Ron Weisner's chapter on MJ

morinen

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It seems that Ron Weisner's book is already out, and I found a review on the MJ part. I was going to buy the book, but now I'm not sure if it's worth the money. If somebody has read it, please post your summary/opinion.

"DO I think Michael Jackson was a normal person?"

"Absolutely not."

"Do I think he was a pedophile?"

"No."

"Do I think he had issues?"

"No question."

"Do I think he was an unhappy guy?"

"In many respects, yes."

"Do I think he would have been happier if someone were looking out for him from the moment he left the Jackson Five until he died?"

"Emphatically, yes."

THE ABOVE are a series of questions music industry manager Ron Weisner asks himself at the beginning of his chapter on Michael Jackson, solo performer, in Weisner's new book, "Listen Out Loud: A Life in Music -- Managing McCartney, Madonna and Michael Jackson."

This is not a big book, size-wise, coming in at a brisk 234 pages, but that's quite enough, considering the names he packs in. Ron also managed Gladys Knight, Steve Winwood, Curtis Mayfield, Bill Withers and that group of very strange and combative guys, Sha Na Na. And Ron has his say about everybody, much of it caustic, to say the least. (He is exceptionally close to and fond of Gladys Knight, so it's only love there, and vice versa. She contributes an affectionate foreword and comments throughout the book.)

IT IS Weisner's relationship with Michael Jackson, the youngest (and by far the most talented) of the Jackson Five, and later an increasingly isolated and strange solo artist, that is the most compelling and tragic aspect of this book.

Much of it we already know -- Jackson's addiction to pills began after the accident on the set of the Pepsi commercial in 1983, his controlling father, Joe Jackson, whom no one wanted to deal with, or respected, or liked and the basic use of Michael as a money machine.

Weisner's first-hand accounts of all this, replete with scathing judgments and expletives, are fairly riveting, along with the author's observations of super-professional Michael plunged into work, his out-of-control eccentricities, insistence on whitening his skin, the super-smart man under the fey exterior (partly real, partly a self-protective performance).

Reading it all, knowing how Michael's life and career devolved and ended, it's a tragic runaway train, a train that Weisner says was still more or less in control, on the rails, until "Joe Jackson got Michael to fire me."

There's also some pleasant revisionist history on LaToya Jackson: "A nice lady whose horrible reputation was, to me exaggerated ... the only person in the family who consistently tried to help Michael." (Weisner and LaToya almost succeeded in placing Michael in a proper facility, but the plan fell apart at the last moment.) Well, I always thought of LaToya as the Cassandra of the Jacksons, telling the truth but never believed. Her image undermined her good intentions.

Reading the Jackson chapters, you know that this genius never had a chance. Not with that family.

WEISNER got along well with and admired Paul McCartney, and states that the late, oft-maligned Linda McCartney was "one of the most misunderstood people in the world." (He says he was terrified of her so-called aggressive reputation before they met. Then found her utterly charming and nonintrusive.)

However, the manager did not get along with Madonna, whom he knew during the frantic early years of her career -- up from the clubs, an MTV sensation, and suddenly on the cusp of international fame. "Madonna would do anything to succeed. Anything she had to. It seemed at times she was working on getting meaner."

Unlike the chapters on Michael Jackson, there's nothing tragic about Madonna. Ron's recollections of her are knife-like, but a lot of fun. (Primarily because Madonna, whatever one might think of her, has never self-destructed, never been arrested, never been in rehab, never been involved in scandals outside her "shocking" -- now rather boring -- professional displays, maybe there is something to be said for being "mean"?)

As much as Weisner disliked her, he writes: "Two hours into our first meeting, I knew Madonna would succeed. H--l, if you spent two minutes around her and you had any sense of pop culture, you knew she'd succeed!" There is a lot of interesting info on how MTV and the music industry was changing at that point and how Madonna -- abrasive and eerily confident -- fit so neatly, quickly and perfectly into that era.

Other than that, what do we learn? It's much in the vein of brother Christopher Ciccone's tell-all. Madonna is tight with a penny, complains a lot and doesn't appear to ever be grateful. ("That word was not in her vocabulary.")

