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Jermaine Writing Book On Life With MJ *Book To Be Released Sept 13*
Vici;3487428 said:
only mention of her personality
"The ideal candidate was under his nose: Grace Rwaramba was already working as his trusted secretary. He bounced the idea off Mother and me: “What do you think?” he asked. “I need someone I can trust, who understands what I want for my children.” It was at times like this that Michael returned to family as his sounding board, and both Mother and I gave Grace our full support. Originally from Uganda, Michael felt she was not only solid but would bring to his children her African values of absolute dedication to family and community. “I also want them to grow up knowing where our journey began,” he said. From the very beginning, Grace was brilliant with the kids and was an integral part of Michael’s mission as a parent to keep his children respectful, polite, grounded and loved."
Vici
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ivy;3487482 said:
Well Karen has said on many occasions on her Facebook that Jermaine and Grace used to sleep together and that grossed Michael out LOL. I have no idea if thats true or not but yep she has said it & perhaps thats why Jermaine is not hatin on Grace like the rest haha
ivy;3484305 said:
So, I didnt managed to find the pic but have you guys seen a pic of MJ wearing the gold pants from THIS IS IT? He is in a fitting and the pants are too big (loose around the butt) and groups like TINI and other ppl have been shouting that based on that pic of MJ wasnt healthy... but Jermaine say thats completely normal? Bummer for those groups then
Ramona122003
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Well Karen has said on many occasions on her Facebook that Jermaine and Grace used to sleep together and that grossed Michael out LOL. I have no idea if thats true or not but yep she has said it & perhaps thats why Jermaine is not hatin on Grace like the rest haha
So, I didnt managed to find the pic but have you guys seen a pic of MJ wearing the gold pants from THIS IS IT? He is in a fitting and the pants are too big (loose around the butt) and groups like TINI and other ppl have been shouting that based on that pic of MJ wasnt healthy... but Jermaine say thats completely normal? Bummer for those groups then
That pic TINI likes to use is actually from the History Tour, where Michael was at his heaviest weight ever. Michael also said himself that he shreds weight when he rehearsal and he loses around 10lbs during one performance. So, him shredding weight while rehearsing isn't unheard of and isn't bad as long as he stayed within a healthy range.
Keep in mind as while that when Jermaine first saw the video from TII he was on LKL. When he saw it he said nothing about Michael's weight and when Larry brought it, he dismissed it by saying, "Michael has always been skinny." So, Jermaine saying that Michael looked like he had cancer because he was so thin on his deathbed, but didn't even rise an eye when he first saw TII tells me he isn't being truthful.
MJ TinkerBell
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:ciao: Hello MJ Fan-Mily :hug:
I don't know if this belongs here or not, but if this is not the place for this I know the Mods will move it to the proper place..I have been hearing so much about Jermaine's Book about Michael and I know there are many of Us that are currently trying to get this Book..I found this for those who haven't recieved it in the mail yet..:flowers:
:angel:
'You Are Not Alone' ~ Michael, Through a Brother's Eyes" by Jermaine Jackson
EXCERPT:
Jermaine Jackson stood by in the shadow of his younger brother, pop icon Michael Jackson, for years, performing behind him as part of the "Jackson Five" and seeing the singer through his struggles with addiction, court battles and paralyzing fame.
In his new book, "You Are Not Alone: Michael, Through a Brother's Eyes," Jermaine, older than Michael by four years, offers a raw portrait of his brother as just Michael, not "the King of Pop," as he was known to the world.
One of the book's more shocking claims includes details from Jermaine of his own elaborate plan to kidnap his brother out of the U.S. rather than see the singer jailed if he was convicted at his 2005 child abuse trial.
The book, published this week, includes Jermaine's explanation of what drove him to devise the scenario: "If they were going to sit and crucify my brother for something that he didn't do, America deserves us not to come back here."
Michael, who died in June 2009 at 50 after an overdose of the anesthetic propofol, remained unaware of the plan as he was found not guilty of all charges in June 2005 at the end of a four-month trial.
CHAPTER ONE
Eternal Child
Page 1 of 6
Michael was standing beside me —I was about 8, he was barely 4—with his elbows on the sill and his chin resting in his hands. We were looking into the dark from our bedroom window as the snow fell on Christmas Eve, leaving us both in awe. It was coming down so thick and fast that our neighborhood seemed beneath some heavenly pillow fight, each floating feather captured in the clear haze of one streetlight. The three homes opposite were bedecked in mostly multicolored bulbs, but one particular family, the Whites, had decorated their whole place with clear lights, complete with a Santa on the lawn and glowing-nosed reindeers. They had white lights trimming the roof, lining the pathway and festooned in the windows, blinking on and off, framing the fullest tree we had seen.
We observed all this from inside a home with no tree, no lights, no nothing. Our tiny house, on the corner of Jackson Street and 23rd Avenue, was the only one without decoration. We felt it was the only one in Gary, Indiana, but Mother assured us that, no, there were other homes and other Jehovah's Witnesses who did not celebrate Christmas, like Mrs. Macon's family two streets up. But that knowledge did nothing to clear our confusion: we could see something that made us feel good, yet we were told it wasn't good for us. Christmas wasn't God's will: it was commercialism. In the run-up to December 25 we felt as if we were witnessing an event to which we were not invited, and yet we still felt its forbidden spirit.
