Michael Jackson R.I.P.
Those of us who were paying attention to his rough appearance in recent months had a sense that this day might come. When it did it was still a major shock. A 20′th century music and entertainment icon who’s work crossed over generations and music formats has passed away. (That seems like such an understatement.) The exact circumstances of his death are still murky, but we know that many medications were involved. And as of this writing, the role of his personal physician is still in question.
Many remember when he first came on the musical scene in 1969 with his brothers: the Jackson 5, after being discovered by Diana Ross. The early hits were billed as having benn written by “The Corporation.” A group of four people including Berry Gordy. After the demise of Motown’s famous songwriting team of Holland-Dozier-Holland, the Jackson 5 was a vehicle for Motown Records to reach a younger generation…and they did. From “I Want You Back,” to “ABC,” “I’ll Be There,” and Michael Jackson’s solo record: “Ben” from the (rat boy) horror movie of the same name. They finished their run at Motown with “Dancing Machine.” When they left Motown, they couldn’t take the name: Jackson 5 with them. Berry Gordy couldn’t prevent them from using their family name, so when they started recording on the Epic records label, they did so, simply as “The Jacksons.”
In 1978, the Jacksons released the album: “Destiny,” which yeilded the hits: Shake Your Body Down To The Ground,” and the slightly lesser known “Blame It On The Boogie.” (Remixes of both have recently been issued for the first time on cd.) In 1979, the former was a song that guaranteed a full nightclub dancefloor. Then in the summer of the same year came the crash of the whole disco movement. You couldn’t have told that from Michael Jackson’s first solo collaboration with Quincy Jones: “Odd The Wall.” It was a huge seller at the time. Quincy Jones always liked to work with talent that he felt was “underutilized.” After working with Jackson in “The Wiz,” that was what he felt about the future “King Of Pop.” The alliance produced 3 multi-million selling albums. Most feel “Thriller” was the artist’s pinacle. If you were going to nightclubs during those days (or working in them) you know that if a Michael Jackson song was on the soundsystem or the video was on the screen that the crowd was on its feet.
Other artists at the time like Prince were leading the way in terms of musical innovation. I always thought that Prince and Rick James were the late 70’s early 80’s version of Sly & The Family Stone. In the late 60’s Sly and Larry Graham created funk music by using a rock lead guitar on the high end and an r&b funk base (and bass) on the bottom end. Rick James picked up on the same idea with a generous use of horns on the high end. Prince mostly employed keyboard on the high end.
Michael Jackson while not leading the way in these trends knew as an artist how to read the writing on the wall. Hence the songs on “Thriller” that were more rock flavored than anything from “Off The Wall.” He used Eddie Van Halen to lay down a lead guitar solo on “Beat It.” He would visit the same playbook in 1987 by employing Steve Stevens: lead guitar player for Billy Idol on “Dirty Diana,” and Slash from Guns & Roses to do a solo on “Black Or White from the “Dangerous” album in 1991.
As the 80’s wore on Michael’s eccentricities came more in focus, and he didn’t go far out of his way to hide them. But he did take a swipe at critics in the 1987 song: “Leave Me Alone,” featuring a music video that left no doubt as to how he felt about all the media scrutiny of his life and his friendships. (For instance: Elizabeth Taylor.) “Leave Me Alone” was included at the time as a bonus cut on the cd, (not the vinyl) edition of: “Bad.”
But as an artist he alwasy seemed to have his finger on the pulse of what were the most popular trends in music and how to utilize that knowledge to create another hit record. In 1991, instead of working with Quincy Jones, he chose as his producer: Teddy Riley, who produced the r&b group: Guy, and would later produce Blackstreet. In the ealry 90’s it seemed as if Jackon had done it again; Reinvented himself and made millions selling millions of albums (and now cd’s).
Then came the now infamous acusations of child abuse. One of which nearly derailed Jackson’s career altogether. He did have a mild comeback in the mid 90’s but it was obvious that the King Of Pop “machine” was wearing down. He had permanently alienated one time friend: Paul McCartney by outbidding him to own the rights to the Beatles’ music catalog, but he was still praised as having made a business savvy decision. But his personal proclivities were taking center stage and he was doing nothing to hide it. In an ABC interview with Martin Bashir, he sat threw a good part of it holding hands with a young boy, and indicated that he thought nothing wrong with sharing his bed with children. Bashir went on to question Jackson about the differences in his appearance and Jackson said he’d only had two surgeries on his face. By 2003, such a claim was visibly false.
