle of his life.
Outside the arena, more than 3000 police officers massed to keep the ticketless at bay. Helicopters followed the coffin as it was driven over closed freeways.
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/07/07/2009-07-07_michael_jackson_more_like_an_evil_genius.html
If not for his money and fame, Michael Jackson would probably have died in prison.
I was thinking this last week in a park in Queens with a bunch of parents watching our kids, Little League boys - you know, the same age as the kids Michael Jackson used to invite over for slumber parties.
I was reminded of a skin-crawling 2003 interview by British journalist Martin Bashir, in which Jackson admitted he often invited kids to his Neverland lair, feeding them cookies and milk before sleeping in the same bed with them.
The whole creepy Peter Pan theme of Neverland - petting zoo, amusement park, video game arcade, soda fountains - was like a pedophile's paradise.
Meanwhile, in the real world in a public park in Queens, I was watching these kids who just came from a 10th birthday party, running the bases in a pickup baseball game. And I was watching for predators. Because, as a father, I'm always aware that these are the innocents that pedophiles like to use as their personal party favors. Kids that look up to those giants called adults like they are superheroes. Searching for praise, attention, protection.
Sometimes, they look up to bad grownups. Dangerous grownups. Grownups that sexually exploit them. I believe that Michael Jackson was one of those bad grownups.
When Jackson sang, "I'm bad, I'm bad..." it was probably a tortured inner demon screaming.
But since his death, it's been wall-to-wall "Michael Jackson was a genius" coverage on American TV. I needed the fresh park air because I was feeling nauseated from another day of this endless canonization. Music legends like Berry Gordy, Smoky Robinson, Justin Timberlake and Madonna painting halos over this self-loathing freak who butchered his own naturally handsome face, bleached his noble dark skin white and then paid other human beings to walk two steps behind him carrying umbrellas over his head in the California sunshine.
It was downright laughable to watch Al Sharpton, the man who has yet to apologize for perpetuating the Tawana Brawley hoax, going on 'Good Morning America' to say he was advising the Jackson family on how to protect Michael Jackson's legacy.
Excuse me, Rev, but a HUGE part of that legacy is that Michael Jackson had a disturbing fixation on prepubescent boys.
I walk a field of glass,
I buy a diamond ring,
I take a lonesome road,
I'd buy you anything
(He'd buy you anything)
Yeah that's correct!
I'd buy you anything
I walk a field of glass,
Under the sun of steel,
Beneath that mean old sun,
Erasing all I feel.
I've got a winning deal
(He's got a winning deal)
I've got a winning deal
I walk a field of glass,
And how it burns my shoes
My feet been smokin' black,
Since 1892
And I eat razors too
(Yeah he eats razors too)
Yeah I eat razors too
And when my walking's done,
And diamonds turn to coal
I'll dig the deepest hole,
Therein I won't die cold
(Therein he won't die cold)
Yeah that's correct!
Therein I won't die cold
The Triffids.
Urgent tasks remained undone. Age infilitrated everything. His mother had just turned 80 and had begun to talk about arrangements "if I fall under a bus". The Roads and Traffic Authority insists citizens who reach 80 must do additional medical tests in order to get their licence. She was totally distressed by the whole thing; the forms, seeing a doctor, who she regards as the face of the devil and would never go near. The aches and pains of age were catching up with her. Friends were falling off their perches. Joyce, too, was about to turn 85 and the afflictions of age cascaded upon her. Leukemia in your 80s, now there's a short straw. Life lived, you think, at least you've had a life, but mortality is never easy at whatever time it is faced. His own suicidal tendencies had been swamped by the shortness of the human lifespan, the necessity of learning to jump to another frame, transcendence, spiritual longing, the tricks of the Buddhists.
