Michael Jackson is finally interred

Clifton Davis

Michael Jackson is finally interred
September 3, 2009 11:05 pm

Michael Jackson was finally interred in a crypt in Forest Lawn Memorial-Park in Glendale shortly before 10 tonight -- exactly 10 weeks after he was found dead. The outdoor service, which was scheduled for sunset but crept into the night, was attended by about 200 family members and close friends.

Jackson’s five brothers, who served as pallbearers, filed past a portrait of a smiling Michael as they arrived at the service. A bespectacled Paris, the singer's young daughter, wearing a dark dress and her long hair pulled back in a ponytail, watched soberly.

Jackson’s three children placed a crown on their father’s coffin, a nod to the King of Pop, as the service began. Gladys Knight sang the gospel hymn “His Eye is on the Sparrow,” and songwriter Clifton Davis crooned a song that he wrote for the Jackson 5 that became one of their signature tunes -- “Never Can Say Goodbye.”

The guests gathered in a tree-lined clearing near the Great Mausoleum where Jackson was interred. A stage was adorned with white lilies, white roses and green topiaries.

Among the mourners were many of the touchstones of his life: music producer Quincy Jones, Motown Records founder Berry Gordy and music executive Suzanne de Passe.

Also attending were Elizabeth Taylor; former child star Macaulay Culkin; lawyer Thomas A. Mesereau Jr., who successfully defended Jackson from child molestation charges; and choreographer-director Kenny Ortega, who was working on Jackson’s planned London shows. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Al Sharpton, former child actor Corey Feldman, Lisa Marie Presley -- Jackson’s former wife -- Marlon Brando’s son Miko and comic Chris Tucker were among the guests.

-- Chris Lee and Carla Hall


More in: Michael Jackson, Music

Source: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/09/jackson-finally-interred.html

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Spike Lee Celebrates Michael Jackson's Birthday

August 29, 2009

Saturday would have been Michael Jackson's 51st birthday. After weeks spent mourning the loss of the King of Pop, it's time to celebrate his life. If you're in New York, you should head to Prospect Park where filmmaker Spike Lee is throwing his childhood idol a birthday party — Brooklyn style. Host Scott Simon talks with the filmmaker about his birthday bash for the pop star.

Audio for this story from Weekend Edition Saturday will be available at approx. 12:00 p.m. ET

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Source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112363663#

Podcast of this interview can be heard at link above after 12 P.M.

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Trip to Jackson’s funeral spurs funding questions

Leading The News

Trip to Jackson’s funeral spurs funding questions
By Susan Crabtree
Posted: 07/27/09 07:44 PM [ET]
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee’s (D-Texas) cross-country trip to Los Angeles for Michael Jackson’s funeral has come under scrutiny.

Jackson Lee, the only member to attend the King of Pop’s star-studded funeral in early June, hasn’t said whether she used taxpayer funds provided to her for office expenses to pay for the trip.

Lawmakers can use such funds for official business, but it’s not clear Jackson Lee was acting in an official capacity.

At the funeral, Jackson Lee delivered a framed copy of a resolution honoring Jackson as a “world humanitarian.” But that resolution caused consternation among House Democratic leaders after Jackson Lee promised during her eulogy to Jackson at the Staples Center in Los Angeles to have it debated on the House floor

Several e-mail inquiries to Jackson Lee Chief of Staff Leon Buck were not returned Thursday and Friday, and Buck’s voice mail was full on both days.

In response to a question about how she paid for the trip, Jackson Lee over the weekend told KPRC, a Houston TV station, that she used “resources that I have.”

“Well, that, those resources are resources that I have and therefore they are in a way that doesn’t interfere with anything that has to do with serving as a member of Congress,” she said.

Asked whether she used public or private funds, she repeated that she used “resources that I had.”

Jackson Lee has also refused to answer questions about how she paid for a 2008 trip, which involved several members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), to the island of St. Martin. That trip is under investigation by the House ethics committee, which is looking into whether corporate sponsors funded it.

When KPRC asked for a detailed accounting, including receipts, of the trip to Michael Jackson’s funeral, Jackson Lee’s office cited rules exempting members of Congress from Texas open-records laws and federal Freedom of Information Act requests.

