Michael Mania
Current mood: 
contemplative
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities
It’s my turn to blog at Nice N Naughty today and here is what I wrote:
The chips have fallen and the fabled 875,000 tickets to Michael Jackson’s funeral services this morning have been distributed. The lucky recipients of the pairs of tickets have their mottled-gold arm bracelets on – or they don’t.
My friend Lizzie called me last night, all excited that she’d won, except that she had planned to sell the tickets on Ebay (there are plenty on there already) and couldn’t because when she went down to Dodger Stadium to pick up her tickets and credentials, they forced her to don the bracelet right there and then.
Once it became obvious that ‘fans’ were selling these free tickets online and, apparently, right outside the stadium, the organizers of today’s memorial service in downtown Los Angeles, started insisting that the ticket recipients put the bracelets on immediately.
Lizzie and countless others were warned they would not be admitted to the memorial service without it.
She’s skipping work therefore to attend the service and was ecstatic and giddy. I listened to her for a moment and said,
“Lizzie, you make it sound like you’re going to a concert. It’s a funeral.”
“Oh, my God,” she said. “You’re right.”
I am a Hollywood resident and writer and many people know that I read screenplays for studios for a living but all of a sudden, after a long dry spell, I’m getting emailed requests from companies for coverage of screenplays.
Hey, I can use the money, don’t get me wrong. But like a growth attaching itself to the heart with long, grasping tentacles, I have been dismayed to see the flurry of screenplays shooting for the Green Light — all about Michael Jackson.
A few are unauthorized bios, a few are made with the participation of family members, most are screenplays that have been sitting on studio shelves for years…coming of age type stories, where the young singer is inspired by MJ.
It is sick.
He was an amazing talent, one we’ll never see again. But I have a hard time separating the legend, the talent, from all the other weird stuff. Sorry, but I do.
I wish him a nice rest in heaven. I wish his tormented soul some peace. I will always love his music. I will live with the knowledge that nobody else will ever make a video like Thriller.
And I wish that the people who ‘won’ the right to go and say goodbye to him this morning really, really wanted to be there. I know many of them do, but just as many of them just want to say, “I was there!”
Wherever he is in heaven, Michael is probably telling God, “See, I told you what it was like for me down there. I’m dead, and they want even bigger pieces of me.”
I hope the madness dies down, that people don’t keep trying to cash in on the cow whose milk has not only dried up but who cries in mortal agony.
Judging by the way people continue to cash in on say, Tupac Shakur’s untimely passing, I would say I’m dreaming.
The legend of Michael is turning into the fastest way in town to make a buck.
And this is just the beginning.
Aloha oe,
A.J.
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