The Jacksons
A Dynasty of Dysfunction
Thy Name Is Mine
The only weight the name “Jackson” has to it comes from the
electricity of Michael’s legacy. Janet Jackson’s entire career is
predicated on the novelty of her being a female (and more
reality-based) Michael Jackson, but Janet can’t sing any better than
any average sister at your church or mine. She has, over time, honed
herself into a very good performer, but having Janet sit on a bar
stool next to someone like Beyoncé would just embarrass her. Yu
could duct tape Beyoncé to a chair and she’d still clean the floor
with Janet Jackson and all of Jackson’s mimes and dancers. I give
credit to Janet for either having a better ear for material than her
brothers, for just being smarter than her brothers, or both. Her
career is now, and has been for several decades, entirely her own,
separate and apart from that of her famous brother. So much so that,
a generation of music fans regards Michael as “Janet’s older
brother,” as Michael’s own musical taste remained sadly juvenile and
out of sync with reality, while Janet tended to innovate, push
limits and trailblaze into experimental adult-oriented material
(most notably with the largely underappreciated Velvet Rope, a
virtual cornucopia of music styles with brilliant writing by Jackson
and her then-husband Rene Elizondo, and tour de force career
highlight production from Jam & Lewis and others).
The latest Jackson Family Coffin Ride involves what is an obvious
attempt to circumvent Michael’s will, which reportedly provides
support only for Mother and his children, and go after a big wad of
cash on their own. Katherine has filed a reported $40 billion
wrongful death lawsuit against AEG, the production company
developing This Is It, a series of 50 concerts at London’s O2
stadium Michael was prepping for when he died. The claim is that AEG
failed to properly investigate and supervise Dr. Conrad Murray, the
nutty lunatic physician Michael forced on AEG and demanded they pay
$100,000 per month to. Murray was widely reported to be entirely
Michael’s idea and entirely at his insistence, AEG offering all
manner of proper medical coverage and supervision to the superstar.
The common speculation is Michael wanted a doctor he could control,
a doc who would write scrips for whatever Michael wanted. Murray
was, in no way, shape, or form, AEG’s idea, which makes me believe
the Jackson lawsuit is completely without merit and just the latest
scheme to refill their ever-dwindling coffers.
Collateral Damage: 15-year old Paris Jackson attempts suicide.
Embracing Reality
I presume it would be nothing short of a great horror for Jermaine
and the brothers to simply buy a regular house, say, for under a
million dollars, and call it a day. Their primary reason for
embarrassing themselves, their mother, and the dignity of their
family name by launching one money-grubbing scheme after another, is
that these men refuse to embrace the reality that (A) they have no
talent and (B) they have no career prospects and, therefore, (C)
they are no longer rich and haven’t been rich for decades. They have
been leeching off of Katherine Jackson’s support, support that could
and likely would have been tens of millions of dollars less had not
Michael intrinsically understood his mother’s weakness for her
children. But these are not children. These are fully-grown human
beings who should no longer be looking to Mother to support them.
Whatever else they want to call it, this is certainly not love. They
are exploiting their mother as a proxy for exploiting Michael, whom
the brothers likely feel owes them a living because they once sang
back-up for him. Truthfully, on many of their hit records, the
background vocals were provided by others, the boys sort of singing
back-up on stage while professional groups like The Waters stood in
the shadows with the band filling out the harmonies.
The truth is, these guys can’t sing. They can’t write decent songs,
With the exception of Marlon, they can’t dance. Tito Jackson has had
over four decades to learn how to play guitar, and he still plays
like a high school kid, which is actually an insult to high school
kids. Getting a job answering phones or stocking boxes is surely out
of the question, and I’ll assume the brothers’ cut of the Jackson
record royalties isn’t enough to sustain their lavish lifestyle. The
lawsuit against AEG is just absurd, but the strategy likely is to
hope for a multi-hundred-million-dollar settlement to supplement
Katherine’s endowment so the boys can continue living the high life
until they run out of cash and have to think up some other way to
ride their brother’s coffin.
By any reasonable standard, these people come across as idiots.
Mean-spirited, greedy, selfish. My admiration for Katherine Jackson
is greatly undermined by the behavior of her children, none of whom
seem to demonstrate anything remotely mirroring the kindness (if not
naiveté) of their megastar brother. The toxicity of the Jackson
family environment produced a suicide attempt from Jackson’s
“daughter,” Paris two weeks ago, allegedly the result of her
discovering she and brother Prince Michael are not full siblings but
rather the product of mother Debbie Rowe's artificial insemination
by two different men. Prince Michael II, known as “Blanket,” was
likewise a product of artificial insemination between a surrogate
mother and unknown father and is not a blood relation to either
Paris or Prince (or, for that matter, Michael Jackson who, from all
evidence, desire to have white children). Neither of the three
children resemble Jackson in any way.
Christopher J. Priest
16 June 2013
editor@praisenet.org
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