Eventually, claims Weisner, Madonna's little ways became too much, and he "gave" her to Freddy DeMann, who guided the icon through her best years, along with the monumental effort of Warner Bros. press rep Liz Rosenberg. Without Liz R., I firmly believe Madonna, for all her drive and -- yes! -- talent -- would have imploded in some way, years ago.)

"Listen Out Loud" is a quick, hot read, as much for music fans as for those who just want a little -- OK a lot -- of dish.

But the fragile specter of Michael Jackson hangs over the book. Weisner doesn't claim Michael wouldn't have ended up in the same way, even if he'd stayed on the team, but as he notes, it might have helped, a little.

Oh, one must also note, all this is Ron Weisner's version of life in music's fast lane. Others might recall things differently. Although, truthfully, Madonna spends little time thinking about the past. That's why she's still here.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/enter...zsmittr--x-a20140522-20140522,0,2491950.story
 
Wow, someone's bitter. Everyone wants to be Daddy's favourite, so finding out that he didn't like you as much as you thought must be rough. Funny how people don't start bitching until they're pushed out of Michael's life.
 
Michael "whitening" his skin? Michael's addiction to "pills" in the 80s?

Ummmmm, this stuff just sounds added in to make him seem like an insider to other issues.

Wasn't he already gone in 1984? How could he have known anything about any of that? Ugh.

Reading it all, knowing how Michael's life and career devolved and ended, it's a tragic runaway train, a train that Weisner says was still more or less in control, on the rails, until "Joe Jackson got Michael to fire me."

Always how it is - these people would've been MJ's saviours, had they been allowed in his life.

It says it's still not out till the end of the month, so I van see we're going to have to deal with his bullshit in the press likely.



Yes, he must be lying, he's claiming all of this when he was fired in June 1983:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?n..._4U0AAAAIBAJ&sjid=jKUFAAAAIBAJ&pg=910,4093297

The Pepsi burn was in January 1984.
 
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^^Oh well another of the same old thing. Just file them with the others. How many Weisners Michael was involved with by the way?
 
^^Oh well another of the same old thing. Just file them with the others. How many Weisners Michael was involved with by the way?


You know, it is comments like yours that makes me wish this site had a LOL button.
 
Okay, who is Ron Weisner again? I did'nt bother reading the article 'cause going by your comments there seems to be no reason to.
 
Okay, who is Ron Weisner again? I did'nt bother reading the article 'cause going by your comments there seems to be no reason to.

He was Michael's manager back in the 80s. He was replaced by Frank after Michael fired him. I know it was a mess with Joe claiming Weisner whispering in Michael ear and Weisner calling Joe a racist.
 
How hard is it for people to just be honest?

It's amazing to me how people will lie like this. He did work with Michael, wasn't that enough? No, he clearly needed something more "juicy" to make it interesting.

That's what I find so upsetting really, how easily and quickly people will tell a lie on someone else. The big lies like Wade/Safechuck for money, but these little smaller lies too.

You can't trust anyone. Everyone wants to be the star of his life. I just had no idea people were capable of telling so many lies until Michael Jackson. I feel bad over small things I've done in my life, but all these lies over a man killed by them, I just can't get my head around it.
 
2 chapters in his book, one about jacksons and one about Michael. Really negative portrayal of Joe - from his personality to he hung with and the deals he made etc. At times negative portrayal of family (only want money) and Michael as well (such as addiction towards Disney, drugs, and so on). Yes he claims Michael wanted his skin lighter - lightened the cover photos of the albums etc. A lot of factual errors as well - such as 3 lawyers are executives or about lawsuits etc.
 
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Ivy how many pages in total for those 2 chapters? Are there more pages devoted to the family/Michael than to his other victims in the book? Is Wiesner still managing people? This comment about the album cover, didn't they say there was a letter from Joe in the storage that was telling the people in charge of a Jackson 5 album to make the photo lighter? I wonder if that is where Weisner got this from.

It would be interesting to hear what Joe has to say, but then that would just give this book more publicity.

The Liz Smith who wrote the article above, is she the same Liz Smith who used to write gossip back in the 80s or am I mixing her up with someone with the same name.
 
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Ivy how many pages in total for those 2 chapters?