Page 2 of 6
At our window, we viewed everything from a cold, gray world, looking into a shop where everything was alive, vibrant and sparkling with color; where children played in the street with their new toys, rode new bikes or pulled new sleds in the snow. We could only imagine what it was to know the joy we saw on their faces. Michael and I played our own game at that window: pick a snowflake under the streetlight, track its descent and see which one was the first to "stick." We observed the flakes tumble, separated in the air, united on the ground, dissolved into one. That night we must have watched and counted dozens of them before we fell quiet. Michael looked sad—and I can see myself now, looking down on him from an 8-year-old's height, feeling that same sadness. Then he started to sing:
"Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way Oh what fun it is to ride, In a one horse open sleigh . . ."
It is my first memory of hearing his voice, an angelic sound. He sang softly so that Mother wouldn't hear. I joined in and we started making harmony. We sang verses of "Silent Night" and "Little Drummer Boy." Two boys carol-singing on the doorstep of our exclusion, songs we'd heard at school, not knowing that singing would be our profession.
As we sang, the grin on Michael's face was pure joy because we had stolen a piece of magic. We were happy briefly. But then we stopped, because this temporary sensation only reminded us that we were pretending to participate and the next morning would be like any other. I've read many times that Michael did not like Christmas, based on our family's lack of celebration. This was not true. It had not been true since that moment as a four-year-old when he said, staring at the Whites' house: "When I'm older, I'll have lights. Lots of lights. It will be Christmas every day."
"Go faster! Go faster!" Michael shrieked, hitting an early high note. He was sitting in the front of a shopping cart— knees to chin—while Tito, Marlon and I were running and pushing it down 23rd Avenue, me with both hands on the handlebar, and my two brothers either side as the wheels wobbled and bounced off the road on a summer's day. We built up speed and powered forward like a bobsled team. Except this, in our minds, was a train. We'd find two, sometimes three, shopping carts from the nearby Giants supermarket and couple them together. Giants was about three blocks away, located across the sports field at the back of our home, but its carts were often abandoned and strewn about the streets, so they were easy to commandeer. Michael was "the driver."
He was crazy about Lionel toy trains—small but weighty model steam engines and locomotives, packaged in orange boxes. Whenever Mother took us shopping for clothes at the Salvation Army, he always darted upstairs to the toy section to see if anyone had donated a secondhand Lionel train set. So, in his imagination, our shopping carts became two or three railroad cars, and 23rd Avenue was the straight section of track. It was a train that went too fast to pick up other passengers, thundering along, as Michael provided the sound effects. We hit the brakes when 23rd Avenue ran into a dead end, about 50 yards from the back of our house.
Page 3 of 6
If Michael wasn't on the street playing trains, he was on the carpet in our shared bedroom with his prized Lionel engine. Our parents couldn't afford to buy him a new one, or invest in an electric- train set, complete with full length track, station, and signal boxes. That is why the dream of owning a train set was in his head long before the dream of performing.
Speed. I'm convinced our excitement as kids was built on the thrill of speed. Whatever we did involved going faster, trying to outgun one another. Had our father known the extent of our thirst for speed, he would have banned it for sure: the potential for injury was always considered a grave risk to our career.
Once we grew bored of the shopping-cart trains, we built go-carts, constructed from boxes, stroller wheels and planks of wood from a nearby junkyard. Tito was the "engineer" of the brotherhood and he had the know-how in putting everything together. He was forever dismantling clocks and radios, and reassembling them on the kitchen table, or watching Joseph under the hood of his Buick parked at the side of the house, so he knew where our father's tool box was. We hammered together three planks to form an I-shaped chassis and axle. We nailed the open cockpit—a square wooden box—on top, and took cord from a clothes line for our steering mechanism, looping it through the front wheels, held like reins. In truth, our turning circle was about as tight as an oil tanker's, so we only ever traveled in straight lines.
The wide open alleyway at the back of our house—with a row of grassy backyards on one side and a chain-link fence on the other—was our race-track, and it was all about the "race." We often patched together two go-carts, with Tito pushing Marlon, and me pushing Michael in a 50-yard dash. There was always that sense of competition between us: who could go faster, who would be the winner.
"Go, go, go, GO!" yelled Michael, leaning forward, urging us into the lead. Marlon hated losing, too, so Michael always had fierce competition. Marlon was the boy who never understood why he couldn't outrun his own shadow. I can picture him now: sprinting through the street, looking down to his side, with a fierce determination on his face that turned to exasperation when he couldn't put space between himself and his clinging shadow.
We pushed those go-carts until the metal brackets were scraping along the street, and the wheels buckled or fell off, with Michael tipped up on his side and me laughing so hard I couldn't stand.
The merry-go-round in the local school field was another thrillride. Crouch down in the center of its metal base, hold on tight to the iron stanchions, and get the brothers to spin it as fast as they could. "Faster! Faster! Faster!" Michael squealed, eyes tight shut, giggling hard. He used to straddle the stanchions, like he was on a horse, going around and around and around. Eyes closed. Wind in the face.
