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1
The Hoax Mentioned In The Media / Belgium Newspaper Article
« on: January 09, 2011, 10:56:45 AM »
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This was on twitter. I am not certain about it's validity. Can anyone translate this? Lock this thread if it's been discussed or if it's just GARBAGE.


Thanks! ;)

2
Michael Jackson News / Oprah Visits Katherine
« on: October 09, 2010, 08:39:35 PM »
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Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- Oprah Winfrey's production team moved into Katherine Jackson's Encino, California, home Saturday to tape an interview with Michael Jackson's mother, a source inside the home said.
Winfrey was in the Jackson home to conduct the interview Saturday afternoon, according the source, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Katherine Jackson has not given any interviews since her son's death last year except for a paid interview for a documentary.
Winfrey's production company did not immediately respond to a CNN request for comment.

I don't know what to make or think about this one!

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Michael Jackson News / ABC Network - I Want You Back!
« on: September 12, 2010, 07:59:17 PM »
Nothing major... this is our "theme" song. ABC's week of premieres commercial features "I Want You Back". It's really cute!  They show the ladies of "Desperate Housewives", the cast of "Brothers and Sisters", etc. They are getting texts on their phones and little messages saying " I Want You Back".  Nothing that pertains to the hoax - but it's cute. And yes Michael...."We want you back!"

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Other Odd Things / The Things of Michael Jackson - Wizard of Oz again
« on: August 22, 2010, 10:38:22 PM »
Please delete if already posted.  This is an interesting article. Of all the things to show from this book - they show the box containing the Wizard of Oz Figurines....


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By Peter Goddard
Visual Arts
Special to the Star
As comeback artists go, Michael Jackson has them all beat.

Elvis Presley looked fantastic for his 1968 NBC TV special. Shortly thereafter, fab went to flab. Frank Sinatra was still alive — to a degree — for his various comeback efforts in the ’70s. But by then the end was near.

But Jackson — who died on June 25 of last year — is kicking into high gear again with his estate’s recent $250-million (U.S.) deal with Sony. A new album is due this fall, with new material and the promise of more releases to come.

The deeper process of re-evaluating Jackson’s genius continues, too, with Neverland Lost: A Portrait of Michael Jackson (Steidl, 96 pages, $45 U.S.) by Henry Leutwyler, a 48-year-old Swiss-born photographer living in New York.

Leutwyler’s Jackson “portrait” comes from a suite of 60 photographs showing the singer’s fetish objects, stage props and clothes, in some cases with collars showing sweat stains. Each object is framed as if to provide documentation of a rare species shipped to Jackson’s Neverland Ranch from some exotic place beyond ordinary imagination.

When not shooting the likes of Michelle Obama and Julia Roberts, Leutwyler is his own kind of investigative photographer, compiling individual celebrity profiles only from objects connected with his subjects, such as the gun used by Mark Chapman to kill John Lennon.

“My approach is a mixture of archeology and police investigation,” he says. “After unearthing something, the idea is to turn it around and look at it differently. There is always something behind something.

“Objects talk to you more than people do. When you photograph a model, so many people are involved you are not in 100 per cent control. But to photograph an object, a still life, you are responsible for all your actions. If I don’t understand it I have only myself to blame.”

The shots of the gloves are something else. Each is positioned with the thumb on the left, its fingers rising like four tinsel spires jutting out of some unimaginable new excess in Las Vegas architecture. The first is silver and studded with sparkly things. The next is gold, then there’s the amber one, then one that’s mostly mauve, then a number in a variety of blues, followed by one, with spangles, that looks like a claw.

The book’s visual strategy as executed by designers Ruba Abu-Nimah and Kevin Ley pumps up the wonder elicited by these objects, whether it’s the Capt’n Hook figurine, the jeweled key or the glittery sock. Each object seemingly floats out of a black background, as if coming from a dream.

Neverland Lost also suggests a sense of loss. While embracing show business, Jackson felt he could do no wrong. He was unprepared to acknowledge that his precious stuff, some 2,000 pieces in all, was about to be auctioned off last year along with the ranch. Eventually he fought to keep everything and won. The auction was halted only two months before his death. “Jacko Keeps His WEIRD Stuff,” screamed one headline.

“I am not a historian,” Leutwyler says. “I’ve never read Michael Jackson’s biography. But to me, the Neverland Ranch was the result of him not having a long-lasting childhood. It took him 15 years to build up the collection he had in Neverland. Then to see it all being sold! Ahh. I told my assistant that if I had seen everything I felt about my childhood go on the block, as he did, I would be suicidal.”

Leutwyler originally intended to shoot only one of Jackson’s white performance gloves for a magazine before they were auctioned off. But once he had got to the warehouse housing all the items — it’s shown in passing in Neverland Lost — the photographer was staggered by stories he felt were being told by the singer’s memorabilia.