40 for Jacksons, 50 for Michael = 90 pages total.

Are there more pages devoted to the family/Michael than to his other victims in the book?

yes. everyone else is around 10-20 pages.

Is Wiesner still managing people?

I think he's now doing production though I didn't read the whole book

This comment about the album cover, didn't they say there was a letter from Joe in the storage that was telling the people in charge of a Jackson 5 album to make the photo lighter? I wonder if that is where Weisner got this from.

no he's talking about off the wall and thriller covers and his personal talks with Michael
 
^^Yeah I mean if he is using that information about the J5 and Joe and applying it to Michael. He seems to devote a great part of the book to destroying Michael and his family. I guess he hopes that will help with sales.
 
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I see they are using the 'runaway train' reference ^^. The woman who wrote the review for Sullivan's book on Amazon also wrote something like "train wreck" life. Was she the managing editor or something like that? Anyway it seems people like to use the same unkind words to describe Michael. It must be wonderful to sit back, pick a victim, and do some type of armchair psychology, analysis, and critique of the victim, then write a book about it. That must be an easy way to make money. I should try it. All these people contributed to the pain in Michael's life, and they are using the victim to make money.
 
^^Yeah I mean if he is using that information about the J5 and Joe and applying it to Michael. He seems to devote a great part of the book to destroying Michael and his family. I guess he hopes that will help with sales.


Well, I really cannot fault him for going after Joe. If I recall correctly, Joe called him the white guy trying to manipulate Michael. Although, it's odd that he takes up for Toya given that she had no kind words for him in her own book (the first one).

When I think of Michael's managers, I always remembered what Michael said. He said that he had a lot of manages over the years, yet only Franky came to him when the mess in 2003-2005 happened. So for all of Weisner's self-rightness, he didn't even try to contact Michael when he was in trouble, yet he dares to write in his book that if he was part of Michael's life things would have been better. Take that as you will.
 
Jackson’s manager: ‘Kidnapping’ could have saved Michael (Page Six)

Ron Weisner — who managed Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney and Madonna — desperately tried to “kidnap” the King of Pop to save him from drug addiction while the star was being plied with cash and drugs by Bahraini royalty.

Jackson became hopelessly hooked on painkillers after his infamous accident filming a Pepsi ad, and “there were other people in Michael’s life who attempted interventions, none of whom came close to helping,” Weisner recalls in his revealing book, “Listen Out Loud,” out June 3.

The showbiz vet, who spoke to Jackson 20 times a day while managing his career through the highs of “Off the Wall” and “Thriller,” finally advised La Toya Jackson, “I’d snatch him. I’d get some people to grab him, take him to some rehab facility in the middle of nowhere.”

By 2006, Jackson’s addiction and spending had escalated “so badly that he escaped to Bahrain,” where he was provided with all the cash and drugs he needed by two princes, Weisner writes.

After discussing the extreme intervention plan more than 10 times over the years, La Toya gave Weisner the go-ahead.

Desperate to save his friend and former client’s life, Weinser writes, “That’s exactly what this was, a kidnapping” on “the other side of the world” that involved a plane, rehab facility, a team and “more money than I’d care to admit.”

But La Toya pleaded with him at the last minute to pull the plug on the plan.

“In retrospect, it was probably for the best . . .  as one of my attorneys pointed out,” Weisner muses. “There was little question that [the law] would view this as a kidnapping rather than an attempt to help a colleague.”

By that time, he’d been cut from Jackson’s career by father Joe Jackson, after shepherding Michael’s most productive years.

Days before Jackson died in 2009, Weisner met him at the Staples Center.

“He hadn’t looked really healthy for a good long while, but this was a whole other level,” he writes. “I thought . . . ‘He looks like a goddamn prisoner of war’ . . . He had that look in his eyes . . . a look of resignation, a look that said, ‘It’s over,’ and it broke my heart.”
 
IN 2006 ? OMG, what a pathological liar. He was drugged in Bahrain ? He looked his best after he left Bahrain to Ireland where he was doing great also.

I can't believe how monstrous people around him were. That bitch Latoya got some nerve.

His ass got fired in 1983, however, nothing stops him from claiming he was in the know in 2006 . The two princes in Bahrain need to sue him .