According to the Member’s Handbook, a guide published by the Committee on House Administration, lawmakers may use office funds, known as Members’ Representational Allowances (MRA), for “official travel” to conduct “representational” duties. They may not, however, use the MRA for “personal, political, or committee purposes.”

House Administration Committee spokesman Kyle Anderson said no other member has used office funds to pay for travel to a celebrity’s funeral.

“To date, MRA-paid travel to funerals has been limited to funerals of sitting members of Congress who die in office, occasionally recently retired members of the House, and former presidents,” he said in an e-mailed statement.

Jackson Lee’s resolution honoring Jackson did not have the blessing of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who nixed the idea of passing it after Republicans raised questions about the molestation charges that the pop star faced during his career. Democrats privately griped that the resolution was distracting attention from such critical priorities as healthcare and climate change legislation.

Jackson was acquitted in 2005 of charges that he molested a 13-year-old boy. Those allegations, and his admission that children slept in his bed, led some members of Congress to distance themselves from any attempt to formally honor the entertainer.

Jackson Lee has also refused to answer questions about the 2008 St. Martin trip. A similar CBC trip took place in 2007.

When The Hill first queried Jackson Lee’s office about the St. Martin trip, Buck said she had paid for it with personal funds. When asked for proof of those payments, Buck did not respond to calls and e-mails.

In a brief interview, Jackson Lee told The Hill that she would not discuss any matter that is under ethics committee review.

CBC members have complained about the ethics panel’s investigation into the Caribbean trip and have argued that their travel is being singled out. They say other lawmakers have gone on similar trips that skirted House rules, though the CBC members haven’t identified those trips.

In its semiannual report released a week and a half ago, the ethics committee said it is reviewing its travel rules.

“The Committee is in the process of reviewing its travel regulations,” the ethics panel wrote. “Exercising its oversight jurisdiction, the Committee, with the benefit of two years’ experience implementing the House’s travel rules, expects to revise the travel regulations in the near future.”

The stricter travel rules put in place in 2007 after Democrats regained the majority were intended to prevent trips like the now-infamous golf junkets to London and Scotland that came to light during the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

One of the main charges in the Caribbean travel allegations is that corporate sponsors directly or indirectly paid for a trip members listed as being funded by a nonprofit foundation on the required travel disclosure forms.

A foundation or nonprofit can pay for a trip lasting longer than two days under the new ethics rules, as long as corporations do not pay for any part of it or do not “earmark” funds intended for the trip. Some House staffers argue that the use of the word “earmark” is overly broad and confusing and needs to be redefined.

Source: http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/trip-to-jacksons-funeral-spurs-funding-questions-2009-07-27.html

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Doctor: Michael Jackson Was an Addict

July 9, 2009

Long-Term Dermatologist Says Jackson Battled Addiction, Used Anesthetic To Sleep; Dodges Paternity Question

CBS) A long-time dermatologist and friend of Michael Jackson told CNN's Larry King that the singer battled drug addiction, and that he advised him it was "absolutely insane" to use Diprivan, an anesthetic as a sleep aid.

"Michael at one time had an addiction," Dr. Arnold Klein told King. "He went to England and withdrew from that addiction in a secure setting where he went off drugs all together."

Klein said that he knew that while Jackson was on tour in Germany, he was using Diprivan, with the help of an anesthesiologist, to go to sleep at night.

"I told him he was absolutely insane," Klein said. "This isn't a drug you can repeatedly take."

When King asked Klein how he thinks Jackson obtained the anesthetic, Klein replied, "The rich and famous can buy anything they want to buy."

Klein saw Jackson the Monday before he died, and said that the King of Pop was dancing in his office.

"He was in very good physical condition," Klein said. "He was mentally aware when we saw him and in a very good mood."

The dermatologist was helping Jackson "rebuild his face" before his fall tour.

"He had severe acne scarring and scarring from a lot of the cosmetic surgery," Klein said. "He looked much more normal … the way he looked at his face, he wanted it to be absolutely perfect."

King asked why Jackson, as an attractive young man, wanted to have so much plastic surgery.

"I don't know why he started," Klein said. "Family members had made fun of the size of his nose. He was very sensitive to that."