Canadian-born photographer Robert Polidori, one of Leutwyler’s New York friends, phoned Gerhard Steidl on Leutwyler’s behalf. The publisher and Leutwyler quickly developed a mutual understanding of the book.

“When I eventually got longer access to the material, and had more time, I realized I wanted to tell a story,” says Leutwyler. “The sequence of the pictures tells the story.”

Actually there are two stories. One is Jackson as the little boy lost. The other is Jackson as an astute show-business insider with a penchant for self-indulgence and the high life. In Neverland Lost, their paths cross, which possibly account for the way book equally suggests a Victorian family album and a pricey give-away offered by a Las Vegas jeweler.

“You have to be respectful,” says Leutwyler. “Because after the thrill of touching the glove, a certain sadness set in. This sadness comes when you look at the book.

Neverland Lost: A Portrait of Michael Jackson is available at steidlville.com. Peter Goddard is a freelance writer. He can be reached at You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

5
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MEMPHIS -  To mark the 33rd anniversary of his reported death, Elvis went to Graceland and he brought Michael Jackson with him.

Thousands of fans will be visiting Graceland today to pay tribute to the late Elvis Presley, who supposedly died on this date in 1977.   WWN has learned that Elvis Presley, who is still alive, snuck into Graceland last night with Michael Jackson – also still alive.

Michael and Elvis had a lot to talk about.  They have been hiding together in an undisclosed European location ever since Michael Jackson’s reported death.  Elvis and Michael have teamed up for two reasons: 1) they are going to make an album together (to be released in 2011) and 2) they are on a mission to go after doctors that take advantage of music legends.   Both stars “died” because of abusive practices of doctors surrounding them.

Graceland Manor, which was purchased in 1957 by Elvis for around $90,000, is second to only the White House in terms of tourism. About 600,000 people come annually to see where Elvis called home.  Elvis, himself, makes the trip three times a year – for his birthday, the anniversary of his death and for the Memphis Blues Festival.

Today, the usual army of Elvis impersonators showed up at Graceland.  Elvis, reportedly, is not happy with these imitators and wants to work with the city, state and federal government to have them banned forever – a move which is supported by 85% of the population (the other 15% are Elvis impersonators).  Michael Jackson is joining with him, fearful that there will be a rash of Michael Jackson impersonators roaming the earth soon.

Former President George W Bush was part of the throngs of fans outside Graceland. “I loved Frank Sinatra.  He was always my favorite singer.”  When Bush was told that he was standing at Elvis Presley’s house, not Frank Sinatra’s, Bush replied, “Oh, I love ALL the Beatles. I’m just glad I made it here with all the traffic… mission accomplished.”

So, if you listen closely tonight, you will hear a duet by Michael Jackson and Elvis wafting in the air. They’ll be singing “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”

Though there have not been any recent Elvis (or MJ) sightings… they are here.  Always…

You gotta believe.

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Michael Jackson News / The Opus
« on: July 12, 2010, 03:18:37 PM »
I was just thinking about this again. The augmented reality card that was promised to us with the Opus never came. Over on Mj.com,member "Cali" has done a very thorough investigation and has asked the fans to file complaints. Isn't it odd that this piece which they promoted as the "Only of It's Kind" been omitted? It was something according to them that Mike wanted to be included in this book.

What are your thoughts on this and has anyone heard anything else about this?

7
Twitter ~ Verified Accounts / Chris Brown's Tweet 7/4
« on: July 05, 2010, 12:34:53 AM »
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What do you think about this one?

8
Other Odd Things / Barrack Seeking Redemption in Neverland
« on: July 03, 2010, 08:59:20 PM »
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A red bicycle with an ice cream cooler mounted in front is parked in the middle of an empty room in an uninhabited mansion in the Santa Ynez Valley, about 120 miles northwest of Los Angeles. On the back of the cooler, written in script, are the letters “MJJ.”

The bicycle, like the house and the 2,680 acres (1,085 hectares) it sits on, once belonged to Michael Jackson, the pop singer who died a year ago this month. It was a gift from actress Elizabeth Taylor, who celebrated her eighth marriage at Jackson’s Neverland Ranch in 1991.

Neverland is now controlled by private-equity firm Colony Capital LLC, whose chairman and founder, Thomas J. Barrack Jr., has a spread 5 miles (8 kilometers) away. Acquiring the ranch in 2008 by taking over a $23.5 million loan may seem like a tiny investment for Barrack, who oversees a $30 billion empire that includes a stake in Europe’s largest hotel company, buildings from New York to Beijing and a Las Vegas casino operator that filed for bankruptcy last year, Bloomberg Markets reports in its August issue. That he bought it suggests the 63-year-old billionaire, who got his start rummaging through the debris of the 1980s savings and loan crisis, may be getting back to his roots in distressed debt after gorging on leveraged buyouts.

