Friday 26 June 2009

Wacko Jacko finally hits the Buffers

The headline grabbing news in most of the papers this morning was inevitably the death of Michael Jackson.

It appears that he had suffered a cardiac arrest whilst at the Beverley Hills home he was renting during rehearsals for his latest 50 date comeback tour, due to commence in the UK on July 13th.

Jackson had had a history of health scares prior to this. Brian Oxman, Jacksons lawyer was interviewed this morning and he stated that Jackson was on painkillers, and he said that “If this situation rises where Michael perishes because of medications, and my words were that if he one day wakes up and he is dead because of these medications I will not hold my tongue, I will speak out and I will speak out loud.” He went on to describe three incidents where Jackson had been injured. One was during the filming of the video for Pepsi, when his hair caught fire. Another occasion he fell off a stage and cracked vertebrae in his back. He also broke his leg on another occasion. “These two things were constant sources of pain. They made him fall down they were so painful. He took the medications because of that pain, and it became a part of his life.” After each of these instances he took painkillers, but continued to do so long afterwards.







Prior to this Jackson had obviously had work done on his nose, and chin, and although he denied having any work done to change the colour of his skin, it is very different from the colour of skin he was born with. Jackson's skin was a medium-brown color for the entire duration of his youth, but starting in the early 1980s, his skin gradually grew paler. This change gained widespread media coverage, including rumors that Jackson was bleaching his skin. In the mid-1980s, Jackson was diagnosed with vitiligo and lupus; the latter was in remission in Jackson's case, and both illnesses made him sensitive to sunlight. The treatments he used for his condition further lightened his skin tone, and, with the application of pancake makeup to even out blotches, he could appear very pale. The structure of his face changed as well; several surgeons have speculated that Jackson had undergone multiple nasal surgeries, a forehead lift, thinned lips and a cheekbone surgery.




There were also accusations and court appearences………..

He denied previous tabloid rumors that he bought the bones of the Elephant Man or slept in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber.

Jackson was accused of
abuse by a 13-year-old child named Jordan Chandler and his father Evan Chandler. A year after they had met, under the influence of a controversial sedative, Jordan Chandler told his father what Jackson had done. Evan Chandler and Jackson, represented by their legal teams, engaged in unsuccessful negotiations to resolve the issue in a financial settlement; the negotiations were initiated by Chandler but Jackson did make several counter offers. Jackson made an emotional public statement on the events; he proclaimed his innocence, and criticized what he perceived as biased media coverage. Jackson began taking painkillers, Valium, Xanax and Ativan to deal with the stress of the allegations made against him. By the fall of 1993, Jackson was addicted to the drugs. His health deteriorated to the extent that he canceled the remainder of the Dangerous World Tour and went into drug rehabilitation for a few months.


Bizarre behaviour seemed to be part of Jacksons life style. Apart from the rumours of buying the Elephant Man’s bones , and sleeping in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, Jackson had built Neverland – a childrens playground. The ranch operated as Jackson's private amusement park and home when the facility opened in 1988, but is no longer in operation.
It contained, among other things, a zoo and a theme park, with a Ferris wheel, merry-go-round, zipper, spider, sea dragon, wave swinger, super slide, dragon wagon kiddie roller coaster, and bumper cars. It is named after Neverland, the fantasy island in the story of Peter Pan, where children never grow up.




Bubbles is a chimpanzee, known for his association with the American recording artist Michael Jackson. Jackson adopted the three-year-old chimp from a cancer research clinic in Texas. Despite the pair enjoying a close relationship, many media sources mocked their friendship while reporting many false stories on the duo. The public thought of Jackson as a bizarre eccentric, obsessed with recapturing his childhood, and he was subsequently dubbed "Wacko Jacko". Bubbles sat in for the recording sessions of the Bad album and escorted Jackson for the filming of the "Bad" music video. During the Bad World Tour, he and the singer shared a two-bedroom hotel suite in Tokyo.
Bubbles initially resided at the
Jackson family's Encino home, but moved to Neverland Ranch in 1988, where he slept in a crib at the corner of Jackson's bedroom. Bubbles was allowed to use Jackson's private toilet, although the chimp sometimes wore a nappy



.


He hid the faces of his children behind scarves and the like, and on one occasion held his baby daughter out from a four story balcony.




One cannot deny the musical ability and popularity of the man. Below are the record sales of his albums

Off The Wall: 19 million
Thriller: 65 million
Bad: 28 million
Dangerous: 29 million
HIStory: 18 million
Invincible: 8 million


When it comes to the crunch, like many of his ilk, he could not take the pressures of fame and high earning. What a sad waste of a life.


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