This Whole Michael Jackson Business

Like everyone, I was shocked to hear of the death of Michael Jackson. He was one of those guys who you never expected to die unless it was on the plastic surgeon's table. He seemed so well preserved that you almost expected him to outlive us all. He'd be a modern day Methusela. But, alas, it appears that modern medicine, or the abuse of it, is likely what killed him.

I can't say I was a big fan of his. I don't think he put out a great song since Billie Jean or Human Nature. I also wondered why he was the biggest name in pop music when we had a guy named Prince on the scene. But I understand his appeal to a point. His charisma and presence were undeniable. His dancing and singing style became trademark. You knew Michael Jackson when you heard him and, certainly, when you saw him.

This is what I did not understand about him:

* The plastic surgery. You know, he was a really good looking guy in the 70's. He had the cool afro, a handsome face, a mannish build. He was cool. Legend has it that his brothers would tease him about having a wide nose and that led to the utter destruction of his nose. To this day, I've still never seen anyone with a nose that looks like it was shaped out of Silly Putty (except maybe Sarah Michelle Gellar). He also had the huge, U-shaped jaw implanted in his face. He began to look more like a Dali panting than flesh and blood human. My buddy, Chuck, said that he saw a pic of Michael with his hair pulled back and his ear was mangled from doctors having to remove the cartilage from his ear to repair his putty nose, which is why he wore long haired wigs. As for the "bleached" skin, he had the pigment disease that left white splotches on his skin. So to combat it he went white. For that, I empathize. But that nose...holy shit.

* The God complex. Did you ever see the footage of Michael on the MTV Europe Music Awards where he sang "Heal the World" and was healing children on the stage just by touch? The kids would touch his hand and suddenly they are alive, vibrant and singing the syrupy pop song. They continued to follow the Prophet Michael throughout the song and may as well have bowed to him and kissed his feet. Then there was the promotional tour for the History album where he had giant golden statues made of himself and sailed them to the US and Europe on boats. I guess we really could use a new Statue of Liberty since the other one is old and in need of regular maintenance. I'm not sure a fey child molester wearing a sequined military jacket is a good substitute though. Let's add that he also has three test tube children who are not allowed to see their mother, nor is she allowed to have any contact with them. They could use a mother now more than ever but, contractually, that won't happen.

* The Ego. It takes a lot of nerve and ego to call yourself the King of Pop. It also takes nerve to screw a friend out of his own musical legacy. Kind of like when Michael outbid his "friend" and collaborator on "Say Say Say", Paul McCartney, on the Beatles catalog, claiming it was just business. When Michael began to experience money troubles, instead of selling some or all of the catalog to McCartney, he sold half of it to Sony. As word has it, Michael was in so much hock to Sony that the other half of the collection will likely go to Sony as collateral. So as the only living songwriter in the Beatles (and don't start with Ringo; he played drums and did coffee runs for the other three geniuses, although if Ringo wants credit for "You Know My Name, Look Up the Number" he can have it), he will never own the groundbreaking music that he wrote and performed because you know Sony isn't going to sell it to him. When it was all said and done, even the most valuable musical catalog in the history of music couldn't even save Michael from near bankruptcy as he was reportedly in debt upwards of $400 Million. How can anyone be that much in debt?!? I look at that amount and I can't fathom even that much money let alone owe it! That's like saying, I owe enough debt to cover a house and two vehicles. Michael Jackson owed enough debt to cover a multi-national company with a couple thousand employees.

* The child molestation. This can be argued to death but lets consider this: Back in the mid-90's when the original allegations that Michael sexually abused children arose, instead of being willing to go to court and prove his innocence and clear his name, he paid off the families and made it all go away. He may as well have pleaded the fifth. It was at that point that I wanted nothing else to do with the King of Pop. Then he was charged again with more allegations, forced to go to court and exonerated. However, an interview with Martin Bashir came out around the same time where Michael said it was okay to sleep in a bed with teenage boys. Michael has been a troubled man for years, no question. But no amount of trouble should be relieved on young kids, right? Do you remember in the movie Pulp Fiction where Jules Winfield reveals that he doesn't eat pig because it's a filthy animal. Vincent Vega asks if he would eat a dog, also a filthy animal, and Jules says no, because dogs have personality and that goes a long way. By that rationale, are we to ignore Michaels filthy animal ways because we like Smooth Criminal and the Moonwalk? Is it all okay, the child buggering, because he performed Thriller and had a pet monkey?