We all dreamed of riding the train, racing the go-carts and spinning on a real carousel at Disney. We knew Mr. Long way before we had heard of Roald Dahl. To us, he was the original African-American Willy Wonka; this magical man—white hair, wizened features, leathery dark skin—dished out candy from his house on the next block, on 22nd, en route to our elementary school at the far end of Jackson Street.
Page 4 of 6
Many kids beat a path to Mr. Long's door because his younger brother went to our school. Knowing Timothy meant we got a good deal, two to five cents being good value for a little brown bag full of licorice, shoe strings, Lemonheads, Banana Splits—you name it, he had them all neatly spread out on a single bed in a front room. Mr. Long didn't smile or say very much, but we looked forward to seeing him on school mornings. We grasped at our orders and he dutifully filled the bags. Michael loved candy and that morning ritual brightened the start of each day. How we got the money is a whole other story that I will reserve for later.
We each protected our brown paper bags of candy like gold and back at the house, inside our bedroom, we all had different hiding places which each brother would try and figure out. My hide-out was under the bed or mattress, and I always got busted, but Michael squirreled his away somewhere good because we never did find it. As adults, whenever I reminded him of this, he chuckled at the memory. That is how Michael laughed throughout his life: a combination of a chuckle, a snicker, a giggle; always shy, often self-conscious. Michael loved playing store: he'd create his counter by laying a board across a pile of books, then a tablecloth, and then he'd spread out his candy. This "store" was set up in the doorway to our bedroom, or on the lowest bunk-bed, with him kneeling behind, awaiting orders. We traded with each other, swapping or using change kept from Mr. Long, or from a nickel found in the street.
But Michael was destined to be an entertainer, not a savvy businessman. That seemed obvious when our father challenged him about getting home late from school one afternoon. "Where were you?" asked Joseph.
"I went to get some candy," said Michael.
"How much you pay for it?"
"Five cents."
"How much you going to re-sell it for?"
"Five cents."
Joseph clipped him around the head. "You don't re-sell something for the same price you bought it!"
Typical Michael: always too fair, never ruthless enough. "Why can't I give it for five cents?" he said, in the bedroom. The logic was lost on him and he was upset over the undeserved whack on the head. I left him on the bed, muttering under his breath as he sorted his candy into piles, no doubt still playing store in his head.
Days later, Joseph found him in the backyard, giving out candy from across the chain-link fence to other kids from the street. The kids who were less fortunate than us—and he was mobbed. "How much you sell 'em for?" Joseph asked. "I didn't. I gave them away for free."
Eighteen hundred miles away, and more than 20 years later, I visited Michael at his ranch, Neverland Valley, in the Santa Ynez region of California. He had spent time and money turning his vast acres into a theme park and the family went to check out his completed world. Neverland has always been portrayed as the outlandish creation of "a wild imagination" with the suggestion that a love of Disney was its sole inspiration. Elements of this may be correct, but the truth runs much deeper, and this was something I knew immediately when I saw with my own eyes what he had built.
Page 5 of 6
Childhood memories were brought to life in a giant flashback: white Christmas lights trimming the sidewalk, the pathway, the trees, the frame and gutters of his English Tudor mansion. He had them turned on all year round to make sure that "it was Christmas every day." A huge steam train ran between the shops and the movie theater, and a miniature train toured the circumference of the estate, via the zoo. In the main house—through the doors, passed the welcoming, model life-size butler with tray, up the wide stairway and down the hallway—was the playroom. Inside, beyond the full-size Superman and Darth Vader at the door, was the biggest table dominating the room. On it, a vintage Lionel train set was always running: two or three trains traveling the tracks with lights on, around a model landscape of hills, valleys, towns and waterfalls. Inside the house and out, Michael had built himself the biggest electric train set you could ever imagine.
Back outside, there was a full-fledged professional go-cart track with chicanes and tight bends, and the merry-go-round was spinning to music, a beautiful carousel of ornate horses. There was a candy store too, where everything was free, and a Christmas tree lit up all year round. In 2003, Michael said he developed the ranch "to create everything that I never had as a child." But it was also about re-creating what he had enjoyed for too short a time, rebuilding it in an exaggerated version. He called himself a "fantasy fanatic" and this was his eternal fantasy. Neverland brought back our lost days because that is how he perceived his childhood—as a missing person; an inner child wandering around his past looking to somehow reconnect with him in the future. It wasn't a refusal to grow up because if you asked him, he never felt like he was a boy in the first place. Michael was expected to be an adult when he was a kid, and he regressed into a kid when he was expected to be an adult. He was more Benjamin Button than the Peter Pan comparison he made himself. However much I might remember laughter in our childhood, he struggled to recall it, which probably had a lot to do with the fact that I am four years older.
A friend, a nephew and I took quad bikes to explore Neverland's 2,700 acres, which seemed endless, rolling beyond every green horizon, scattered with oak trees. One dusty fire road took us climbing to the highest peak, far away from the developed area, and a plateau, providing a 360-degree vista. My eyes scanned it all—the property, the theme park, the lake, the ferris wheel, the trains, the greenery—and it filled me with awe and pride. Look at what you've created, I said to my brother in my head, and repeated it to him later.