Afterward, Jackson’s brief appearances in public only convinced observers that this was not a healthy person. The baby dangling incident in Berlin convinced many a mother, (and a few attorneys) that Jackson should not be responsible for the care of a child under any circumstances. That a gifted entertainer such as Michael Jackson could be as astute as he was about his craft, but run off the rails this way in his personal life is a tragedy. And it didn’t happen in a vacuum. He was the main breadwinner of his family practically from the age of 10. (Jermaine had been the original choice for lead singer but it ended up beaing Michael.) His father was abusive. Between his father’s amoral behavior and his mother’s devotion to the Jehovah’s Witness doctrines, suffice it to say the child was getting very mixed signals growing up. Not being a psychiatrist I won’t indulge the desire at making a layman’s diagnosis. As an outside observer who grew up watching the career of this individual, and seeing it come to an end this way, only one word comes to mind…..Sad.
A Vigorous Debate
That’s how President Obama described what’s going on since the Iranian election appears to have been stolen by Achmadinejad. Supporters of his opponent, Mousavi, have taken to the streets in numbers we wouldn’t even be seeing if not for Twitter and cell phone cameras. Journalists are being jailed and intimidated but citizen journalists don’t seem to scare easily. With Twitter, it’s just hard to clamp down the flow of information coming out of the country. Upon witnessing the mayhem in the streets, including police beating students, President Obama and his press secretary talk about a “vigorous debate” going on in Iran. If nothing else, our President has an unsurpassed gift in the art of understatement. The moral relativism that comes through in his statements and speeches is a little disturbing considering the fact that America, imperfect as it is, doesn’t have women stoned for the “crime” of being raped. Shohreh Aghdashloo made an appearance on Bill O’Reilly to discuss the cause of the Iranian people, and particularly Iranian women. (She portrayed Dina Araz on Season 4 of “24.” She now appears in the movie: “The Stoning Of Soroya M. opposite Jim Caveizel) So President Obama is part right. There is a vigorous debate about the conditions and politics of Iran…in the United States. People in Iran who are standing up to their thug run system of government do so risking life and limb. But President Obama is ready to make an accomodation no matter who comes out on top. On last night’s Hannity, Mark Levin stated that is Obama were President in the 80’s instead of Ronald Reagan, the Soviet Union would still be in existence, the Berlin Wall would still be there, and millions of people would still be living in slavery behind the iron curtain. Now there’s no laboratory in which we could prove this, but does anyone realistically think that if President Obama was in power that Lech Walesa and Solidarity would’ve been reaasured by the same silly language he’s using with regard to Iran? ( You know the thug dictators are wrong to use so much force but you people agitating for more freedoms aren’t perfect either!) If President Obama wants to stand any electoral chance in 2012, he’d better take a Ronald Reagan course called “Peace Through Strength.” (Hint hint, Mr. President. Voting present just won’t work anymore.)
If you love socialized medicine, you’ll love this. With the full court press President Obama’s engaging in to push government run health care, the vigorous debate goes on even though the ABC network is being complicit in shutting out any criticism from the other side. (ABC wouldn’t even accept money from the GOP for ad time to have any contrary or alrernative points of view expressed. (Why rain on the President’s parade?) But the debate rages on in spite of the attempt to shut it down. Rush Limbaugh routinely refers to the major networks and their cable subsidiaries as the “state run media.” Their most recent actions make that a tough charge to refute.
Mr. Newt provides the GOP with needed ammunition. President Obama believes that winning the Presidency gives him the mandate to push through any program he wants. Left wing blogs constantly throw their percentages in our faces when we dare to question the President who Evan Thomas refers to as being “kind of like God out there.” But according to Gallup: 21% of the population are self described liberals. 40% are self described conservatives. According to Former Speaker Gingrich we need to lower the capital gains tax to what it is in China: Zero. And lower the corporate tax rate from 35% to 12.5% matching the rate of corporate taxes in Ireland. Contrary to claims of liberal critics, this would not lead to long term deficits because it would bring in foreign investment, and make it cheaper and easier to create more jobs in this country thus increasing the tax base.