There are a lot of other things I don't understand about Michael Jackson but lets not beat it, so to speak. He's dead and leaves three test tube children, a wanting mother, a mountain of debt and hundreds of Yes Men unemployed. Michael was troubled. He had lots of bad people with bad intentions in his ear, telling him he needed to do this and do that to make money even though he was a broken man whose glory days were behind him and 50 concerts in London likely wouldn't bring him back to the top. He was a man who abandoned common sense for fame and excess. So while it's easy to admire him because he was a great dancer, a unique singer, a natural presence and performer and an intriguing figure, ultimately he was a man who left an even uglier legacy of deviant sexual behavior and unacceptable, egotistical greed. As humanitarian as he would like as all to believe he was, he was actually quite the opposite. It's okay to like his music but this idol worship that's going on after his death is rather disgusting.

So, hey, rest in peace, Mike. If you can.

Jimmy John's and Bad Radio

I've recently graduated to 45 minute lunch breaks, up from 30. That extra 15 minutes makes a world of difference to a job hating goon like me. I work at a ridiculously busy Interstate exit (no, not selling oranges) and the traffic makes it really difficult to get done what I need to do in 30 minutes. Now I can go to my favorite hang out, Jimmy John's, read a book and listen to some very pedestrian classic rock.

Jimmy John's doesn't have the best food in the world. They are very hit and miss. Great bread, sub-par meat. Great chips, so crunchy your jaw aches after eating a bag. Watered down soft drinks, free refills. But the atmosphere is what I enjoy. It's a restaurant that doesn't take itself too seriously and they are kind enough to let me eat my food and enjoy some privacy till it's time to go back to work. Plus they know me. I'm the Norm of the Southport Jimmy John's location.

I've been reading Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield. It's an autobiographical story about how his late wife and he lived for mix tapes and how their romance revolved around music. It's a very beautiful story so far and it is ironic how much a lot of it mirrors moments I've lived in my teens and twenties. Much like Rob, I was one of those dorky music geeks who gave my love interests mix tapes that not only showed off my incredible musical tastes but also helped me communicate my feelings through the words of other people. Thank God for middlemen! Sometimes it helped my situation, other times it drove them away like I carried the clap. Nonetheless, I made some damned good tapes. If only I had those back.

Back to Jimmy John's, they play a local station that used to be known as Jack FM. It was a station that had a computerized format and no DJ's. That format has changed and now they do have DJ's but they are so robotic that they practically don't exist. One of the DJ's is Nikki. She used to work for X103 when I worked there. She's got the personality of a wounded marsupial, a really wretched woman. So it's good that she is on this station now because they don't let her talk a lot. We are all better for it. Anyway, this station, one of FOUR classic rock stations in Indianapolis, plays a very curious mix of music. You get your midwest standards: Bob Seger, John Mellencamp. Then you get the overplayed bands: Pink Floyd, Lynyrd Skynyrd. You can't escape these artists in Indy. On top of that, they also play a lot of one hit 70's wonders like Orleans, 10cc and Rupert Holmes. It's music that's easy to ignore and serves as decent background.

Today as I read my book, I began to realize that every song that was being played on the former Jack had some sort of significance to me, no matter how minute. For instance, they played Freeze Frame by J Geils Band. I remembered how much I loved the music video for this song as it began with the band all wearing white and standing in a white canvassed room. They began to fight with colored paints. During the musical breakdown, gallons of paint were poured over their heads. It's amazing how funny that is to a young kid. I used to howl at that video when I was in grade school much like I did watching You Can't Do That On Television. Then they played Night Moves by Bob Seger. This song used to give me the opposite reaction because it was the favorite song of my ex-fiancee. This decent song about a young couple's coming of age used to provoke venom, spit, tears and depression out of me. It was THE song that I did not want to hear (and that's saying something because there are several albums of Dave Matthews material out there). As I heard it today, I actually found myself bouncing my leg to it, smirking, not believing I let such a woman get to me in that manor. As much as I don't care for Bob Seger, I think I actually like that song again. You can't blame the song, especially if it's a good one.

Reading this book and hanging out at Jimmy John's, if anything, makes me realize how much I love music and how badly I wish the quality of music these days would turn a corner and become listenable again. It saddens me that there was such a bountiful harvest of music in the 90's, some brilliant artists and original talents that were making timeless songs...where did they all go? When did music turn so sour? I could go into corporate music politics, the rampant selling out that artists seemingly feel like they have to do to get their music heard today, the fact that the music industry is in the toilet and they are only marketing singles and not albums, digitizing music has ruined the feel of the album...I could go on and on. I just want to feel joy in making mix tapes again. I find that if I make one, it's all music from the 60's, 70's and 90's with the occasional new song. The best music I haven't heard I'm digging up from decades past, not from today's lot of new artists. It's sorry.

