Category: michael musings

michael the driver…

Michael usually drove himself to Kingdom Hall and his field-service routes. He’d finally gotten his driver’s license in 1981, at the age of twenty-three. Initially he didn’t want to learn to drive. “I’ll just get a chauffeur when I want to go out,” he said when I began nagging him about getting his license. “But suppose you’re someplace and your chauffeur gets sick?” I reasoned.

Finally, he relented and took some lessons. After he began driving, Michael decided that he enjoyed being behind the wheel, after all. The first time he took me for a ride, he ventured up to Mulholland Drive, a winding road in the Hollywood Hills. It was a hair-raising experience. “I’ve got a crook in my neck and my feet hurt,” LaToya, who was also in the car, complained afterward. “I was putting on the brakes’ with my feet and ‘steering’ the car with my neck trying to keep it on the road. I was so scared!” It was white-knuckle time for me, too. Michael drove fast. He also had the same habit that I have: driving right up to the car in front and stopping on a dime.

After that, Michael started going out by himself. “You shouldn’t go out alone,” I told him. “Get Bill Bray to go with you.” But Michael wouldn’t hear of it. “I’m tired of having security with me every time I go someplace.”

When he began driving, Michael told me that he would never go on freeways; he thought they were too dangerous. So I was shocked one day when Michael suddenly drove us onto a freeway ramp. “Wait a minute, Michael, what are you doing?” “I can drive the freeways now!” he said, laughing. He had changed his mind about freeways when he saw just how long it took him to get around Los Angeles without using them.

Michael’s first car was a Mercedes. Then he bought a black Rolls-Royce, which he later painted blue. It was in the Rolls that he was stopped one day — not for fans outside the gate, but by a Van Nuys policeman. “This looks like a stolen car,” the officer said. He didn’t recognise Michael, who wasn’t wearing a disguise that day. Michael explained politely that he did, indeed, own the car. But the officer went ahead and ran a check on the car, and found that Michael had a ticket outstanding.

The next thing Michael knew, he was sitting in the Van Nuys jail. Bill Bray bailed him out. I didn’t even know what had happened until he came home. “You should have asked the officer what a stolen car looks like,” I said after he related his adventure. Perhaps the cop had felt that a young black man didn’t belong behind the wheel of a Rolls.

But Michael was not only put out by the experience, he professed to be happy. “I got to see how it felt to be in jail!” he exclaimed.

(Source: Katherine Jackson’s “My Family”)

angel in disguise

The one thing that I always find moving in sharing my love of Michael, is all the wonderful people I get to meet along the way. I joined the tumblr blog website a while ago and one of the very first people I met and stared to ‘follow’ was a lovely lady whose tumblr-blog goes by the name of mymjjtribute on there. She is super talented and a wonderful to talk to. Earlier this year she posted one of her beautiful creations that I fell in love with that I asked her permission to post here. Please visit her site to see more of her heartfelt inspirations. I promise you won’t be disappointed!

i like grapes

A cute story from David Gest (sometime in the 80s)

Michael was staying at my place on Dohney and was happy to come along. He really respected Burt (Bacharach) but wondered, as we all did, what made him tick. Burt had ordered a bottle of expensive French red wine, which he, Carole (Bayer Sager) and I were drinking. Michael never drank but that night he got interested in wine. Unbelievably; he didn’t even know what wine was.
‘What’s it made of?’ he asked me.
‘Grapes’, I said.
‘I like grapes,’ Michael said. ‘I think I’ll try some.’

So we poured Michael a glass and he drank it. He obviously liked it because he drank another one. We were drinking a 1982 Pomerol that tasted like candy, so he was bound to like it.
By this time, we all had a glass or two and the bottle was finished. So Burt ordered a second bottle. This time, Michael drank virtually the whole bottle. He had really aquired a taste for wine, fine wine at that, and was guzzling the stuff down. So we ordered a third bottle and Michael drank most of that as well. That’s when I knew we were going to have a problem that night.

The evening came to an end and I drove Michael back to my place. He was, understandbly, happy. In fact, he was flying high, very high. In the car he was talking and laughing. He was singing ‘I Want To Be Where You Are’ and ‘Never Can Say Goodbye’.
Then he started singing more of his hit songs like ‘Ben’. He was giggling away all the time.
‘You’re going to be in trouble,’ he said. ‘I’m going to tell Joesph what you did.’
I wasn’t taking the bait. ‘I didn’t do it, you did,’ I said.

It took us a few minutes to get back to my place. The minute I parked the car and opened the door for him, Michael leaned out and threw up all over the place. He spent the rest of the night hanging over the toilet. He was as sick as a dog. I was up all night with him.
He kept saying, ‘I’m going to tell Joe you corrupted me,’ I was kinda worried he would but he never did.
It was his first taste of wine, something he would come to love a little too much in later years. I always felt bad about that night but it sure was funny!

just a thought…

It’s funny how things change and mould you… during the 2005 trial I was so quiet and watched in the background… never once saying a word to anyone

During this trial I watch openly debunking myth with fact and fiction with truth… on boards and newspaper sites daily, telling the awful press how terrible they are by not presenting the truth and misrepresenting what is being said in court

I use to think it was too late to defend Michael… but now I realize, I am right on time.

I love you Michael… now and forever.