This liar had no contact with MJ for years at that time still manage to claim all that. Someone needs to sue him really
 
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Once again, Michael said the only manager that came back to him was Frank. Where the hell was Weisner in 2003-2005? He calls Michael friend, but when Michael was at his lowest point he didn't bother to pick up the phone and ask if he was alright. And how would he know he was drug, as far as I know he never contacted Michael again after he was fired. This is the first time I've heard that he was near Michael days before he died.

Still want to know how a 'hopeless' addict from the 80s have no damage to his liver and why no painklllers was in his system when he died.
 
What a lot of BS again.

The guy was out of Michael's life by 1983, yet he claims to know all about his alleged drug addiction in 2006? And of course yet another self-serving a**hole who portrays himself as the one and only possible saviour of Michael Jackson. Gimme a break!


By 2006, Jackson’s addiction and spending had escalated “so badly that he escaped to Bahrain,” where he was provided with all the cash and drugs he needed by two princes, Weisner writes.

I just hope he gets sued by the princes.

In fact he got his much needed break when he went to live abroad after 2005. Bahrain, then Ireland. He was in a great shape when he came back, according to Jack Wishna. It was when his family started to bother him again when he started to get worse again:

“It was December 23rd 2006, it was the day before Christmas Eve and we arranged it where a private jet would pick Michael Jackson up in Dublin, Ireland, and take him directly to Las Vegas,” Wishna said in an interview for Access Hollywood and Las Vegas television station KVBC with correspondent Alicia Jacobs.
And Wishna revealed the vision he shared with Jackson.
“When he came off that plane, it was the old Michael Jackson of the ‘Bad Tour,’ type thing, it was the Michael Jackson that I grew up with,” he said.
And although Jackson’s use of prescription drugs became big news after his death, Wishna said he never saw any of that kind of stuff around.
“Never saw any drugs,” Wishna said. “Never saw any intravenous, or needles or anything like that. Never met any doctors around Michael.”
“As he stayed in Las Vegas, he started to get debilitated while he was here and debilitated from a mental health standpoint, debilitated from a physical standpoint,” Wishna said.
“The family started to, you know, bother him again… His father Joe. It just started – a lot of the weirdness started to come back,” he continued.

So how is LaToya gonna play saviour?
 
To claim Michael had a drug problem in the beginning of the '80 is just crazy, he didn't even have a glass of wine! so it's clear this book is fabricated to match todays gossip...
 
They dont get attention and book deals/bigger advances if they dont talk crap about mj. its playing the game
 
His ass got fired in 1983, however, nothing stops him from claiming he was in the know in 2006 . The two princes in Bahrain need to sue him .

This liar had no contact with MJ for years at that time still manage to claim all that. Someone needs to sue him really

he says he was in contact with MJ, had a picture taken at Bad tour, says talked to him, saw him and listened to his songs etc. Who knows if it is true or not.
 
I hope people write all these discrepancies in date and information in the comments on Amazon or wherever this piece of trash is being sold. I hope sales are low. Notice how these people always cite a family member, especially Randy & Latoya when they want to trash Micheal. I wonder what Latoya has to say to this and I won't be surprised if she is found grinning with this guy.

^^Even if he was in contact with Michael, Michael would not tell him all this trash about himself and no one notice Ron hanging around Michael. That AEG lawsuit was one of the worst decisions the Jackson family ever made, and I won't be surprised if people get ideas from it to pack in their books.
 
PS: Just checked Amazon and saw he has 2 interesting reviews where some discrepancies were mentioned, and got a 1 1/2 rating overall. Good. I hope the New York Times did not give him a good review since Sullivan is working there. Ron has a co author: Alan Goldsher. Who is this guy anyway. I wonder if they chose June to release this book for a particular reason.
 
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PS: Just checked Amazon and saw he has 2 interesting reviews where some discrepancies were mentioned, and got a 1 1/2 rating overall. Good. I hope the New York Times did not give him a good review since Sullivan is working there. Ron has a co author: Alan Goldsher. Who is this guy anyway. I wonder if they chose June to release this book for a particular reason.

And that particular reason is June is the month of MJ's passing, all about getting the most attention from the media at that time.
 
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