Nevertheless, tomorrow I will likely hit Jimmy John's for some lackluster lunch. Maybe I will hear some Bad Company or Kansas or Journey. And I will probably enjoy it because music and food is so much better when you are off the clock. If anything, I am truly enjoying this book. I miss so much about my youth, and I don't miss much at all. But most of all, I do miss the thrill and emotion of good music. It would be nice to experience those feelings again.

Black Dogs - Book Review

In 1973, Led Zeppelin played to a sold out Madison Square Garden in New York City. The Golden God, Robert Plant, struck his fey pose on stage, shirt likely unbuttoned to the navel, and sang about sex and Tolkein, Jimmy Page practiced Satanism and summoned the beast on his double neck Gibson SG, John Paul Jones played his bass quietly in the shadows and tried not to be forgotten by his band mates, John Bonham chugged five bottles of Jack Daniels while playing a 48 minute "Moby Dick" drum solo and their manager, Richard Grant, beat up some poor promoter backstage for not having enough roast beef in the deli tray. The band made $200,000 cash for the performance. It was the best of times for the biggest band in the world, post-Beatles. And while the band mesmerized the endless masses with their heavy metal thunder, their payday was being robbed from them in what is known as the biggest rock and roll heist in the history of said music genre. The money was never recovered, the thieves never found. This is a true story.

Black Dogs: The Possibly True Story of Classic Rock's Greatest Robbery by Jason Buhrmester, is a fictionalized tale of how that heist may have went down. The story begins with Patrick, a Black Sabbath loving, Zeppelin hating petty thief from Baltimore who has concocted a plan to steal the band's booty with the help of his fellow thieving buddies. The plan: Steal a valuable Gibson guitar from a pawnshop in hopes of selling it to Jimmy Page (who was known for buying guitars in nearly ever city he visited at the height of his fame) and, during the distraction, lift the money from their thug manager's hotel room. The plan is flawed but possible. While robbing the pawnshop, a wildcard member of the crew gets greedy and decides to steal the pawnshop safe along with the guitar. The pawnshop is owned by the leader of a Bikers-for-God gang known as Backwoods Billy and the Holy Ghosts (possibly the best name ever for a biker gang or a rockabilly band) who not only thump the Bible but also thump skulls when crossed. When the gang gets wise to the robbery, the band of thieves chances of dying become better than their chances of stealing Zep's money. The contents of the safe have a life of their own as they become the ire of not only Backwoods Billy and the thieves but also of Baltimore's District Attorney, who is also a bit crooked. Obstacle after obstacle is thrown into the Patrick's path. His only goal is to stay alive so that he can rob the biggest band on the globe, and for some reason, you can't help but root for him.

I truly enjoyed this story. Buhrmester has crafted a taut, thrilling tale that is easy to read and visualize. I saw the story unfold so vividly that I feel like it could easily be one of my favorite movies if done correctly. Packed with musical references and commentary, it piqued my interest on many levels. The heist, the feud with the bikers and an equally interesting subplot involving a funk band were all well done and interesting. Watching the pages dwindle away, I began to wonder if the thieves were going to make it to New York to rob the band. But the ending does not disappoint and ties up all the loose ends with ease. It's a book I would revisit.

As far as it ever being turned into a film, which I would love, I'm not sure they would get much cooperation from Zeppelin. Aside from the band being robbed of 200k, there is also a lot of scathing criticism from Patrick in the text about how Zeppelin are a bunch of blues robbing hacks who wouldn't exist without Howling Wolf, Willie Dixon, Bukka White and the delta blues in general. While I absolutely love Led Zeppelin, it's a compelling argument and there is a lot of truth in it. Zeppelin have a history of taking themselves way too seriously so I don't imagine that they would be too willing to work with producers on this one. Unless there were Executive Producer credits involved, of course.

This is a quick, easy read and it's a helluva ride. It's so compelling that I'm considering robbing the Dave Matthews Band later this summer.

Hey buddy!

Welcome to my new blog. Yes, another opinionated jerk with a blog. If I had a nickel.

Hopefully you like what I have to say. If you don't, well, I'm not surprised. You were never easy to please. I'm not even sure why you are here. All my life I've tried to entertain you and you always opened up your cloud of darkness and rained down on top of me. Why would now be any different? You can't just be happy for me, can you? You can't say, "Hey man, nice blog!" No, you have to come here and snub your nose at me. Scoff if you will but I don't see you doing anything productive. Armchair critic, you are. Instead of speaking up and making your voice known, you just throw your hands up and scoff. Well, I've got news for you, sir, at least three people are going to read this blog regularly and there's a good chance they might like it. That's more that can be said for you, negative Nancy. You sicken me.

Anyway, thanks for reading!