h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You know what? I can't be sure about whether his behaviour was deviant or not. That's mainly because I can't know where truth ends and hype begins.
All I can be sure about is that his music was real, and that it was part of the fabric of a treasured period in my life. The same is surely true for millions of us.
What else is there to remember?

P, all the examples I gave about him were from him, the photo was him with his arm around a young teenage boy. He admited he slept in same bed as the young teenage boys. Particulalry the example of him sleeping in a bed with teenage boys is surely devient behaviour as you called it even with him trying to justify it?
Sure if you want to carry on listening to and liking his music, no problem, but for me ,him and Glitter's good fun, but less talented, music is a No, No.
What people do listening music wise is their choice. Personally I think not listening to him is a very small personal comment of disaproval of what he did. It may be a small protest but sales of his records crashed, perhaps by others making small protests too, and I believe Never Land had to be sold which is great, it also stopped other Never Lands being built and hopefully less children going to his house and sleeping in his bed. I am quite happy I no longer listened to or bought his music!

PS, they even showed his own sister in a recorded interview yesterday slagging off his behaviour around children and said she couldn't support that sort of thing.

Blimey, PPS,
sorry Effers, although it is true that most abuse takes place in the home privately and unnoticed, I still think that if it takes place in the public eye we should make efforts to stop it as an example to those doing it hidden in ordinary homes thinking they ae untouchable.
I have seen the lifelong effects of abuse to a child has, and it isn't s great sight.
Most importantly, stopping those in the public eye who do it would give encouragement to those who are being abused in ordinary homes that there is some hope of it ending to them. Surely giving hope to someone being harmed is a fantastic thing!
Conversely, if a young persone in an ordinary home is being harmed and they see a famous person getting away with it then surely it must compound their hell and might put them off getting help?

It seems lifestyle(a very high risk one at that)finally caught up with him -

http://www.tinyurl.com/qmyjsm

>Most importantly, stopping those in the public eye who do it would give encouragement to those who are being abused in ordinary homes that there is some hope of it ending to them.<

Funny, I think exactly the opposite. If I was living in a family with Mr and Mrs ordinary Smith, living a nice respectable and ordinary life, but behind closed doors knocking me about and god knows what, I'd think if only dad was famous and acted and looked like a total weirdo, the media would be all over him like rash and go after him and it wouldn't matter if it could proved or not in court...the wonderful court of public opinion would just somehow know the *truth* . But as for little ol nobody me? nay chance.

"Can the art of a paedophile be celebrated?"

"Travel back a few hundred years and you have the moral conundrums of the work of Caravaggio [painter, killer, supposed homoerotic depiction of boys] or Gesualdo [composer and double killer]."

BBC News Magazine 5th September, 2007 http://tinyurl.com/2cxjby

Excellent link

That's the BBC for you.

[I knew about Caravaggio and was looking for other examples when I spotted that article.]

I just watched the BBC TOTP2 thing of Jackson's most famous videos and music....wow. And I hadn't seen the full version of the Thriller main track video in years. Total genius for the pure theatre, wonderful music and choreography. And Jesus he was a brilliant dancer. It's like his body becomes pure music. His whole life really was some kind of performance. Very affecting.

<>

and that was the magic that worked on the kids

"It's like his body becomes pure music."

It's like that sentence became pure hyperbole. I love it.

The beeb had a photo on thier news programme yesterday of MJ, Uri Geller and David Blaine and my first thought was .........

Without their 'talents' they'd be care in the community cases and live in the big house round the corner.

I said on page 1 of this thread I'm sorry about his untimely death - but on reflection I'm not *that* sorry, it seems now with a few days to get over the immediate surprise that it was probably the best outcome for him (if not for his family and friends). He'll be remembered as a great musical talent - the 50 gigs he was planning may have shot that down along with his increasingly bizarre behaviour.

Gary Glitter .... now I was a big fan of his in the 70s and loved his music. Never listen to it now - how much better would it have been had he met with a similar fate?

As for abuse of 'regular' kids by their parents ..... I read the news too and the dirty secrets always come out in the end for all to see so I don't know what point you're trying to make Effers - you'd rather be abused by a famous person than your family?

The King is dead - Long live the King ..... he was a pop star - there'll be another one along in a minute.

> I read the news too and the dirty secrets always come out in the end<



>It's like that sentence became pure hyperbole.<

Yes spot on

While going for a quick glimpse at the Guardian, I carelessly found myself on the site of a Nigerian newspaper of the same name.

So folks, for a 'comepletely different' view of MJ

http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/editorial_opinion/article01//indexn2_html?pdate=010709&ptitle=Michael%20Jackson%20(1958%20-%202009)


A couple of paragraphs:

"For Africa, he was a major contributor to the USA for Africa Project, that together with Lionel Riche and Quincy Jones produced the 'We are the World' record which was performed by 39 musical celebrities and raised tens of millions of dollars to aid famine-afflicted communities in the Horn of Africa

"As is often the lot of people of such stature, Michael suffered in many ways: false stories were peddled about his whitening skin (it was caused by the skin disorder vitiligo), his altered nose (it began as an injury during rehearsal), and those heinous, unproven allegations of pedophilia. Even his affection for Bubble, his pet monkey, received negative publicity. He once complained, painfully, of 'so much garbage' being written about him by the press. But he rarely granted press interviews."


The last paragraph above kind of seems as if MJ had a self-altering nose.....

What do people think about his parent's now looking for custody of his children? From the stories of how he abused his own children and drove them to superstardom he hardly seems the best parenting role model ...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6608376.ece