Thursday, November 20, 2003

Recommended Reading

Max Cleland is the former U.S. Senator who's now serving on the 9/11 commission. He's been very critical of the Bush Administration's actions in Iraq and believes they have tried to stonewall his commission. I found this interview with him to be interesting and informative. It's on Salon so you either have to subscribe or watch some advertising. But I think it's worth it.

• Posted at 8:45 PM · LINK

The Face of Fame

I am pleased to announce that we can now retire the Nick Nolte mug shot, which we were all sick of seeing on comedy shows, as the Current Scariest Celebrity Photo. The booking snapshot of Mr. Jackson has easily edged it out for the honor. And I post them here to make a point: I think a lot of the damage done to Nolte's career was not so much in what he did to get arrested (does anyone even recall?) but in that picture. The guy just looked like a lower life form and the photo, which even made it into a bit on the Oscars, kept his humiliation front and center. Neither I nor anyone else watching from afar can say for sure that Michael Jackson committed the crime of which he stands accused. But get used to that mug shot. We're going to be seeing it for some time and every time we see it, it will be selling the notion that Jackson is not quite human, as well as reminding us of the accusation. Whether it's valid or not.

• Posted at 3:05 PM · LINK

On CNN

A reporter there just had Jermaine Jackson on the phone and he blew up, declaring Michael's innocence, telling off the media for giving air time to people who claim to represent his family but don't and...well, here. I can back up my TiVo and transcribe it. Here's Jermaine...

First of all, I'd like to say the whole family supports Michael 100%. I'm very disappointed in the system in which things were done. At the same time, Michael is in very strong spirits because he is innocent. We're tired of people...sick and tired of people speaking on my brother's behalf, on the family's behalf, who do not know us. So you put these people on national TV, on international TV, and they say these things and the public is saying, "Oh, wow, is he really like this?" He is not eccentric. We had an incredible, wonderful childhood and what they're doing is bringing him down with the very thing that he loves, his children, his family. Michael is about peace. They don't know us. But this will reveal itself and I am sick and fucking tired of everybody saying these things about my family. Well, we will fight and we will stand up and everybody that knows this family around the world will support us because at the end of the day, this is nothing but a modern-day lynching. This is what they want to see, him in handcuffs. You got it. But it won't be for long, I promise you. I'm sick and tired. Sick and tired.

At this point, the reporter jumped in and said, "Believe me, I have no idea what you're going through..." Jermaine came back with...

No, you do not know because you don't walk in my shoes. You don't walk in my shoes but you put these people on national television to say these things. They don't know our family. We are a family and we will continue to be a family. That's my love right there [referring, I guess, to a shot of Michael then on the screen] and we support him 1000%. I have nothing else to say. Goodbye.

Then he hung up as the reporter, Kyra Phillips, tried to keep him on the line. It was a fascinating, angry outburst and probably not unjustified. One doubts that Michael will be proven innocent at all, let alone as innocent as Jermaine says. But you can understand why a guy's brother would say what he said, and he's right that an awful lot of people who don't know the Jacksons at all are getting plenty of face time.

• Posted at 1:06 PM · LINK

Jacko Arrives

An interesting contrast. While I was posting the previous item and taking some calls, Jackson deplaned and managed to get into a van without the CNN cameras catching him. They've just caravaned to the office where he will

Oh, wait. They just got a shot of him getting out of the van and heading into the sheriff's office. The newsfolks were practically orgasmic to notice that he was in handcuffs. They're now replaying that shot over and over.

As I was saying: They had copters covering the caravan to the sheriff's office and to fill airtime, they brought in their legal correspondent, Jeffrey Toobin, in split-screen. Toobin was an oasis of actual information, ticking off real legal points, correcting much that had been said in the preceding hour. He explained the actual laws covering to what extent a minor can be compelled to testify in a sexual molestation case. Very interesting, very informative. But now that Jackson has arrived, they've left Toobin and gone back to folks theorizing about Michael's personality, what's on his mind, how he'll defend himself, etc. It's like someone in the control room said, "Enough facts! Let's get back to speculation!" And they've now rerun the shot with the handcuffs about ten times in six minutes.

It's an O.J. world again. If I were Leno, I'd have the Dancing Itos come out tonight and do another number. Just to remind us.

• Posted at 12:35 PM · LINK

Neglected Classic

In 1967, editor Dick Giordano was shaking things up at the Charlton Comics Group. Charlton was a cheapjack company that paid writers and artists at rates ranging from poor to involuntary servitude, then printed their wares on presses that Gutenberg had discarded as outmoded. As was occasionally the case in comics' early days, you could treat the talent and its work like dirt and still occasionally get decent-to-good work out of them, plus the intermittent masterpiece. Giordano upped rates a fraction and treated people well in non-monetary ways, and so managed to increase the frequency of gems. One which happened almost as an accident was the one-shot story, "Children of Doom," which appeared in Charlton Premiere #2. It was slapped together in record time by Giordano, writer Denny O'Neil and artist Pat Boyette to fill a void created when another planned second issue fell through. O'Neil was a relatively new author to comics and he came up with a haunting tale set in the days following a nuclear holocaust. Pat Boyette was also rather new to comics and he illustrated it with a striking approach with heavy reliance on black-and-white scenes in what otherwise was a color comic. Pat had actually wanted to do the whole story without color but Charlton execs chickened out and the comic wound up being partially colored. You can make a strong argument that this made it even more arresting and eerie.

I bring this up now because my chum Scott Shaw! covers the book today over in his Oddball Comics column. He gives a much better summary there than I do here, and I suggest you go see what he has to say. "Children of Doom" came and went with very little notice. It didn't warrant a sequel, didn't impact comics of the day...didn't even get noticed by a lot of comic book fans. But those of us who did notice it will never forget it, so it's nice that Scott is again calling it to our attention.

• Posted at 12:22 PM · LINK

Breaking News

The plane is pulling into a hangar with people inside. They say this is a strong indicator that Jackson is inside.

• Posted at 11:53 AM · LINK

This Just In

We're now watching another plane that just landed at Santa Barbara Airport. They're reasonably sure Michael is on this one. A reporter just explained that they had a tip that Jackson had left Vegas on a plane with a certain tail number and the plane now landing seems to have the same tail number. Ergo, they have concluded it's the same plane so they assume Jackson is aboard. Professional newsmen are actually discussing this on CNN. One just said, "This is either Michael Jackson's plane or a hell of a decoy." Sounds very important.

• Posted at 11:52 AM · LINK

Waiting for Michael

Just watched CNN spend 10+ minutes showing us a Lear Jet landing at Santa Barbara airport. We saw it land, we saw it taxi. We heard a hapless newsguy try to keep talking the whole time despite the fact that all he had to say was that they had information that Michael Jackson was inside and that he was arriving to surrender to authorities. Finally, it turned out that Michael was not on the plane. They now have various reporters discussing the means by which Jackson might be travelling to the sheriff's office.

Bush is in England, bombs are exploding in Istanbul and Iraq, killer storms are flooding the Eastern seaboard...and on CNN, the most important issue is whether The King of Pop is on a plane or in a van. Fill in your own snide remark.

• Posted at 11:47 AM · LINK