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| Michael Jackson Memorial Confirmed For Staples Center July 7 |
(Fri, 3 Jul 2009 02:21:00 EDT) |
Service will take place at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
By Jayson Rodriguez
Michael Jackson in 2001
Photo: Evan Agostini/ Getty Images
LOS ANGELES — Organizers and representatives for the Jackson family have confirmed memorial services for Michael Jackson will take place Tuesday (July 7) inside the Staples Center. The announcement ended days of speculation about how the King of Pop would be memorialized.
Fans will be able to attend after registering for free tickets at StaplesCenter.com beginning Friday morning, and registration will run until Saturday evening at 6 p.m. On Sunday fans will be notified and receive information on how to pick up tickets on Monday. The registration process is elaborate and has caused the site to crash once already — but the Jackson family insisted on a process that was democratic and fair, taking into consideration the many fans expected to arrive in Los Angeles for the memorial.
"It was our wish to allow as many of Michael's fans to be a part of the memorial, and we wish to thank everyone for their support and understanding at this difficult time," the Jackson family said in a statement.
Only 17,500 tickets will be given away, with 11,000 entrants able to go inside the arena and the remaining 6,500 ushered just across the street to the Nokia Theater where the proceedings will be simulcast. There are no guarantees for fans who register online and only 8,750 people will be selected randomly by a computer-generated program. Each selected fan will receive two tickets and two wristbands.
No further details regarding the service were announced. At a press conference held outside of the Staples Center, Jackson family representative Ken Sunshine said the plans are still being developed. Sunshine said he hopes the ticket process is handed with "dignity" and that tickets not be resold or counterfeited.
L.A. city councilwoman Jan Perry said the city's budget anticipates extraordinary circumstances and will pay for police protection on site. Perry asked interested donors to contact her if they wish to support other anticipated costs. She and a police spokesperson on hand urged fans to not attend the venue without a ticket.
Both parties said should fans not secure tickets, the best place to view the service is from home. Organizers stressed that the services would not be broadcast live outside the venue as previously reported, and again urged fans without tickets to stay away from the area on Tuesday.
MTV, VH1 and VH1 Classic will be airing the Michael Jackson memorial service live beginning at 1 p.m. ET on Tuesday. For continuing updates about the service as they become available, please continue to check MTVNews.com
For complete coverage of the life, career and passing of the legendary entertainer, visit "Michael Jackson Remembered."
Share your Michael Jackson memories by uploading video and comments to Your.MTV.com or joining the discussion below.
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| Planning Michael Jackson's Memorial A 'Phenomenal Undertaking' |
(Fri, 3 Jul 2009 05:19:00 EDT) |
While the Staples Center holds 20,000, it's been estimated that 750,000 fans will make their way to Los Angeles for the memorial.
By Jayson Rodriguez
The Staples Center
Photo: John Moore/Getty Images
LOS ANGELES — Now that the Jackson family has officially confirmed the memorial service for Michael Jackson will be taking place at the Staples Center, plans are underway to prepare the area for the onslaught of visitors, both invited and uninvited, expected to make their way to downtown Los Angeles next week.
Only 17,500 tickets will be made available to Jackson fans through an online drawing, with 11,000 mourners allowed inside the Staples Center and the rest of the 6,500 attendees sent across Chick Hearn Court to watch a live simulcast inside the Nokia Theater. The total capacity for the Staples Center, home of the Los Angeles Lakers, is approximately 20,000.
According to previous reports, however, an estimated 750,000 people from around the world are expected to travel to the city for the proceedings.
On Friday (July 3), both L.A. city councilwoman Jan Perry and a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department, Earl Pacinger, spoke at a press conference outside of the Staples Center and urged fans to stay away from the venue on Tuesday should they not receive a ticket.
Pacinger called the planning for Tuesday's event a "phenomenal undertaking." According to Pacinger, police will block off a large area outside of the arena that appears to be four times the radius of the Staples Center compound. But the size of the plazas outside of the Staples Center and the Nokia Theater pale in comparison to public areas around the world like New York's Times Square or London's Trafalgar Square.
In addition, during the preparation that will take place over the holiday weekend, arena officials will have to deal with an Anime Expo taking place right next door at the Los Angeles Convention Center. A number of those attendees travel directly through Star Plaza, in front of the Staples Center, to make their way to the convention center. The expo ends on Sunday afternoon.