"A place of ultimate happiness," he told me.
Page 6 of 6
The later warped perception of Neverland shows how Michael was judged on the face value of his world and, in many cases, on the claims of others. There only ever seemed to be lurid judgments about him and his ranch without any attempt to figure out the more complex "why?" As with everyone, his background shaped him. But fame—especially the iconic status attached to my brother—built a public barrier as big as a dam in front of his need to be understood. But to understand him, we need to walk in his shoes and see life from his perspective.
As Michael said in 2003, in a message to his fans via Ed Bradley at CBS: "If you really want to know about me, there's a song I wrote. It's called 'Childhood.' That's the one song people should listen to . . ."
Michael Jackson "Childhood" (Video)
[YOUTUBE]dVJscGa5vbc[/YOUTUBE]
Michael's honest awareness that he was a grown man with a kid's mind shows in the lyrics: "People say I'm strange that way because I love such elementary things . . . but have you seen my childhood?" His way of saying, this is the way I've been made. This is who I am.
Many people have attempted to look through the window of our childhood, and see past the smears of media coverage and the persona of a pop icon. But I feel that you need to have lived it, and shared it, to truly know and understand it. Because ours was a unique world, as brothers and sisters under the roof of one big family. It was in a small house at 2300 Jackson Street—named after President Andrew Jackson, not us that we shared memories, music and a dream. It is here that our stories and his lyrics begin, and where, I hope, a better understanding of just who Michael was can be found.
END EXCERPT:
This brings nausea to my soul, I just don't know how to feel about this Book ? I know the Jacksons have to find away to make money as they always have from Michael, and they know they cannot sing or do anything Michael could naturally but, I hope he says the right things so the Michael Fans don't disown him out right !! Alot of people I know are going crazy trying to get their hands on this Book Jermaine wrote about him..How else would Jermaine gain favour back in the Fans eyes , he would NEVER have gotten this attention at all and I guess this is the POINT !!
MJ TinkerBell..:scratch:
I don't know if this belongs here or not, but if this is not the place for this I know the Mods will move it to the proper place..I have been hearing so much about Jermaine's Book about Michael and I know there are many of Us that are currently trying to get this Book..I found this for those who haven't recieved it in the mail yet..:flowers:
:angel:
'You Are Not Alone' ~ Michael, Through a Brother's Eyes" by Jermaine Jackson
EXCERPT:
Jermaine Jackson stood by in the shadow of his younger brother, pop icon Michael Jackson, for years, performing behind him as part of the "Jackson Five" and seeing the singer through his struggles with addiction, court battles and paralyzing fame.
In his new book, "You Are Not Alone: Michael, Through a Brother's Eyes," Jermaine, older than Michael by four years, offers a raw portrait of his brother as just Michael, not "the King of Pop," as he was known to the world.
One of the book's more shocking claims includes details from Jermaine of his own elaborate plan to kidnap his brother out of the U.S. rather than see the singer jailed if he was convicted at his 2005 child abuse trial.
The book, published this week, includes Jermaine's explanation of what drove him to devise the scenario: "If they were going to sit and crucify my brother for something that he didn't do, America deserves us not to come back here."
Michael, who died in June 2009 at 50 after an overdose of the anesthetic propofol, remained unaware of the plan as he was found not guilty of all charges in June 2005 at the end of a four-month trial.
CHAPTER ONE
Eternal Child
Page 1 of 6
Michael was standing beside me —I was about 8, he was barely 4—with his elbows on the sill and his chin resting in his hands. We were looking into the dark from our bedroom window as the snow fell on Christmas Eve, leaving us both in awe. It was coming down so thick and fast that our neighborhood seemed beneath some heavenly pillow fight, each floating feather captured in the clear haze of one streetlight. The three homes opposite were bedecked in mostly multicolored bulbs, but one particular family, the Whites, had decorated their whole place with clear lights, complete with a Santa on the lawn and glowing-nosed reindeers. They had white lights trimming the roof, lining the pathway and festooned in the windows, blinking on and off, framing the fullest tree we had seen.
We observed all this from inside a home with no tree, no lights, no nothing. Our tiny house, on the corner of Jackson Street and 23rd Avenue, was the only one without decoration. We felt it was the only one in Gary, Indiana, but Mother assured us that, no, there were other homes and other Jehovah's Witnesses who did not celebrate Christmas, like Mrs. Macon's family two streets up. But that knowledge did nothing to clear our confusion: we could see something that made us feel good, yet we were told it wasn't good for us. Christmas wasn't God's will: it was commercialism. In the run-up to December 25 we felt as if we were witnessing an event to which we were not invited, and yet we still felt its forbidden spirit.