“We’re always trying to find places that people haven’t gone before,” Barrack says of his first distressed-celebrity deal, sitting in Colony’s New York office on Madison Avenue, above Barneys department store, dressed in jeans and a crisp button-down shirt, his head cleanly shaven. “We’re going to fight, scratch and claw our way to every cent of capital that we can get back. We also know from history that the best funds come out of an abyss like this.”

‘Tough Emotionally’

Rising from the abyss is the biggest challenge facing Barrack and other private-equity managers who spent a record $1.6 trillion on buyouts from 2005 to 2007 before a credit market crash led to the worst financial crisis in 70 years. Now, firms need to persuade investors they have more to offer than wanton dealmaking, piles of debt and meager results.

Megafunds managing more than $4.5 billion were the worst performers of those tracked by London-based research firm Preqin for the 12 months ended in July 2009, with an average loss of 31 percent of their value. Colony Investors VIII LP, a $4 billion fund launched by Barrack in 2007, had paper losses of about 60 percent as of the first quarter.

“It’s tough emotionally,” says Barrack, whose firm has delivered an average annual return of 21 percent since its founding in 1991. “In 17 years, the investors have never experienced something like this.”

Distressed Celebrities

For Barrack, getting out of the hole involves going back to his playbook of pursuing unlikely deals, most of them involving buying or restructuring debt -- including that of celebrities. Earlier this year, he helped photographer Annie Leibovitz, who was facing the loss of four New York properties and the rights to her work, by refinancing a $24 million loan.

“It’s a small part of the business, but it’s interesting and lucrative because it’s complex,” Barrack says.

Lucrative would be a welcome development for Colony’s investors, who have poured $10.6 billion into the Santa Monica, California-based firm’s funds during the past decade, placing it among the top 10 private-equity real estate companies in the world, according to Preqin. Over that time, they’ve watched Colony pursue ever-larger, highly leveraged and ultimately unsustainable buyouts.

Station Casinos

Barrack’s biggest misstep was the $8.5 billion buyout in 2007 of Station Casinos Inc., which operates 18 casinos in Nevada and is the largest U.S. gaming company to go bankrupt. In New Jersey, the $2 billion Meadowlands Xanadu retail and entertainment complex Colony acquired in 2006 -- “Xana-don’t,” Barrack calls it -- sits empty and unfinished after one of Colony’s lenders, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., went bankrupt during construction.

“The question for private equity is, What do you want to be when you grow up?” says Barrack, who was raised in Culver City, California, the son of a Lebanese grocery store owner. “Are you making money from investing or managing assets? That’s the dilemma that everybody’s facing.”

It’s a predicament shared by a handful of elite managers, many of whom Barrack has known for decades.

Starwood Capital Group LLC -- headed by Barry Sternlicht, who competed with Barrack during the S&L crisis -- has raised new private-equity funds, which will allow it to earn more management fees and pursue buyouts.

TPG, Apollo

David Bonderman, who founded TPG Capital after working with Barrack in the 1980s buying assets of failed thrifts for Texas billionaire Robert Bass, is doing smaller deals while adding distressed-debt and credit funds.

Apollo Global Management LLC, which Leon Black started in 1990 after making his own fortune buying distressed debt, is following Blackstone Group LP and KKR & Co. into businesses such as capital markets as it prepares to tap equity markets through a public offering.

All of them are becoming what Colin Blaydon, director of the Center for Private Equity and Entrepreneurship at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business in Hanover, New Hampshire, calls “the new, broad-based asset managers.”

Barrack has chosen the opposite path, staying focused on investing and keeping Colony closely held. He says he has given up, at least for now, on the equity funds that drove the leveraged-buyout boom, postponing a planned multibillion-dollar fund in favor of raising a more modest distressed-debt pool and floating a real estate investment trust that has tapped public markets for $250 million.

Original Playbook

He’s also gone back to his original playbook with a familiar partner, the U.S. government, pursuing deals to buy loans with assistance from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which has $37 billion of assets seized from failed banks. He has already completed eight, including one in January in which Colony bought a 40 percent stake in a company set up with the FDIC to hold $1.02 billion of unpaid commercial real estate loans for 22 cents cash on the dollar.

Barrack’s choices reflect idiosyncrasies that have defined him personally and professionally. He says he got his work ethic from his father, who would come home for dinner and then go back to his store. His mother gave him a metaphor for his personality.

“My mom had this idea that you could either be a miner or a jeweler,” Barrack says. “A miner is going and digging one sort of thing, but a jeweler is collecting and harvesting all sorts of jewels.”