On Tuesday, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus was previously expected to move into the Staples Center to prepare for a short run at the arena that was to begin on Wednesday. But AEG Live, the controlling company that owns the Staples Center, reportedly asked the circus to set up shop later than expected.
The preparation for the memorial service will be anything but easy. The Staples Center is not located in a very open area, resting between a number of other buildings nearby. Pacinger said fans without wristbands and tickets and media without proper credentials for the service would not be allowed anywhere near the arena. Police will be enforcing the restricted area.
Councilwoman Perry reiterated the city's concern about the expected turnout, saying, "We cannot jeopardize the health and safety of the public. Without a ticket, the best option for viewing the services for this extraordinary individual is at home."
MTV, VH1 and VH1 Classic will be airing the Michael Jackson memorial service live beginning at 1 p.m. ET on Tuesday. For continuing updates about the service as they become available, please continue to check MTVNews.com
For complete coverage of the life, career and passing of the legendary entertainer, visit "Michael Jackson Remembered."
Share your Michael Jackson memories by uploading video and comments to Your.MTV.com or joining the discussion below.
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| Michael Jackson Concert Rehearsal Footage Emerges -- Watch It Here |
(Thu, 2 Jul 2009 05:26:00 EDT) |
Brief clip of 'They Don't Care About Us' was filmed two days before death.
By Gil Kaufman
Michael Jackson at last rehearsal at the Los Angeles Staples Center
Photo: AEG/CBS News
Earlier this week, the promoter of Michael Jackson's 50-date "This is It" residency at the O2 Arena in London said there was ample footage of a Jackson rehearsal for the planned series of shows, and that he hopes to release them.
On Thursday (July 2), one week after Jackson, 50, died following cardiac arrest at a rented Los Angeles-area mansion on the eve of the July 13 start of the O2 run, MTV News obtained a clip of a rehearsal filmed just two days before Jackson's sudden passing. And though it is just a 90-second glimpse of the singer performing the controversial track "They Don't Care About Us," the brief bit of film does appear to show Jackson in solid shape, stomping around the stage, apparently singing in full voice and energetically dancing with an all-male troupe of backup performers.
The footage, shot on June 23 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles — where a memorial service for Jackson reportedly will be held on July 7 — opens with Jackson performing some of his patented military-style, slow motion marching dance moves along with the male dancers, who are behind him on a slanted platform. It then cuts to the singer enthusiastically pulsating to a solo from his guitarist.
Jackson gives one of his signature "Oh!" exclamations as the track changes tempo to a rousing royal fanfare overlaid with a snipped of the "I Have a Dream" speech from the late civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King. The singer and dancers straighten up and salute, then do a high-step march across the stage to a martial beat as Jackson does knee bend and shuffles in place alone center stage.
After what appears to be an edit, the sound of a car horn blaring overtakes the music, the dancers put their hands out in a stop motion and the tempo shifts once again into a spare, funky track to which Jackson does a subtle shoulder shimmy walk to, landing him at the lip of the stage. It's clear the rehearsal is a casual run-through, as the dancers are wearing sweats and t-shirts and the typically meticulously dressed Jackson is clad in black pants, a grey jacket and a pattered red button-down shirt that is half-untucked.
Near the end of the clip, the car horn blares again and an unseen director says "hold for applause, hold for applause" and a look of what appears to be relief washes over Jackson's face. While Jackson is hardly the frail, sickly performer that some reports have portrayed him as near the end of his life — with one observer on the set of the singer's mysterious "Dome Project" saying the pop star was so weak he needed help descending steps — he doesn't appear to be the whirling dervish of energy and jaw-dropping dance moves that he was in his prime.
Granted, at 50, Jackson was nearly two decades removed from his heyday and the footage was shot at a rehearsal, but given that it was less than two weeks before the beginning of a showcase that was meant to put the singer back on top, Jackson appears to be moving at a curiously deliberate pace in the brief clip.
The song featured in the clip appeared on his 1995 greatest-hits collection HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I and it was one of Jackson's most controversial late-period releases thanks what some deemed its anti-Semitic overtones.