Page 2 of 6
At our window, we viewed everything from a cold, gray world, looking into a shop where everything was alive, vibrant and sparkling with color; where children played in the street with their new toys, rode new bikes or pulled new sleds in the snow. We could only imagine what it was to know the joy we saw on their faces. Michael and I played our own game at that window: pick a snowflake under the streetlight, track its descent and see which one was the first to "stick." We observed the flakes tumble, separated in the air, united on the ground, dissolved into one. That night we must have watched and counted dozens of them before we fell quiet. Michael looked sad—and I can see myself now, looking down on him from an 8-year-old's height, feeling that same sadness. Then he started to sing:
"Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way Oh what fun it is to ride, In a one horse open sleigh . . ."
It is my first memory of hearing his voice, an angelic sound. He sang softly so that Mother wouldn't hear. I joined in and we started making harmony. We sang verses of "Silent Night" and "Little Drummer Boy." Two boys carol-singing on the doorstep of our exclusion, songs we'd heard at school, not knowing that singing would be our profession.
As we sang, the grin on Michael's face was pure joy because we had stolen a piece of magic. We were happy briefly. But then we stopped, because this temporary sensation only reminded us that we were pretending to participate and the next morning would be like any other. I've read many times that Michael did not like Christmas, based on our family's lack of celebration. This was not true. It had not been true since that moment as a four-year-old when he said, staring at the Whites' house: "When I'm older, I'll have lights. Lots of lights. It will be Christmas every day."
"Go faster! Go faster!" Michael shrieked, hitting an early high note. He was sitting in the front of a shopping cart— knees to chin—while Tito, Marlon and I were running and pushing it down 23rd Avenue, me with both hands on the handlebar, and my two brothers either side as the wheels wobbled and bounced off the road on a summer's day. We built up speed and powered forward like a bobsled team. Except this, in our minds, was a train. We'd find two, sometimes three, shopping carts from the nearby Giants supermarket and couple them together. Giants was about three blocks away, located across the sports field at the back of our home, but its carts were often abandoned and strewn about the streets, so they were easy to commandeer. Michael was "the driver."
He was crazy about Lionel toy trains—small but weighty model steam engines and locomotives, packaged in orange boxes. Whenever Mother took us shopping for clothes at the Salvation Army, he always darted upstairs to the toy section to see if anyone had donated a secondhand Lionel train set. So, in his imagination, our shopping carts became two or three railroad cars, and 23rd Avenue was the straight section of track. It was a train that went too fast to pick up other passengers, thundering along, as Michael provided the sound effects. We hit the brakes when 23rd Avenue ran into a dead end, about 50 yards from the back of our house.
Page 3 of 6
If Michael wasn't on the street playing trains, he was on the carpet in our shared bedroom with his prized Lionel engine. Our parents couldn't afford to buy him a new one, or invest in an electric- train set, complete with full length track, station, and signal boxes. That is why the dream of owning a train set was in his head long before the dream of performing.
Speed. I'm convinced our excitement as kids was built on the thrill of speed. Whatever we did involved going faster, trying to outgun one another. Had our father known the extent of our thirst for speed, he would have banned it for sure: the potential for injury was always considered a grave risk to our career.
Once we grew bored of the shopping-cart trains, we built go-carts, constructed from boxes, stroller wheels and planks of wood from a nearby junkyard. Tito was the "engineer" of the brotherhood and he had the know-how in putting everything together. He was forever dismantling clocks and radios, and reassembling them on the kitchen table, or watching Joseph under the hood of his Buick parked at the side of the house, so he knew where our father's tool box was. We hammered together three planks to form an I-shaped chassis and axle. We nailed the open cockpit—a square wooden box—on top, and took cord from a clothes line for our steering mechanism, looping it through the front wheels, held like reins. In truth, our turning circle was about as tight as an oil tanker's, so we only ever traveled in straight lines.
The wide open alleyway at the back of our house—with a row of grassy backyards on one side and a chain-link fence on the other—was our race-track, and it was all about the "race." We often patched together two go-carts, with Tito pushing Marlon, and me pushing Michael in a 50-yard dash. There was always that sense of competition between us: who could go faster, who would be the winner.
"Go, go, go, GO!" yelled Michael, leaning forward, urging us into the lead. Marlon hated losing, too, so Michael always had fierce competition. Marlon was the boy who never understood why he couldn't outrun his own shadow. I can picture him now: sprinting through the street, looking down to his side, with a fierce determination on his face that turned to exasperation when he couldn't put space between himself and his clinging shadow.
We pushed those go-carts until the metal brackets were scraping along the street, and the wheels buckled or fell off, with Michael tipped up on his side and me laughing so hard I couldn't stand.
The merry-go-round in the local school field was another thrillride. Crouch down in the center of its metal base, hold on tight to the iron stanchions, and get the brothers to spin it as fast as they could. "Faster! Faster! Faster!" Michael squealed, eyes tight shut, giggling hard. He used to straddle the stanchions, like he was on a horse, going around and around and around. Eyes closed. Wind in the face.
We all dreamed of riding the train, racing the go-carts and spinning on a real carousel at Disney. We knew Mr. Long way before we had heard of Roald Dahl. To us, he was the original African-American Willy Wonka; this magical man—white hair, wizened features, leathery dark skin—dished out candy from his house on the next block, on 22nd, en route to our elementary school at the far end of Jackson Street.