King asked Klein if he was the sperm donor for Jackson's three children. Klein said that he has donated sperm to a sperm bank in the past, but, "to the best of my knowledge I'm not the father."

"Here's the most important thing: Michael loved those children as a father … I'm not going to answer that the way you want. The most important is who the father is, who the children want their father to be … how he loved them and they loved him."


Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/09/entertainment/main5145776.shtml?tag=pop

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House speaker Nancy Pelosi halts resolution honoring Michael Jackson to avoid controversy

July 9, 12:37 PM

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi shot down Texas congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee's resolution to honor Michael Jackson as a humanitarian because it would "open up contrary views" that would defeat its purpose, according to a CBS News report.

Many Democrats were concerned about the resolution because there already has been controversy surrounding Michael Jackson in the House of Representatives. Republican Peter King of New York made headlines with his YouTube video calling MIchael Jackson a "low-life," "pervert" and "pedophile." Democrat John Yarmuth of Kentucky walked out of the House chamber when the Congressional Black Caucus called for a moment of silence. He said it left him "nauseated."

The Speaker, whose job to maintain decorum and avoid unnecessary controversy in the House of Representatives, said House members could praise Jackson's life and work without a resolution:

"What I have said to my colleagues over the years, and certainly as leader and
as speaker, is that there's an opportunity on the floor of the House to express
their sympathy or their praise any time that they wish. ...

A resolution, I think, would open up contrary views that are not necessary at
this time to be expressed in association with a resolution whose purpose is
quite different."

In other words, it's great to honor Michael Jackson as a humanitarian, but we don't all have to agree on it. Save the debate for more pressing issues, like health care reform.

Source: http://www.examiner.com/x-264-Celebrity-News-Examiner~y2009m7d9-House-speaker-Nancy-Pelosi-halts-resolution-to-honor-Michael-Jackson-to-avoid-controversy

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Fans mourn Rep. Lee's rambling speech at Michael's memorial

Fans mourn Rep. Lee's rambling speech at Michael's memorial

By: Jeff Dufour and Kiki Ryan
Washington Examiner
07/07/09 6:25 PM EDT

After his comments disparaging Michael Jackson, fans of the “King of Pop” are looking to silence Rep. Pete King, R-N.Y. But the same seems to be true of those praising him, as Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee’s dedication at Jackson's memorial service Tuesday apparently showed.

The Houston Democrat appeared in Los Angeles on Tuesday to present the Jackson family HR 600 — a bill she and Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif., introduced to honor the singer’s contribution to the arts and humanitarian efforts. Problem was, she treated the stage in the Staples Center as she would the House floor.

She took up more time speaking than others there who knew the singer more personally, speaking minutes longer than Al Sharpton, Queen Latifah, Magic Johnson and Brooke Shields.

In fact, a well-placed source at the service told Yeas & Nays that the teleprompter flashed to her, “Please end your comments,” and said everyone was “groaning” over how long it went.

“Even after everyone applauded the family following the dedication, she still continued talking,” our spy said.

The framed bill she presented to the family in itself is quite rambling as well, containing 44 “whereas” clauses.

That's not to say that she was there randomly. According to her press secretary, Lee met Jackson in 2004 and maintained relationships with the family. Jermaine Jackson personally requested that she attend the service.

I guess you can take the congresswoman out of Washington, but not the Washington way of self-promotion out of the congresswoman.


Source: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/blogs/yeas-and-nays/Lee-at-Jackson-memorial-service-or-floor-of-House-50164132.html

(Related excerpt)

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee
It might be a stretch to say that the remarks from Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas were too great an overlap between church and state. However, the flow, tone and tenor of the memorial was not one where it was appropriate to announce intentions to introduce a House resolution, regardless of its intention and connection to Jackson.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31803536/ns/entertainment-gossip/


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VLQq_EUdVA<> width="425" height="344">


Note: Red Bolds and Highlights added for emphasis by blogman.
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Jackson memorial: both affirmation and denial

Gabriel Bouys / AFP / EPA

(From left) Janet Jackson, Paris Katherine Jackson, LaToya Jackson, Jermaine Jackson and Prince Michael Jackson during the public memorial service for Michael Jackson held at Staples Center.