And so the vigorous debate goes on. The GOP has had a problem getting the majority of conservatives on board because of the big spending under George W. Bush, but if they get back to core principles they can get them back in time for 2012, possibly in time for 2010. The President is handing them a golden opportunity on a silver platter.
GOP Will Win 2010 If They Want To
If nothing else convinces me of that, this past week’s news cycle will. Leaders in the GOP are still slightly skittish about taking on the left wing establishment but they’re showing slightly less fear about poll numbers and taking President Obama head on. It’s not as if the President’s making it difficult. With the announcement that enemy combatants will be read Miranda rights when captured, a plan to do another 180 and actually release the photos of alleged detainee abuse, it’s hard to come to the conclusion that President Obama is an even weaker foreign policy President than one Jimmy Carter. The former President presented a picture of weakness before our enemies. He just wasn’t literally handing them weapons to use against us. The detainee photos will be a huge propaganda weapon and will literally endanger our soldiers to a greater degree than they already are. Islamic extremists are now justified in their jihad. Don’t believe it? Listen to President Obama’s speech in Cairo, at Normandy, or anywhere for that matter.
His stewardship of the economy can’t be said to be any better. Even my friends and friendly aquaintances who are die hard liberals are having a tougher time saying that George Bush left things even worse than they thought. I take that back. They still say it almost reflexively. They just have a harder time sounding like they still believe it. With the strong armed nationalization of auto companies pushed through by the White House, any pretense that President Obama doesn’t want to run car companies seems not only disingenuous but downright silly. A temporary hold was put on the deal to sell Chrysler to Fiat, the deal in which the bondholders got the shaft, but the UAW got most of the benefits. When you find out this hold order was put in place by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, you realize that even some of the most liberal of liberals find President Obama’s extra-constitutional takeover of the private sector troubling.
If you want to see a platform laid out for the GOP in 2010 just read Ted Nugent’s latest article on Human Events: “The Party of Know, not No” http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=3229 He completely nukes the left’s article of faith that the GOP are just obstructionists and sets forth to explain that they made well informed decisions to oppose things based on both knowledge and morals. Senate and House Republican leaders, are you paying attention?
The so-called intramural fight within the GOP. For the past weeks, the left wing media has tried to paint the GOP into a corner, a “Heads we (the left) win, tails you (conservatives) lose scenario. Thay started this once Sonia Sotomayor was nominated to the Supreme Court. The GOP was warned in the strongest possible terms not to be too critical of her or Hispanic voters would leave the GOP. Bush got slightly less than 40% of the Hispanic vote in 2004. That would seem to indicate the Republican party’s bleak future with that voting block mighty be slightly exagerated. It was also recently relearned that Democrats weren’t exactly nice to Miguel Estrada when George W. Bush nominated for a spot on the D.C. Court Of Appeals. Their reason? He was Hispanic and only they (the Dems) should get to do that. It’s also become something of the 11′th commandment when interviewing conservatives that “Thou shalt castigate and disavow Rush Limbaugh to even be considered for membership in polite society.” Rush often uses satire to make his point about a liberal whom he’s criticizing. The left is not used to this being applied to them. Ann Coulter has used a similar rhetorical tactic. Is every bit of satire either Rush or Ann uses going to be funny? No. But lately both of them have been funnier than David Lettermen who viciously attacked Sarah Palin and her daughter in a routine about the daughter getting “knocked up by A-Rod during the 7′th inning.” Or how about that gem from the top 10 list about Sarah working on her “slutty stewardess look.” The point is for GOP politicians: don’t take the bait. If someone tries to push you into disavowing (insert name of conservative commnetator here) don’t say yes. Just say what you believe. If you believe in cutting taxes across the board, and maintaining a strong defense against terrorism (as opposed to “man caused disasters”) you’re probably in good shape for November of 2010. The polls just don’t show it….yet.