Page 4 of 6
Many kids beat a path to Mr. Long's door because his younger brother went to our school. Knowing Timothy meant we got a good deal, two to five cents being good value for a little brown bag full of licorice, shoe strings, Lemonheads, Banana Splits—you name it, he had them all neatly spread out on a single bed in a front room. Mr. Long didn't smile or say very much, but we looked forward to seeing him on school mornings. We grasped at our orders and he dutifully filled the bags. Michael loved candy and that morning ritual brightened the start of each day. How we got the money is a whole other story that I will reserve for later.
We each protected our brown paper bags of candy like gold and back at the house, inside our bedroom, we all had different hiding places which each brother would try and figure out. My hide-out was under the bed or mattress, and I always got busted, but Michael squirreled his away somewhere good because we never did find it. As adults, whenever I reminded him of this, he chuckled at the memory. That is how Michael laughed throughout his life: a combination of a chuckle, a snicker, a giggle; always shy, often self-conscious. Michael loved playing store: he'd create his counter by laying a board across a pile of books, then a tablecloth, and then he'd spread out his candy. This "store" was set up in the doorway to our bedroom, or on the lowest bunk-bed, with him kneeling behind, awaiting orders. We traded with each other, swapping or using change kept from Mr. Long, or from a nickel found in the street.
But Michael was destined to be an entertainer, not a savvy businessman. That seemed obvious when our father challenged him about getting home late from school one afternoon. "Where were you?" asked Joseph.
"I went to get some candy," said Michael.
"How much you pay for it?"
"Five cents."
"How much you going to re-sell it for?"
"Five cents."
Joseph clipped him around the head. "You don't re-sell something for the same price you bought it!"
Typical Michael: always too fair, never ruthless enough. "Why can't I give it for five cents?" he said, in the bedroom. The logic was lost on him and he was upset over the undeserved whack on the head. I left him on the bed, muttering under his breath as he sorted his candy into piles, no doubt still playing store in his head.
Days later, Joseph found him in the backyard, giving out candy from across the chain-link fence to other kids from the street. The kids who were less fortunate than us—and he was mobbed. "How much you sell 'em for?" Joseph asked. "I didn't. I gave them away for free."
Eighteen hundred miles away, and more than 20 years later, I visited Michael at his ranch, Neverland Valley, in the Santa Ynez region of California. He had spent time and money turning his vast acres into a theme park and the family went to check out his completed world. Neverland has always been portrayed as the outlandish creation of "a wild imagination" with the suggestion that a love of Disney was its sole inspiration. Elements of this may be correct, but the truth runs much deeper, and this was something I knew immediately when I saw with my own eyes what he had built.
Page 5 of 6
Childhood memories were brought to life in a giant flashback: white Christmas lights trimming the sidewalk, the pathway, the trees, the frame and gutters of his English Tudor mansion. He had them turned on all year round to make sure that "it was Christmas every day." A huge steam train ran between the shops and the movie theater, and a miniature train toured the circumference of the estate, via the zoo. In the main house—through the doors, passed the welcoming, model life-size butler with tray, up the wide stairway and down the hallway—was the playroom. Inside, beyond the full-size Superman and Darth Vader at the door, was the biggest table dominating the room. On it, a vintage Lionel train set was always running: two or three trains traveling the tracks with lights on, around a model landscape of hills, valleys, towns and waterfalls. Inside the house and out, Michael had built himself the biggest electric train set you could ever imagine.
Back outside, there was a full-fledged professional go-cart track with chicanes and tight bends, and the merry-go-round was spinning to music, a beautiful carousel of ornate horses. There was a candy store too, where everything was free, and a Christmas tree lit up all year round. In 2003, Michael said he developed the ranch "to create everything that I never had as a child." But it was also about re-creating what he had enjoyed for too short a time, rebuilding it in an exaggerated version. He called himself a "fantasy fanatic" and this was his eternal fantasy. Neverland brought back our lost days because that is how he perceived his childhood—as a missing person; an inner child wandering around his past looking to somehow reconnect with him in the future. It wasn't a refusal to grow up because if you asked him, he never felt like he was a boy in the first place. Michael was expected to be an adult when he was a kid, and he regressed into a kid when he was expected to be an adult. He was more Benjamin Button than the Peter Pan comparison he made himself. However much I might remember laughter in our childhood, he struggled to recall it, which probably had a lot to do with the fact that I am four years older.
A friend, a nephew and I took quad bikes to explore Neverland's 2,700 acres, which seemed endless, rolling beyond every green horizon, scattered with oak trees. One dusty fire road took us climbing to the highest peak, far away from the developed area, and a plateau, providing a 360-degree vista. My eyes scanned it all—the property, the theme park, the lake, the ferris wheel, the trains, the greenery—and it filled me with awe and pride. Look at what you've created, I said to my brother in my head, and repeated it to him later.
"A place of ultimate happiness," he told me.
Page 6 of 6
The later warped perception of Neverland shows how Michael was judged on the face value of his world and, in many cases, on the claims of others. There only ever seemed to be lurid judgments about him and his ranch without any attempt to figure out the more complex "why?" As with everyone, his background shaped him. But fame—especially the iconic status attached to my brother—built a public barrier as big as a dam in front of his need to be understood. But to understand him, we need to walk in his shoes and see life from his perspective.