Saudi Arabia

Barrack, who went to Jesuit-run Loyola High School in Los Angeles and to the University of Southern California, where he earned a bachelor’s and a law degree, started harvesting jewels soon after.

His first job, working with Herbert Kalmbach, former President Richard Nixon’s personal attorney, led to an assignment in Saudi Arabia helping construction company Fluor Corp. negotiate a contract. He opted to stay for three years to advise two sons of the Saudi king. After a stint in President Ronald Reagan’s administration, he was recruited by Bass.

Barrack and Bonderman made so much money for Bass buying the assets of some of the more than 740 thrifts that failed during the S&L crisis, including those of Stockton, California- based American Savings Bank, that the Texan gave each of them a stake to get a private-equity firm off the ground.

Since founding Colony -- he named it after Malibu Colony, the beachfront community where he was living at the time -- Barrack has collected other gems, including the Chateau Lascombes vineyard in the Bordeaux region of France, the colonial-era Raffles Hotel in Singapore, the Savoy Hotel in London and the Paris Saint-Germain soccer team.

Rugby, Surfing

A love of athletics led Barrack to USC, where he talked his way into a tryout with the football team. Trojans coach John McKay watched him run a few patterns and then told him to go out for rugby, which he did, playing varsity for three years and touring with the national Eagles team.

At 6 feet 3 inches (1.9 meters) tall, he now cuts a trim figure. He lifts weights for about an hour a day and runs or spins on a stationary bicycle for another 30 to 60 minutes.

“Athletics has a lot to do with everyday life,” Barrack says, sipping a cappuccino one evening in April in Toscanova, an Italian restaurant in the Century City section of Los Angeles. “I surf; I ride horses -- to stay on that edge.”

Keeping an edge has Barrack in almost perpetual motion. He says he spends a week in Europe, a week in Asia and a week in New York each month. He’s also in constant contact with his lieutenants, at all hours of the day, throwing out ideas.

“I drive them nuts,” he says. “I end up being the information transfer element within the firm.”

Chairman’s Corner

Barrack posts his thoughts about investing on the Chairman’s Corner of Colony’s website. After an April surfing trip to Mexico’s Baja peninsula with two of his three sons, he wrote a 4,300-word treatise that included 32 ethical and business guidelines, including “Call your Mom often,” “Debt is the new equity” and “Seek mispricings and inefficiencies -- stay away from crowds.”

Barrack’s current approach reflects some of those principles. The firm is eyeing investments that aren’t the typical targets of private-equity or real estate investors.

“He’s unconventional, and he’s looking where no one else is,” says Eli Broad, 77, the billionaire founder of KB Home who was among Barrack’s first backers.

‘Worst Investment Ever’

Barrack says Colony is focusing on smaller, unconventional deals after getting caught up in leveraged buyouts.

“If you were to pick the hour, the minute that it could have been the worst investment ever, it was,” he says of the timing of his November 2007 Station Casinos buyout.

Colony joined brothers Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, part of the family that founded the company as a bingo hall in 1976, in making the deal, which valued Station at $8.5 billion. The company filed for bankruptcy last July, with $6.5 billion of debt, after failing to reach agreement with creditors.

“The LBO certainly couldn’t have occurred at a much worse time than it did, immediately preceding the crash in the Las Vegas market, which has gone on since the transaction,” says Grant Govertsen, a Las Vegas-based analyst at research firm Union Gaming Group LLC.

Colony is currently backing two bids by the Fertittas, who also own Ultimate Fighting Championship, a mixed-martial-arts league, to retain ownership of Station’s assets and allow the company to exit bankruptcy by year’s end.

Meadowlands Xanadu

A Nevada judge will oversee an auction of most of the casinos in early August, with the existing owners opening bidding with $772 million of new equity. Five other casinos, the company’s most profitable, would be taken over by the Fertittas, Colony and their banks without an auction in exchange for a cash payment and the cancellation of some debt.

Colony has also struggled with two Atlantic City, New Jersey, casinos. One of its affiliated companies forfeited the deed to Resorts Atlantic City, and another is in talks with creditors after defaulting on a loan tied to the Atlantic City Hilton.

The most glaring emblem of Colony’s miscalculations rises 800 feet above the New Jersey Turnpike, not far from the new stadium for New York’s Giants and Jets football teams. It’s the shell of an indoor ski slope, a main attraction at Xanadu.

The 2.3 million-square-foot (214,000-square-meter) mall, named after the summer capital of Mongolian emperor Kubla Khan, was taken over by Colony and Steven Mnuchin’s Dune Capital Management LP in 2006, after the original developer, Mills Corp., ran out of money. It also features an indoor sky-diving facility and a theater for live concerts.

