Re: Wrongful death lawsuits - Katherine and MJ's kids sue AEG / Murray responds to Joe's lawsuit
I just have to type down these facts eating me up right now – even though I have barely read a page out of threads like these, ‘cause they’re angering me too much, and just killing me.. So, I’ll just highlight what we (should) know for sure:
“He was infuriating, manic, loving and considerate. Let me tell you a story: Michael had missed two rehearsals … the cast and crew were waiting and he was really late. He hadn’t left his house yet. So I called and yelled at him. We had a fight. He finally got there and I got there a little later. He was sitting in a chair, going over notes. He walked around the table and walked past me. But he didn’t want to be rude so he stopped. Put his arm on my shoulder, tapped it, then walked on. He was mad but he still didn’t want to be impolite. That was Michael.” – Randy Philips says in an interview.
"If Mike gets too nervous to go on, I'll throw him over my shoulder and carry him on stage. He's light enough.” => Randy Philips’ and his forceful ways again
Rehearsals begin in May – only 1 month-and-a-half period for rehearsals?!
His chef, Kai Chase would say how at one point, he told her that ‘They [rehearsals] are killing me”; some guys whose exact occupation I can’t really remember, but were a part of the rehearsals, said that he had sore feet or dancer’s feet and was in pain, Michael admitted to them.
Randy Phillips himself said it better than anyone ever could shortly after Michael died:
“People have speculated that this is going to bankrupt our company. The truth is it isn’t.”
http://www.thecommentfactory.com/michael-jackson-is-still-exploited - They’re bathing in profits, actually, which was more than could have happened if Michael was a ‘liability’ for them and couldn’t do the shows if he had survived them.
Randy Philips and AEG pressured him with an 02 deal for 2 years until he finally accepted. On March 5, 2009, he did the fateful press conference in London when it is Plain to see he would have wanted to be anywhere but there. He repeated “This is it’ so many times, so gravely and seriously, as if addressed to AEG and others pressuring him into all kinds of things he truly didn’t want to do in his heart, despite how much he loves music and dance. He only lightened up a bit and was more of himself when he said how he loved his fans ‘from the bottom of my heart’. Other than that, he was feeling very strange and unlike himself, under pressure, again, as it is plain to see.
From good memory of certain facts I recall an interview with a fitness trainer Michael met two weeks before his passing while training with Lou Ferrigno. She said how he was upset because certain “They were so mean… just so mean”, because he considered canceling a couple of shows, she said. Who could they have been?...
I also recall – again from good memory of certain facts – how Thome Thome told Randy Philips how Michael was in dire need of money (Thome also brought this money issue when the whole weird Neverland-item auction took place – another unfortunate situation consuming Michael - when Julien admitted to being told by Thome how the Neverland gates would also be auctioned, because it’s worth ‘a lot of money’; Julien also said how he was threatened by Thome), while Philips claimed it wasn’t about a dire need of money, but just Michael wanting to perform again, being young enough to do it.
In another pertinent interview with Philips, he would say that when the decisive 50 shows were added, Michael told him on the phone “No more shows, Randy, no more shows…”
Then there were those former Sony executives saying how Michael told them he wouldn’t do any more touring (and he said that also in the 2007 Ebony interview, the 2003 Home Videos and other times), because they take such toll on him: he can’t eat, he can’t sleep, the adrenaline is high, the inspiration is fueled, because “my mind never stops”, because he forgets that he has to drink water for hydration because of putting all his body and soul into his work, and that “it will kill me”, and “not the way James Brown did, or Jackie Wilson did, where they just ran it out, they killed themselves. In my opinion, I wish [Brown] would have slowed down and been more relaxed and enjoyed his hard work.”
He accepted doing the shows only for his children and fans, who always begged for him to tour everywhere, from… Honolulu to Ghana, and his usual responses would be: “I love my fans”, “I’ll do my best for you”, “I am living for you and the children”, “If you’re happy, I’m happy”, etc. etc… He couldn’t say no to his fans, no to the world, no to AEG, who was up in his head threatening him which they did. He wanted to do films, and his own nephew, Austin Brown, I believe, was told by his uncle. He desperately wanted to concentrate on films and release his new album he was still working on. Kenny Ortega even admitted to pressuring Michael to eat and would help him do it, and said that he told him (Ortega) he couldn’t sleep because of getting so many ideas for the show… If a person like Michael couldn’t eat well, couldn’t sleep, was drousy, AEG didn’t do anything about it, but only did pressuring and threatening, because they wanted the money irrespective of the means to get it: “a do-or-die thing”.
Tickets for the shows started being available right after Michael’s press conference in London, when nothing was set, rehearsals only beginning in May and the shows weren’t all put together even on June 24, only a few days before going to London, and lots of problems would arise when the tickets started being sold via Viagogo and stuff + the fans’ increasing demands for more tickets being used as the sole motivation behind AEG adding many more shows to the table => all pointing to so much greed and desperation on behalf of AEG.
And when a couple of dates were postponed - not even cancelled (but eventually would have been), hell broke loose in the fandom world – which must have hit him in the heart hard (“One of my biggest fears is disappointing my fans”…) as though he didn’t have more problems than one could count: companies and people fighting among themselves for him, the ludicrous suit filed by Bain, the pressures on behalf of family to do a family concert… him working on various projects and the shows, being involved in every single aspect of it, being a parent of 3 growing children, a friend and a worrier for those he loved - which was the world. He was pulled from all directions: one human being only, regardless of how strong and magical and wonderful. He was ONE human being only.
I used to tell myself it was the ‘doctor’’s fault only, for he administered those lethal amounts, but then I also think of what this world is really like, how this world is really ruled and by what kind of forces, and how corporations are like, how powerful they can be and who they serve, and how many victims they continually make and how they’ll always play with the law and win. ONE person out of their stupid heads couldn’t just take away a guy like Michael, and we’ll all say ‘Well, it was due to an accident, a mistake, stupidity, greed’. He is directly responsible, and others are too, and are ready to devour each other as they have already started doing to save what they can of themselves, or all of themselves. Michael was not an addict, as the autopsy proved he wasn’t. He was very very strong, managing to make it to 50, but I think, because of so many continous heinous, careless pressures from all sides, he couldn’t endure that much more, his heart would have given up still... but at least this could have been postponed by even many years. Or many many years even, if these stupid This Is It shows had never existed. He was Michael Jackson – a superstar, an ‘enterprise’, a brand, a meager piece of meat, but more valuable than gold, more than he was a human being. Murray, perhaps/or most likely, is going to be exonerated, because, otherwise, too many - way too many heads would fall. And that’s not how things work in this reality, in this society. Otherwise, Michael would be still here with his children. And this great part of reality would be different.
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