We had grown up expecting the world to end at any moment; scheduled as it was for 1972. The radio voices of the American preachers predicting the end time filled our home, out there in that isolated, bending road amongst the evil trees. Out in the wide worlds were all the signs of the end was nigh, the Beetles, the Rolling Stones, promiscuity, short dresses. How could anyone deny God's warning? He caused consternation when he declared, struggling into adolescence, that he didn't believe anymore, that God was not speaking to him and in fact the whole concept, Moses parting the Dead Sea, Jesus preparing to return for the millenium and the establishment of a new government, it was all too much and he thought he might be an atheist, at the very least an agnostic. He was beaten for his views as he was beaten for everything, once again cowering in the corners with the belts snaking out for having dared to say he didn't see how God could exist, how the concept made sense.
Say you're sorry, say you're sorry now, his father demanded. What, you want me to lie, I'm not sorry, he said, I expressed an honest view. So he was beaten again, beaten into submission, and finally, with the welt marks across him, he sobbed, alright, I'm sorry, but I'm not really. That was when they really layed into him, both of them, his mother and his father going hammer and tongs, the worst beating of his life. All over bloody God. Thanks God. Thanks a lot. Expressing doubt, expressing anything at all, was not permitted. That was when the silences really set in, when his response to everything became yet further silence, when he retreated firmly into a fantasy world, never had his nose out of a book, never spoke unless he absolutely had to. Even now, that beaten, abused child he had once been haunted him, dictated his responses, was there in his reactions to all the ignominies of aging.
If nothing was fair, there was no point embracing justice. If humans were dogs who rounded on the weak, who attacked the most vulnerable, who travelled in packs and thought in blocs, then were was no way he could embrace humanity, socialism, the redistribution of wealth, the mangniminity and ultimate good of most people. He didn't believe it. He didn't trust them. He was alive with promise and the urgency of the tasks ahead. He was alive to all the opportunities that presented themselves. But at its heart was a secret love, a secret fear, that nothing would work, that he was malformed, diseased, a distorted intelligence that deserved to be beaten, a dysfunctional, unlovely creature. That was why he always hid, behind the screens, and that was why it had been such a shock when the screens collapsed one day, and that tiny, atrophied, skinless, hairless creature shrieking in the unexpected light had been so utterly terrified of exposure.
He had to grow a new defence as quickly as possible, whether it be a fantasy or reality. He had to find a way to put layers between himself and the outside world. To adopt a charmed persona. To work out something that would work in the real world. He was gracious, he was kind, as only the suffering can be kind to those who suffered, and his own eccentricities, mirrored in the tight interactions of an unforgiving, unrelenting, unrewarding place full of thankless tasks and pointless errands, it was why he had survived. The climate was not welcoming or appreciative. He couldn't believe how little general reporters were regarded by the paper's hierarchy, though their names were in the paper everyday and they were relied on for their reliability, accuracy, profligacy. They filled the pages but they were not thanked. Outsiders may have been impressed by the repeated bylines, but nothing was given and nothing gained. He had become just another eccentric in a long line of eccentrics, in a profession where eccentricity was virtually a requirement. And he stood quietly in the rain, watching the mist swirling around the street lights, not knowing where it would end.
THE BIGGER STORY:
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25754693-5001021,00.html
AS the Jackson clan continue to feud over where the King of Pop should be buried, private Christmas photos have emerged with truths about his kids and health before he died.
The Jackson family cannot decide where Michael's body should be laid to rest, but Jermaine Jackson has stated he wants Michael's final resting place to be Neverland, but local laws prevent burial on the private property, according to RadarOnline.com
It is possible that Michael could be cremated and his ashes spread over Neverland.
But Michael's mother Katherine doesn't want her son's ashes or body anywhere near Neverland, a source tells RadarOnline.com exclusively.
"Michael left Neverland for good, never to return," the source said. "He felt violated by law enforcement after his molestation trial.
He felt this place he had built had been tainted. Katherine continues to be her son's protector even after his death."
Meanwhile, Michael Jackson's dermatologist has denied he is the biological father of his children.
"To the best of my knowledge, I'm not the father," Dr. Arnold Klein told Good Morning America today.
He also shot down accusations he prescribed Michael some of the medication that led to his untimely death. He said he warned Michael against using certain drugs, like Dilaudid, telling him they were "poison."
He went on to call the doctors who prescribed all the unnecessary medication to Michael "criminals."