Frozen Ski Lift

Plans called for visitors to be schussing down Xanadu’s ski slope by mid-2009. The collapse of Lehman in September 2008 brought work to a halt seven months later.

On a visit in April, not a single worker could be seen. Cardboard covered carpeted floors, and signs indicated where retailers H&M, Forever 21 and Cabela’s have staked out stores. The ski lift’s four-person chairs were frozen still.

“We had a great team together and started leasing,” Barrack says. “Even the downturn was OK. What killed us is, Lehman went broke. We never envisioned our bank going bankrupt.”

One potential lifeline is developer Stephen Ross’s Related Cos., which is in talks to partner with Colony on restarting construction, leasing and raising fresh capital. Even if Barrack can renegotiate the debt, it will be at least a year before Xanadu can open.

Colony Compensation

Albatrosses such as Station and Xanadu have changed the economics of the firm, since those projects are unlikely to produce profits for investors, or for Colony, anytime soon. In early 2009, Barrack scrapped Colony’s compensation plan and replaced it with one that gives every employee, including those charged with minding struggling investments, a chance to make money.

“We’ve reset our targets,” Barrack says. “People need a future to look forward to. They need an offense.”

None of that has dampened Barrack’s zeal for deals. Last October, Colony joined General Atlantic LLC in an 18-day sprint to buy First Republic Bank, a San Francisco-based firm that caters to wealthy individuals, from Bank of America Corp.

“It was just the most incredibly intense thing,” says Richard Nanula, a Colony principal and former chief financial officer of Walt Disney Co. “We knew this was a wonderful bank, not a troubled asset.”

First Republic

Barrack and Nanula, both banking clients of First Republic, moved into gear after Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America signaled that talks with Carlyle Group had stalled. The two men worked the phones to find other investors. In the end, they agreed to pay about $1.85 billion for the bank.

Nanula also negotiated the deal with Leibovitz, after getting an e-mail from his boss asking, “Can we help her?” Leibovitz, who photographed John Lennon for the cover of Rolling Stone magazine on the day of his death in 1980, was unable to keep up on payments on a $24 million loan from Art Capital Group, a New York firm that provides financing to artists and that sued Leibovitz to seize her assets.

Nanula says he’s talking with Leibovitz about a national tour to showcase her work. He says he envisions similar deals with other celebrities.

“If all we did was one Neverland, or one Annie, it wouldn’t make too much sense,” he says.

As for Neverland, Nanula says it will remain a Colony asset, at least for now. Barrack has converted Jackson’s former amusement park into a series of gardens and is renovating other parts of the estate. He says he’ll sell it as the real estate market recovers, possibly for more than $100 million.

Legion of Honor

In May, Barrack was in Paris to receive the French Legion of Honor, the highest award bestowed by the government on citizens and foreigners. About 120 people attended the ceremony in an 18th-century building on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore near the Elysee Palace.

Gilles Pelisson, chief executive officer of Accor SA, the Paris-based hotelier that owns the Novotel and Motel 6 chains and is 29 percent owned by Colony and its partners, was among those looking on as a red-ribboned medal was pinned on Barrack’s pinstriped suit.

Barrack has had a long and sometimes stormy relationship with France since he first visited in his twenties. Colony helped oust the previous CEO of Accor, as well as the top executive at Carrefour SA, the world’s second-largest retailer, in which Barrack had invested. Two presidents of the firm’s Paris soccer club were sacked in two years. Colony’s stakes in Carrefour and Accor, which at one point had a $1 billion paper loss, are getting close to parity, Barrack says.

‘Passionate Relationship’

None of that stood in the way of the festivities. Barrack was praised by a French deputy minister for establishing his firm’s European headquarters in Paris rather than London and for being “affable, accessible and enthusiastic.”

Speaking in French and English, Barrack talked about his “passionate relationship” with France, comparing it to “falling in love with a young girl.”

Then, after drinks and petits fours, he was gone -- heading to Asia on his Gulfstream V early the next morning.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jason Kelly in New York at You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login





Does this mean they could actually buy it back?   Why was that ice cream bicycle kept? They got rid of everything else. Who would want to keep it? Someone who it meant something to right??

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Top Five Michael Jackson Fake-Death Theories
Today 5:00 AM PDT by JOAL RYAN


Ebet Roberts/Getty Images
Michael Jackson died one year ago Thursday. Unless, that is, you believe that the pop legend didn't die, in which case Thursday marks the one-year anniversary of his faked death.


In honor of the latter milestone, we've mined the leading theories as to how and why Jackson pulled an Elvis. The list is best read with an open mind—if not an invisible suit:

1. He "Was Under Enormous Pressure." This per, Cassandra Gretchen-Sims, widely ID'd on Jackson death-hoax sites and message boards as a Jackson insider. In an interview on journalist Derek Clontz's Website, Gretchen-Sims says Jackson faked his death in order to relieve the stress weighing upon him, and asserts the singer intends to reappear this month for a world tour. Aside from the world-tour part, this claim is not unique—MJ death-hoax mythology is built on the belief that the singer wanted to get away from it all.  