Among the lyrics were the lines, "Jew me, sue me, everybody do me/ Kick me, kike me, don't you black or white me," as well as "Skinhead, deadhead, everybody gone dead/ Hit me, kick me, you can never get me," which said at the time could be interpreted as being "pointedly critical of Jews."
Jackson denied the charges in a statement released at the time, saying, "The idea that these lyrics could be deemed objectionable is extremely hurtful to me, and misleading. The song in fact is about the pain of prejudice and hate and is a way to draw attention to social and political problems. I am the voice of the accused and the attacked. I am the voice of everyone. I am the skinhead, I am the Jew, I am the black man, I am the white man. I am not the one who was attacking." He later apologized again and eventually re-recorded a second version of the song without the offending lyrics.
It has been reported that the London show's promoter, AEG Live, has more than 100 hours of rehearsal footage that could eventually be culled into the singer's first live CD/DVD set.
For complete coverage of the life, career and passing of the legendary entertainer, visit "Michael Jackson Remembered."
Share your Michael Jackson memories by uploading video and comments to Your.MTV.com or joining the discussion below.
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| Michael Jackson's Alleged Addictions: Experts Weigh In |
(Thu, 2 Jul 2009 06:04:00 EDT) |
Doctors Drew Pinsky, Arnold M. Washton discuss Jackson's alleged psychological and pharmaceutical problems.
By Gil Kaufman
Michael Jackson
Photo: Ron Galella/ WireImage
It's the ultimate American dream: a meteoric rise from obscurity and struggle to worldwide fame and adulation. Untold riches, palatial estates, a fiercely loyal crew of hangers-on, private jets, screaming fans and limousines come with the territory. But so does seclusion, paranoia, loneliness and access to any and all vices the heart and mind can imagine.
It's a dark side of celebrity that has come into focus all too well recently, from Eminem's admitted struggles with painkillers to Britney Spears' very public difficulties and, last Thursday, Michael Jackson's death at age 50 after decades of isolation, plastic surgery, multiple allegations of impropriety with young men and an allegedly fierce addiction to prescription medications.
How does superstardom so quickly turn into a life-threatening fall from grace?
By many accounts, Jackson, 50, was a lonely man, one whose lifelong fame had resulted in a secluded life inside a childlike fantasy world of his own making that few could understand. From his fascination with his own lost childhood and a Peter Pan-like existence to a proclivity for plastic surgery that had radically altered his facial features and skin color to the point where he barely resembled his former self, Jackson publicly struggled to find peace in a world where fans and the media incessantly thirsted for a peek into his mysterious kingdom.
Dr. Drew Pinsky, star of VH1's "Celebrity Rehab" and an addiction specialist, said he has done extensive research on the link between celebrity and addiction, and said his findings indicate that being a superstar has little impact on someone's addictive tendencies.
"It's the kind of person who strives to be a celebrity who has a high incidence of childhood trauma, addictive and narcissistic tendencies and who surround themselves with people who support that narcissism," he told MTV News. "And when that addiction emerges, it gets out of control and there's no way to cut it out. They spiral into severe consequences and situations where, if it was the rest of us, we would have someone who would tell us to stop."
Pinsky said his research has shown that people who are addicted to the kind of opiates that Jackson allegedly struggled with — painkillers and other strong prescription sedatives and antidepressants — are almost always survivors of abuse. Jackson had stated in several interviews that he was the subject of physical and emotional abuse from his father, Joseph, who often teased him about his looks.
"These people walk around every day feeling shattered, with an out-of-control sense of miserable worthlessness, and when they find their way to an opiate, for the first time in their lives they feel like everything is OK," Pinsky said, noting that patient confidentiality would not permit him to answer a question about whether he had ever treated Jackson, but that if someone had approached him about helping the star, he would "run for the hills" because he felt the situation might not have been treatable given the chaotic state of the singer's personal life. "But there's no doubt he was in pain."
In a touching postmortem essay, former Los Angeles Times pop music critic Robert Hilburn recalled a nearly two-decade-long friendship with Jackson that ended in the mid-1980s at the peak of Jackson's career. Speaking to him in 1981, before Thriller would make him a worldwide icon, Hilburn asked the then 23-year-old singer — who he described as anxious, possessing a "Bambi-like shyness" and speaking in barely a whisper — why he lived with his parents and not on his own like his brothers.