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25753212-2703,00.html
LOS ANGELES: For all the hasty preparations, security, media and star performances, Michael Jackson's memorial came down to 20 powerful seconds: when Paris Michael Jackson inched up to the microphone. In a statement no one saw coming, the 11-year-old referred to the controversial megastar as "Daddy".
Jackson rarely brought his three children out in public.
Now here they were, unveiled before millions around the globe, in front of their father's golden coffin. Starting out seated in the front row, the children joined the family on stage as the two-hour service wound to a close.
Dressed in the same dark suits and yellow ties as the Jackson men, Michael Joseph Jr, 12, known as Prince Michael, chewed gum and toted the service program; Prince Michael II, 7, known as Blanket, clutched his program and a Michael Jackson doll.
Paris, wearing a black dress with white trim, turned a small leather purse over in her hands.
The crowd hushed as the family whispered that the little girl wanted to speak.
She emerged from the tight circle of relatives, who rushed to lower the microphone. With her uncle Randy on one side and aunt Janet on the other, Paris stood centre stage. "I just wanted to say," she began.
"Speak up, sweetheart, speak up," Janet encouraged, sweeping the girl's long hair back. "And get close."
Paris put one hand behind her neck, another on the microphone: "Ever since I was born, Daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine," she said, her voice cracking.
Rebbie and Marlon Jackson comforted their niece as she shut her eyes tight. Paris wrapped her hands around the microphone and fought the tears: "And I just wanted to say I love him - so much." She collapsed into her aunt's arms. "It's OK, baby. It's OK," Janet Jackson said. Prince joined in on the hug.
And all at once, Jackson wasn't the King of Pop or Wacko Jacko. He was a father who had left three young children behind.
The service was not spectacular, extravagant or bizarre. It was sombre and spiritual. Entertainer superstar, humanitarian: that was how 20,000 people in the Staples Centre remembered Jackson, whose talents were often lost in the spectacle of his life.
Outside the arena, more than 3000 police officers massed to keep the ticketless at bay. Helicopters followed the coffin as it was driven over closed freeways.
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/07/07/2009-07-07_michael_jackson_more_like_an_evil_genius.html
If not for his money and fame, Michael Jackson would probably have died in prison.
I was thinking this last week in a park in Queens with a bunch of parents watching our kids, Little League boys - you know, the same age as the kids Michael Jackson used to invite over for slumber parties.
I was reminded of a skin-crawling 2003 interview by British journalist Martin Bashir, in which Jackson admitted he often invited kids to his Neverland lair, feeding them cookies and milk before sleeping in the same bed with them.
The whole creepy Peter Pan theme of Neverland - petting zoo, amusement park, video game arcade, soda fountains - was like a pedophile's paradise.
Meanwhile, in the real world in a public park in Queens, I was watching these kids who just came from a 10th birthday party, running the bases in a pickup baseball game. And I was watching for predators. Because, as a father, I'm always aware that these are the innocents that pedophiles like to use as their personal party favors. Kids that look up to those giants called adults like they are superheroes. Searching for praise, attention, protection.
Sometimes, they look up to bad grownups. Dangerous grownups. Grownups that sexually exploit them. I believe that Michael Jackson was one of those bad grownups.
When Jackson sang, "I'm bad, I'm bad..." it was probably a tortured inner demon screaming.
But since his death, it's been wall-to-wall "Michael Jackson was a genius" coverage on American TV. I needed the fresh park air because I was feeling nauseated from another day of this endless canonization. Music legends like Berry Gordy, Smoky Robinson, Justin Timberlake and Madonna painting halos over this self-loathing freak who butchered his own naturally handsome face, bleached his noble dark skin white and then paid other human beings to walk two steps behind him carrying umbrellas over his head in the California sunshine.
It was downright laughable to watch Al Sharpton, the man who has yet to apologize for perpetuating the Tawana Brawley hoax, going on 'Good Morning America' to say he was advising the Jackson family on how to protect Michael Jackson's legacy.
Excuse me, Rev, but a HUGE part of that legacy is that Michael Jackson had a disturbing fixation on prepubescent boys.
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