Say, did we mention there's nary a mention of Gretchen-Sims outside of the death-hoax world? And did we mention Clontz used to be executive editor of the Weekly World News?

2.  The Autopsy Was As Fake As MJ's "Death." A living man can't be autopsied, now can he? This is another leading tenant in the MJ death-hoax world: that somehow a person and/ or persons other than the King of Pop were examined by the Los Angeles Coroner's Office. According to this YouTuber, officials, with the help of evil TMZ, tried to confuse the public with contradictary and outright fake autopsy results.

Oh, and did we mention, the alleged contradiction—that the coroner's office announced the anesthetic Propofol contributed to Jackson's death, and later said no pills or illegal drugs were found in Jackson's system—is not a contradiction?

3. MJ Is a Master of Disguise. In order to keep the ruse going, but still get out now and then, Jackson reputedly has donned a number of disguises. He has appeared on Larry King Live as disfigured child-abuse survivor Dave Dave (scroll down to the Sept. 3, 2009, entry, "The funeral," at Michael Jackson Death Hoax Investigators for the "Thriller" eyes mix-and-match). Per the same autopsy-skeptical YouTuber,  Jackson showed up at his own funeral as "fedora-hat guy" (skip ahead to the 6:15 mark on this clip). Per another YouTuber, Jackson  is none other than Dr. Conrad Murray. And here we learn that the MJ ghost supposedly spotted at Neverland last year, might have been MJ himself in, yes, an invisible suit.

4. ThIs Is It  Explains It All: The famous Cassandra Gretchen-Sims has confirmed it, so it must be true: There are 33 clues in the hit Jackson concert movie that detail how and why the entertainer opted out of his public life. And if you understand any of them, and how they relate to the Christian Gnosis (for Cassandra Gretchen, natch), you deserve a medal in reading comprehension.

5. "Liberian Girl" Really Explains It All: The 1989 music video in which a bevy of stars (Steven Spielberg, John Travolta, Whoopi Goldberg, etc) gather on a set to await Jackson only to learn that he—crafty, fun-loving MJ—has been filming them all along seems to be the one thing, perhaps above all others, that gives the death-hoax believers hope. This fan-made clip imagines Jackson's own funeral as a  "Liberian Girl" remake, with, now as then, Jackson alive and laughing at the end of it.

Did we mention this one's actually sort of poignant?

Follow @RedCarpet on Twitter.
__________

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Michael Jackson Left Behind A Legacy Of Unfinished Projects
A year after his death, we've seen 'This Is It' and heard the leaked songs, but where's that robot hotel?
By Gil Kaufman

In the twilight of his career, Michael Jackson was almost as well known for the projects he never completed as he was for the ones that came to fruition. From the mid-1990s on, fans were frequently tantalized with the promise of movies, theme parks, tours and song collaborations with the day's hottest music stars that came and went without ever being realized.

As the one-year anniversary of Jackson's death approaches, MTV News is taking a look at the many plans the King of Pop dreamed up before his premature end, some of which are finally becoming reality.

Despite more than a decade out of the pop-culture spotlight, Jackson also clearly never stopped having his finger on the pulse of what was going on in music. Lady Gaga recently revealed that Jackson had tapped her to open for his 50-show This Is It stand at the O2 arena in London. "I was actually asked to open for Michael on his tour," she said. "We were going to open for him at the O2. ... And we were working on making it happen. And I suppose there was some talk about the openers doing some duets with Michael onstage."

In fact, one of the choreographers of This Is It said in an interview that not only did Jackson want to have Gaga open for him, he was very interested in recording a song with her before his death. Travis Payne said that after giving Jackson a short list of possible collaborators for his next musical project (including Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, Usher and Justin Timberlake), the pop icon suggested Payne check out the then budding superstar Gaga.

"He goes, 'Lady Gaga.' I go, 'Really?' He goes, 'Yeah.' He's the one who really got me to get into her," Payne recalled. "He literally told me, 'You gotta get into her. She's good.' So, I started listening to her music more and going on YouTube and looking at her performances, and I was like, 'He's right.' "

Jackson was also clearly looking to take his place among the musical icons he most admired and whose sales records he was determined to break during the course of his career. Just like the Beatles and Elvis Presley, Jackson will be immortalized by Cirque du Soleil with a permanent show in Las Vegas and a touring version in 2011, thanks to an agreement with Jackson's estate. This brings to fruition a long-held dream for Jackson, who was a big fan of the Canadian troupe's productions and had discussed mounting a show based on his music several years before his death.