"Oh, no, I think I'd die on my own," Jackson reportedly said. "I'd be so lonely. Even at home, I'm lonely. I sit in my room and sometimes cry. It is so hard to make friends, and there are some things you can't talk to your parents or family about. I sometimes walk around the neighborhood at night, just hoping to find someone to talk to."
Hilburn said that Jackson was so embarrassed by his awkward teenage years — when his fame had tapered off a bit and, like many teens, he suffered from acne and physical changes that he told the reporter made him unrecognizable to some — that he vowed to do whatever it took to make people "love me again." The writer said that rejection fueled an ambition to be the biggest pop star in the world and to try to make his face "beautiful."
Those body image problems aside, Pinsky said the most serious problem with opiate addiction is that the drugs themselves can cause pain when the patient begins to feel that if they cease taking the medication they will be in even worse agony. "With chronic pain, once you start taking these medications, you are in constant pain," Pinsky said. "And when you have enablers around you who help provide the drugs, it makes it almost impossible to get off of them. It's like a crack addict living in a crackhouse."
On Thursday, an official confirmed for MTV News that the Drug Enforcement Administration had been called in by the Los Angeles Police Department to help in the investigation into Jackson's death. The LAPD has already removed several bags of medical evidence from Jackson's rented Beverly Hills-area mansion, and the DEA was reportedly called in to help the police investigate Jackson's doctors and possible drug use.
A number of Jackson's former friends have come forward since his death to say that they tried to help him kick his reportedly expensive, serious prescription drug habit, including spirituality guru Dr. Deepak Chopra, who has spoken about Jackson allegedly asking him for the highly addictive pain medication OxyContin, and mentalist Uri Geller, who said he tried to intervene and help Jackson get clean several times, according to The Associated Press.
"This is how my patients die," Pinsky said of the alleged prescription drug cocktail Jackson was taking, which also is reported to have included Diprivan, a surgical anesthetic that the singer was said to have sought as a sleeping aid and which is typically only available to licensed anesthesiologists and medical professionals for use in a clinical setting during outpatient surgery.
"You get to the point where you build up such a high tolerance to the opiates that you can't take enough to get the desired effect, or enough to keep you from painful withdrawal," said Dr. Arnold M. Washton, a New York-based psychologist with more than 30 years of expertise in treating addiction. "And chronic use makes it impossible to go to sleep, so the person using these drugs may use double or triple the dose, hoping to go to sleep, but no matter how much they use, they can't. So they need to switch to a drug that affects a different part of the brain, which are the sedative drugs."
Washton, who also said he had no firsthand knowledge of Jackson's case and had not treated the singer, told MTV News that Jackson's alleged drug issues and his equally disturbing proclivity for image-altering plastic surgery were signs of someone who was struggling mightily with poor self-image. "This is a man who had profound problems with his sense of self," he said. "He was struggling his whole life to feel OK about himself and despite his extraordinary talent, fame and riches, it's obvious he was never satisfied and was constantly trying to change himself."
While Washton differed with Pinsky about the correlation between childhood trauma and addiction, he agreed that addiction is more about the person and not the addictive nature of the drugs. "The biggest issue for people who collide with drugs is that some get a corrective relief from the drug for the pain inside them, whether that's from their sense of self or regulating their self-esteem or relationships with important people in their lives," he said. "And they find that the drug takes away that psychic pain, and opiates are more effective than any drug known to man to do that, and that relief from the bodily and emotional pain ... you take enough of a narcotic and you can't feel anything."
Washton, who wrote about "The Addictive Personality," in his 1989 book "Willpower's Not Enough," said another reason Jackson may have fallen into an alleged spiral of prescription drug abuse was a result of the rarified air the pop star lived in. "People like Jackson get far away from the free world and live an insular existence where one is not subject to the limits others deal with and they can often engage in behavior without consequence that others cannot," he said. "People are willing to do their bidding and give them things because of their fame and money, doctors will write them prescriptions. ... It's not hard for them to feel that the laws of the universe apply to everyone but them."
For complete coverage of the life, career and passing of the legendary entertainer, visit "Michael Jackson Remembered."