As Michael said in 2003, in a message to his fans via Ed Bradley at CBS: "If you really want to know about me, there's a song I wrote. It's called 'Childhood.' That's the one song people should listen to . . ."
Michael Jackson "Childhood" (Video)
[YOUTUBE]dVJscGa5vbc[/YOUTUBE]
Michael's honest awareness that he was a grown man with a kid's mind shows in the lyrics: "People say I'm strange that way because I love such elementary things . . . but have you seen my childhood?" His way of saying, this is the way I've been made. This is who I am.
Many people have attempted to look through the window of our childhood, and see past the smears of media coverage and the persona of a pop icon. But I feel that you need to have lived it, and shared it, to truly know and understand it. Because ours was a unique world, as brothers and sisters under the roof of one big family. It was in a small house at 2300 Jackson Street—named after President Andrew Jackson, not us that we shared memories, music and a dream. It is here that our stories and his lyrics begin, and where, I hope, a better understanding of just who Michael was can be found.
END EXCERPT:
This brings nausea to my soul, I just don't know how to feel about this Book ? I know the Jacksons have to find away to make money as they always have from Michael, and they know they cannot sing or do anything Michael could naturally but, I hope he says the right things so the Michael Fans don't disown him out right !! Alot of people I know are going crazy trying to get their hands on this Book Jermaine wrote about him..How else would Jermaine gain favour back in the Fans eyes , he would NEVER have gotten this attention at all and I guess this is the POINT !!
MJ TinkerBell..
:scratch:
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JMie
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Re: 'You Are Not Alone' - Michael, Through a Brother's Eyes" by Jermaine Jackson ** EXCERPTS **
It's being discussed in the 2300 forum....
It's being discussed in the 2300 forum....
TheChosenOne
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Re: 'You Are Not Alone' - Michael, Through a Brother's Eyes" by Jermaine Jackson ** EXCERPTS **
Thanks for posting, MJT. But since this is being discussed in 2300 Jackson Street, I will move thread there.
Thanks for posting, MJT. But since this is being discussed in 2300 Jackson Street, I will move thread there.
LastTear
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If the house was treated as a crime scene that early how come KJ and LaToya were able to gain access? Not that I am agreeing with LaToya you understand.
pug
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Re: 'You Are Not Alone' - Michael, Through a Brother's Eyes" by Jermaine Jackson ** EXCERPTS **
I hope that when the M.J. Trust is funded at the end of the month all these money grubbing schemes will stop. Katherine will be free to take cash and spend it any way she wants.
I hope that when the M.J. Trust is funded at the end of the month all these money grubbing schemes will stop. Katherine will be free to take cash and spend it any way she wants.
might be or might be not. there were cops in the house and it was homicide department. at that time they said the sending of homicide department was due to the high profile status of Michael. I don't think paramedics can sound alarm bells that quick.
they released the house later that night. Latoya's book says that they had to wait in Hayvenhurst for several hours.
Ramona122003
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I could be wrong, but I was going by what the MTs said during Murray's hearing back in January. I think they said something to the extent that they alerted the polices when they were loading Michael, but I will fully admit that I may had misinterpreted what they said.
But, my point was that this myth about the house not being sealed or treated like a crime scene is false. They took Michael's case serious from the start, so no one could had gone and erase tapes unless they were part of the LAPD. I just get frustrated when the family tells these stories and confuses everyone about what happened.
Autumn II
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The house was treated "like a crime scene" for only a few hours! I watched pretty much every SECOND of the coverage in those first few days. After Michael was taken to the hospital, there were news crews outside the house, and it was NOT sealed -- at least for awhile. Then, later that day, yellow tape went up, and it WAS sealed. (I know all this because I SAW it. News crews still there.) And then? I was SHOCKED when the yellow tape was taken down, in just a few hours. I KNEW this was so wrong! Any investigation they did inside the house, surely would have taken longer than THAT!!!!! At that time, when the tape was gone again, the family and/or staff, could have entered the house! Any evidence after the tape was removed, was potentially tainted. Anything could have been brought in, taken out, or even ERASED, after the house was no longer designated as a crime-scene. And WHY did the LAPD not take it more seriously? The world's most famous person had DIED, and they took down the crime-scene tape! I mentioned it on the boards at the time. I still think that was shocking, and shoddy police work, to say the very least. . .
(edit) We know when the house was not sealed, sealed, and not sealed again, from the presence or absence of the YELLOW CRIME-SCENE tape, clearly visible when it was in place. News crews were camped outside the house for several DAYS. I remember watching the coverage, and suddenly thinking, "Where IS the crime-scene tape?? It's GONE!"
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Ramona122003
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The key word here is 'outside' the house. The crime in question happened inside. The news media was also on the surrounding grounds, not inside the gate and they weren't allow until late that night. I remember because they were talking about it when they were moving Murray's car and the family wasn't allow to go in until around 10pm. Tape or not, the inside of that house was sealed as can be seen when they showed those photos for the hearing.
They took it seriously from the start and they knew something was up by the MTs' report. Also, unless someone knew exactly where those cameras were at, no one could just walk up and take them. Especially with news media stalking the house for over a day.