Jackson always dreamed big, and toward the end of his life, he spent quite a bit of time in Vegas cooking up another abandoned pie-in-the-sky project. In October 2005, just a few months removed from his acquittal on child molestation charges, Jackson began work with fashion designer André Van Pier on costume and set designs for a Las Vegas residency. Their concepts included plans for a 50-foot tall MJ robot that would roam the Nevada desert as an ad for the singer's show and an enticement to visit a robot-themed hotel. Like so many of Jackson's fantasias, it was not to be.

That was also the case with a movie the pop star had planned to co-direct about an orphan shuttled between foster homes, titled "They Cage the Animals at Night." Even as he was gearing up for the This Is It run, Jackson was trying to get financing together for the indie film, based on the 1985 book about foster kid Jennings Michael Burch. Jackson told friend and filmmaker Bryan Michael Stoller that he related to the book because he often felt like an orphan as a child due to his hectic life as a young pop star, and he had actually been thinking about adapting the book since around 2003, when he invited Burch to his home to be interviewed on camera.

For years before his death, Jackson had been recording tracks for what was slated to be his comeback from 2001's disappointing Invincible album. He'd logged studio time with Akon and Will.I.Am and spoken to T-Pain, Kanye West, Swizz Beatz, Irv Gotti, Chris Brown, DJ Whoo Kid, Sean Garrett, Ne-Yo and 50 Cent about collaborations. Most of those tracks were never recorded or have not seen the light of day, but over the past year, a few songs and snippets have leaked online, including a 90-second taste of a duet with rocker Lenny Kravitz called "Another Day." The unfinished demo of the song with the grinding R&B beat and soaring strings — on which Kravitz later said he played all the instruments and sang — is similar to a tune Kravitz used on his 2004 album Baptism, but it's unknown if he recorded the song with Jackson first.

One of the more exciting posthumous items (it's unknown if Jackson was involved in its development at the time of his death) is a yet-untitled MJ video game from Ubisoft due by the end of the year. The game, based on Jackson's legendary music and performances, will allow players to groove along to mega-hits like "Billie Jean" and "Beat It" while learning some of the singer's signature dance moves.

Among the other projects that have emerged in the past year: a movie about the singer's final days from biographer Ian Halperin, the "We Are the World" remake featuring Jackson's original vocals among those of a host of contemporary singers, a "This Is It" video directed by Spike Lee, his attempt to quash the beef between 50 Cent and Game and the super-secret video production known as the "Dome Project" that appeared to be connected with the massive stage set and 3-D films being made for the This Is It shows. And this month, plans were announced to build a Jackson Family Museum and arts center in his hometown of Gary, Indiana.

Celebrate Michael Jackson's legacy all week long as MTV News looks back at his life, his music and the death that shook the world one year ago.



A true genius that planned for the future.  ;)

11
Michael Jackson News / Networks Announce Specials for June 25th
« on: June 17, 2010, 11:31:27 AM »
I am sure there will be more. But here is a nice concise line-up:


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Multiple networks are loading up on special Michael Jackson programming to mark the one-year anniversary of his death on June 25.

MTV has several specials planned in his honor, including "Michael Jackson's Top 10 Video Countdown," set to air on June 25 and again the next day, as well as a two-hour block of Jackson videos on June 26.

The music channel will also run the one-hour special "Michael Jackson's Influence on Music," which spotlights artists that have been inspired by the King of Pop's songs, choreography and style, on June 25.

Meanwhile, MTV's sister network VH1 will air the five-hour 1992 telepic "The Jacksons: An American Dream," and E! Entertainment Television's June 25 schedule includes "E! True Hollywood Story: Michael Jackson," "E! Investigates: The Last Days of Michael Jackson" and the special "Michael Jackson," each one-hour long.

TV Guide Network, which recently acquired the documentary "Michael Jackson: Gone Too Soon," from Shine Intl., will air the two-hour film along with the specials "Michael Jackson's Entourage: Where Are They Now" and "Michael Jackson: His Family Dynasty," as well as a special edition of "Hollywood 411."

Music-themed cable network Fuse has two new MJ specials on deck, "Michael Jackson: The Inside Story" and "Michael Jackson: A Tribute," on June 25.

So far, ABC News is the lone network news division set to give up its June 25 primetime for Jackson. News magazine "20/20" will feature a new two-hour report chronicling the ongoing investigation into Jackson's death, as well as how his children are adjusting without their father.

The "20/20" special will also include interviews with Jackson's personal makeup artist, his stylists, and what the network calls a "new tour" of Neverland Ranch.



 :| Karen will make an appearance and we will look at Neverland again?
 