With no practical reason for so much coverage, we see the power of pop culture that a broadcaster ignores at its own peril. Death, for a moment, wipes a slate clean.

By ROBERT LLOYD, Television Critic
July 8, 2009

The protracted departure of Michael Jackson from this world formally ended Tuesday morning with a private funeral at Forest Lawn and a public memorial at Staples Center. The first event was seen from afar, on television and so by the world, primarily as a sequence of arriving and departing black cars. The latter was planned from the start as a television event and carried live by all the major broadcast and cable news networks. The stars of the evening news were all on site, blinking in the sun outside the very arena where Jackson had been rehearsing his upcoming return to the stage.

Like the gold-plated casket in which he was laid to rest, and which sat before the stage at Staples Center, the day provided the brighter coda to the darker days that preceded it. The memorial service, often referred to by reporters or commentators as a "show," seemed staged as if in partial recompense -- to Jackson himself, even more than his audience -- for the 50 London shows he'll never play. As does most any memorial service, it mixed mourning with celebration, laughter with tears. But in the way that it was universally reported on, from before its beginning until after its end, it also seemed a kind of apology for prior doubting or nasty press. Death, for a moment, wipes a slate clean.

You can say that the world has been divided in recent days into people who wondered what the fuss was about and people offended by the thought that anyone would wonder what the fuss was about. Practically speaking, there was no call for that much coverage -- one network's was very much like another's, and once the memorial itself began, the feed was identical. But there is a power to pop culture that a broadcaster ignores at its own peril, and once one network had signed on for the full run, it was inevitable that others would. In the end, everyone came.

"Circus" was a word often used in expectation of the event. You had to wonder, said Shepard Smith of Fox News Channel, "what sort of crazy something-or-other is going to happen, because Michael Jackson is in the house, and when Michael Jackson is in the house, crazy things happen." But pandemonium never erupted, and to the extent that a circus atmosphere reigned, it was one created and embodied by the media themselves.

"It's got to be chilling for the family to have 20 helicopters overhead as you're trying to mourn the passing of a relative," KTLA's Asha Blake said as her station filmed the mourners from a helicopter.

Overall, the early-morning coverage was tedious, trivial and trivializing, the natural result of talking heads required to keep talking when there is nothing much happening and little idea of what's about to. ("And up next," said Meredith Vieira on NBC's "Today," "a visit with the King of Pop's onetime best friend -- Bubbles the chimp.")

The tone improved once the memorial began. Perhaps because of the speed with which it was assembled, it was surprisingly straightforward -- in its dignified modesty as far as could be imagined from the experience of a Michael Jackson concert, or of the sort of tribute that a television network might have assembled. The songs, performed by artists including Mariah Carey, Stevie Wonder, Usher, Jennifer Hudson and Lionel Richie, embraced the gospel and inspirational.

And together with testimonials from Queen Latifah, Magic Johnson (he "made me a better point guard"), Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas), the Rev. Al Sharpton and others, they created a story of roots and continuity that argued for Jackson -- his pale alien mien and crossover appeal notwithstanding -- as a fundamentally black artist and a specifically black American role model.

Every memorial is both an affirmation and a denial; we are all darker than the words that will attend our passing. Far from the good being interred with his bones, Jackson's better self was sprinkled over the stage and to the watching world like fairy dust from Neverland.

Even as childhood friend Brooke Shields described him in a way more than one observer later called "humanizing," his memory was garlanded with superlatives. He was pictured as saintly, not just in his charitable good works and love for the world, but in his public martyrdom.

"We will never understand what he endured," said brother Marlon, as the Jackson family, including Michael's 11-year-old daughter, Paris, took the stage at the memorial's end, "not being able to walk across a street without a crowd gathering around him, being judged, ridiculed."

But for Motown founder Berry Gordy's allusion to "some bad times and maybe some questionable decisions on his part," the judgment here was all reflected outward. Addressing himself to the Jackson children in the front row, Sharpton said, "There wasn't nothing strange about your daddy. It was strange what he had to deal with."

There were, of course, many strange things about Michael Jackson; he was only human.

robert.lloyd@latimes.com

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Source: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-jacksontv8-2009jul08,0,3762196.story

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