is jacko wacko?
July 8, 2002
Well, if the world needed further proof that Michael Jackson is losing what's left of his marbles, he seems determined to give it to them in spades.
Michael Jackson criticizes treatment of minority artists: Multiplatinum singer Michael Jackson, already feuding with his record company, charged Saturday that the recording industry was a racist conspiracy that turns profits at the expense of performers -- particularly minority artists.
Not that he's wrong, necessarily ... but how on earth can he, of all people, make that particular argument? (And no, I'm not talking about his complexion; I assume, until proven differently, that it truly is vitiligo, since I've seen its effects firsthand.) Surely he benefited massively from his contracts; by the time anyone was in a position to even think of taking advantage, he was such a thoroughly established performer that they couldn't get away with it. (The comment about Mottola is simply vicious hearsay without an actual quote and witnesses -- especially considering as the man was married to Mariah Carey, for heaven's sake.)
Jackson made Exeter FC director: Michael Jackson has been made an honorary director of Exeter City football club, his friend and co-director Uri Geller said on Wednesday. The singer visited the third division club during a trip to south west England last month, hosted by psychic celebrity Geller. "When I asked him what does he know about football he said 'absolutely nothing but I love Exeter City,'" said Geller.
Um ... Yeah. OK. Whatever. Chalk it up to World Cup fever boiling over, or some such. And, after all, it's not as if he quite did anything. Quite.
Michael Jackson buys country library: The King of Pop is moonwalking all over Nashville. Pop superstar Michael Jackson and his partners at Sony Music Entertainment have agreed to buy the legendary country music publisher Acuff-Rose, whose 55,000-song library includes works by Hank Williams, Roy Orbison and the Everly Brothers, the seller, Gaylord Entertainment Co., said yesterday.
OK, work with me here: the man is calling the people at Sony Music some quite nasty names in public. He's accusing them of cheating him and of not promoting his entirely vincible Invincible. He's most particularly accusing them of making his album do badly so that they could press him into selling the rights to the rest of the Beatles catalog. He is in fact LEAVING Sony. Therefore, he goes and buys another music publishing company with Sony Music as his partners.
Um ... what? I mean ... WHAT?
Quite apart from that, the Great Gloved One is reportedly some $150-200 million in debt ... to Sony. (What vaguely sane person buys a million dollar watch?) What in heaven's name is the man doing buying a tissue, let alone a company? What, precisely, is he buying it with? More credit to Sony?
If nothing else, the way he handles his money would indicate that he thinks of money in a very different way from even most unnecessarily rich people.
I don't see how one can escape the conclusion -- if one hadn't reached it before -- that the Great Gloved One may no longer be All There.
Posted by iain at 12:34 AM | Comments (3)