12
Michael Jackson News / Micheal and Bubbles The Untold Story
« on: June 16, 2010, 03:39:31 PM »
I guess EVERY channel will be honoring MJ this week. This special is on Animal Planet.

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“Michael Jackson and Bubbles: The Untold Story” is set to air on Animal Planet next week. The documentary details the relationship between the King of Pop and his beloved chimp through first-hand accounts from those who were close to the pair including Michael Jackson’s sister, La Toya.

The psychology behind Jackson’s devotion to Bubbles and other animals he surrounded himself with during his tumultuous life will also be addressed. Additionally, the show reveals what happened to Bubbles The Chimp when Jackson could no longer care for him and where the famous primate is today.

“Michael Jackson and Bubbles: The Untold Story” premiers Tuesday, June 22 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Animal Planet.

________________________


Looks like La Toya will be giving her accounts in this show!

13
Michael Jackson News / Lady Gaga on Larry King Discusses MJ
« on: June 01, 2010, 11:01:37 AM »
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Lady Gaga fans became a bit worried when she recently shared that she had been tested for lupus, leaving them wondering if the pop star is ill. When the singer sat down with Larry King for an interview airing Tuesday (June 1), she admitted that although she has tested positive for the disease, she hasn't experienced symptoms so far.

"Lupus is in my family and it's genetic, and it's funny 'cause my mother told me the other day that my fans were quite worried about me because I did talk about the fact that I was tested for lupus. And the truth is I don't show any signs, any symptoms of lupus, but I have tested borderline positive for the disease. So as of right now, I don't have it. But I do have to take good care of myself," the singer told King.

During the chat, Gaga also addressed rumors that she was scheduled to collaborate with Michael Jackson before his sudden death last June. "You know, it's always very difficult because I don't necessarily like to talk about those very personal things that happened," she said. "I guess I can speak about it now. I was actually asked to open for Michael on his tour. We were going to open for him at the O2.

"And we were working on making it happen. And I suppose there was some talk about the openers doing some duets with Michael onstage. But Michael's death was devastating for me regardless of whether I was supposed to go on tour with him," she continued. "He's such an inspiration and remarkable human being. I guess ... some of my fascination with death and the demise of the celebrity goes along with me watching these hugely iconic and amazing people that I have heralded and admired become destroyed, whether self-destroyed or destroyed by the media."

In addition to the sit-down, Gaga will also preview a tease for her "Alejandro" video, a contender for summer jam of 2010. She tweeted, "Tonight, on Larry King 6pm pt/9pm et, I will be interviewed by the King, + preview my newest collaboration with Steven Klein: ALEJANDRO

14
CA court rejects Jackson doctor child support deal
By KEN RITTER (AP) – 1 hour ago
LAS VEGAS — Michael Jackson's former doctor lost a bid in a California court to resolve a child support issue that threatens his Nevada medical license.
A Santa Clara County Superior Court commissioner rejected a bid Thursday by attorneys for Dr. Conrad Murray to obtain a court order relieving Murray of an obligation to pay about $16,000 in back child support to the mother of his 12-year-old son.
Authorities in Las Vegas had said that if Murray got the California court order, Nevada would stop efforts to revoke his medical license for failure to pay.
A hearing is set June 25 before a Family Court hearing officer in Las Vegas.
Murray told police he administered the anesthetic propofol to Jackson for insomnia. Murray has pleaded not guilty to a felony charge of involuntary manslaughter in the death of the pop star.


If this has been posted please lock 8-)

15
Michael Jackson News / Stars Remember MJ in David Gest Tribute
« on: May 18, 2010, 09:56:11 AM »
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Stars Remember Jackson In Gest Tribute


WHITNEY HOUSTON and SMOKEY ROBINSON have opened up about MICHAEL JACKSON a year after his death - for a new TV tribute created by the KING OF POP's best pal, DAVID GEST.

Gest has grilled members of the Jackson family as well as the Thriller legend's pals Robinson, Houston, Dionne Warwick and Petula Clark for his four-hour 'popumentary', The Real Michael Jackson.

The show includes an interview with Jackson's eldest sister Rebbie, who discusses the singer's alleged pill addiction, while his beloved mum Katherine pays a touching tribute to her son.

Gest explains, "I have spent the past three months travelling the world interviewing people who were most important in (Jackson's) life. I believe this popumentary will entertain and educate in equal measures about who the real Michael Jackson was. I hope this will serve as a lasting testament to the compassion and love that he had for all mankind."

The special is due for release in June (10), a year after the superstar died from a cardiac arrest last summer (09). A broadcast date has not yet been confirmed.

It's set for release on June 10th not the anniversary. Will this serve as he says as a " lasting testament". Will this show the world what a kind person he was? Will this be the final act in convincing people? Big names on this special ..... piece by piece?

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