Share your Michael Jackson memories by uploading video and comments to Your.MTV.com or joining the discussion below.
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| Game On 50 Cent Beef: 'I Did A Lot Of Dumb Things' |
(Thu, 2 Jul 2009 06:51:00 EDT) |
Plus: Killer Mike says nobody's bringing hardcore back because he's been keeping it street all along, in Mixtape Daily.
By Shaheem Reid, with additional reporting by Jayson Rodriguez
The Game
Photo: MTV News
The Overdose: A Mixtape Daily Exclusive
Your boys are back at it. Hiatus is done. Today we had to put Firestarter on the back burner to bring you this testimonial from none other than the Game. Big Hurricane sat down with us in the lab where he's recording his R.E.D. Album. And, in addition to speaking about the project, he wanted to tell us and the entire world that there's no more 50 Cent beef. He's said it before, no doubt, but this time the Compton rhyme beast says he's dead serious — unless he changes his mind. Game compared his beef with Fif and the G-Unit to an airplane. (Is that private or commercial? Just kidding.)
"I just got off that plane," Game said of the well-documented rift. "I didn't even get my baggage out the baggage claim."
The MC says he wants to "apologize to 50 as a man." He also wants to apologize to the fans, Dr. Dre, Eminem and the head of Interscope, Jimmy Iovine.
"Jimmy always says, 'Man, I told you guys not to break up the Beatles,' " Game said. "He says he told John Lennon the same thing a long time ago. But I was young, man. I was dumb. I did a lot of dumb things. I felt me and 50 clashed. I'm not gonna dis 50. I'm not gonna go back on the plane. He had his side, I had my side. I did what I felt was necessary for me and my career to have longevity and survive in hip-hop and music to be around when I'm Quincy Jones' age — not just be Quincy Jones' age, but be a Quincy Jones. Now, four albums in, I can honestly say from Banks to Buck to Dre to Yayo to whoever, if it would have kept going, endless paper. Millions of albums sold — because we were great together. Me and 50's chemistry was like how Method Man was to Redman when they get in. You know when Method Man gets with Redman, it's going down."
True, the Unit, when they were a five-man squad (that's with Game and Buck), were absolutely unstoppable. We're still rocking that All Eyez on Us G-Unit Radio Part 5 mixtape.
"It is what KRS-One was with Scott La Rock," Game added, describing his time with 50. "When you take Ralph Tresvant from New Edition and Bobby Brown goes this way, you might get a Bell Biv DeVoe, but you won't get no 'Candy Girl.' You won't get no 'Mr. Telephone Man.' You ain't gonna get no 'Hate It or Love It,' you won't get 'How We Do.' As a family, we had it. If we never [broke] up, I think Detox would have been out and we all would have been selling millions from Banks to Buck, Tony Yayo. I'm gonna apologize for my role."
Just a few weeks ago, 50 told us he has no desire to entertain the Game. Maybe Dre or Iovine can get these guys together again?
The Streets Is Talking: News & Notes From The Underground
50 Cent says he wants to bring hardcore rap back to the forefront, and we know the sentiments Jay-Z expressed in "D.O.A." Killer Mike says he's not impressed. He's been keeping it street.
"I don't wanna hear none of that bullsh-- from none of the n---as," Mike said. "I dropped I Pledge Allegiance to the Grind II last year. If you wanna hear hardcore hip-hop, go to the store, go get I Pledge Allegiance to the Grind II. You can listen from the first Biggie sample to the last song on the album, 'Good-Bye,' it's hardcore hip-hop. I don't wanna hear that bullsh--, these n---as who got millions of dollars talking about bringing sh-- back. They ain't bringing sh-- back. It's here — you looking at it.
"Buy me," he continued. "When that Killer Mike drops, hardcore hip-hop will be back for the second, third time. You know, the same guy that said 'rap is dead' three years before Nas said it. I'm here. F--- with me. Jay dropped 'D.O.A.' and everybody went crazy. And I love Jay. A week before that, I dropped 'Man Up.' Go listen to that song and go listen to 'D.O.A.' "
Killer Kill, who recently struck a partnership with T.I. and Grand Hustle Entertainment, is dropping a compilation of all the ATL underground MCs this summer.
For other artists featured in Mixtape Daily, check out Mixtape Daily Headlines.
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