Autumn II
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Crime-scene tape is put up OUTSIDE, to prevent anyone but authorities from entering to the INSIDE. That's what it's for, to designate an area that is under investigation. That is what's typically done, in any investigation, as well as sealing doors with tape. It was not there, then there, and taken down WAAAY too soon. I felt that at the time, and still do. I don't only mean the security tapes (there may be a valid reason why they were not continuous, i.e. were motion-sensitive.) I mean EVERYTHING inside the house. If the property is not secure (and it was NOT, for a period of time), then anything could be removed, or placed there. This was a significant issue at the time, and still is. . .
(edit) A primary instruction of "crime-scene investigation" is to "cordon off the area." That doesn't only mean INSIDE the house, if that's where the crime occurred, but involves the ENTIRE property. A crime-scene investigation looks at many things, including the surrounding area. What is looked for is stuff like cigarette butts (that might yield DNA), foot prints OUTSIDE, and anything else that could possibly be relevant.
I think Jerm really doesn't know what he's talking about? I really don't have enough info about the security tapes, to know if anything was erased, or not erased. But, weren't they in a guard-station, and were digital, i.e. masters on a computer? The guard station was OUTSIDE the house, not inside. I.e. it was in a separate building. When the crime-scene tape was removed, anyone could have had access to that (which doesn't mean, at all, that I think the footage was erased. There might have been gaps anyway, if it was motion-sensitive.
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1. Personally I don't think cordoning the outside would make difference or important, because this was a house that already had wall, gates , security. It's not like it had a revolving door and that anyone could go in because there wasn't tape around. It wasn't an open access crime scene.
2. If my memory isn't failing me I don't think the surveillance tapes were in the house - there could be real time monitors in the security room. Didn't they say that LAPD went to the security company and made the copies of the tapes? and btw the tape being erased - meaning that the 24 hour loop happening and recording over the existing footage is true. However in the transcripts DA Walgreen said he would ask LAPD what they had - what I'm meaning is that LAPD could have copied the 24 hr recording and only gave the DA the time frame relevant to Murray. I don't remember LAPD or DA acknowledging that there any time period missing or not copied. That's only a story that TMZ did. We discussed this before it was motion sensored from Murray coming, Michael coming and paramedics arrival the only time the camera might be recording could have been 15minutes and that could be what LAPD copied.
2. If my memory isn't failing me I don't think the surveillance tapes were in the house - there could be real time monitors in the security room. Didn't they say that LAPD went to the security company and made the copies of the tapes? and btw the tape being erased - meaning that the 24 hour loop happening and recording over the existing footage is true. However in the transcripts DA Walgreen said he would ask LAPD what they had - what I'm meaning is that LAPD could have copied the 24 hr recording and only gave the DA the time frame relevant to Murray. I don't remember LAPD or DA acknowledging that there any time period missing or not copied. That's only a story that TMZ did. We discussed this before it was motion sensored from Murray coming, Michael coming and paramedics arrival the only time the camera might be recording could have been 15minutes and that could be what LAPD copied.
Autumn II
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In the early coverage, there clearly were multiple versions of the "crime-scene," and I don't think Jermaine knows much of anything? Below is from CBS, and given that I watched the coverage extensively, I know that the other major networks had similar stories. Oh, well. Multiple versions of the truth by media, as usual. . . . . (rest of the article at the link).
There were similar stories on ALL the major networks. Here, from CNN. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0907/03/ijvm.01.html
The LAPD actually caught a lot of heat for not taking proper care of what turned out to be a crime scene. Maybe the mainstream networks were ALL wrong? That is surely possible. . it's happened before. . . .
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July 3, 2009 10:30 AM
Why Wasn't Jackson's House Declared a Crime Scene?
By
Neil Katz
LOS ANGELES (AP) The investigation of Michael Jackson's death is widening as questions intensify about the drugs he took, the doctors who provided them and the actions of police.
Why didn't police seal the mansion where he had been living? Why were moving vans seen at the home, and were any items removed before police wrapped up their search? Why didn't they get immediate search warrants? Why did they tow away a doctor's car right after the death but not declare the home a crime scene?
Los Angeles police say proper procedures were followed based on the circumstances officers encountered when they were called to the home at 12:21 p.m. on June 25. A doctor was attending to Jackson and stayed with him when he was placed in an ambulance at 1:07 p.m. There was no sign of foul play.
Others say police should have assumed it was possible a crime occurred and taken precautions to ensure the scene was not disrupted so evidence wasn't lost or tainted.
"If I was the chief detective on the case, I would have said, 'We don't know what's going on. We should seal the scene,"' said defense attorney Harland Braun, who has represented celebrities including Robert Blake, Roseanne and Gary Busey. "You always have to think of the worst-case scenario and you have to think fast. I would have sealed the scene just because it was Michael Jackson."
There were similar stories on ALL the major networks. Here, from CNN. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0907/03/ijvm.01.html
The LAPD actually caught a lot of heat for not taking proper care of what turned out to be a crime scene. Maybe the mainstream networks were ALL wrong? That is surely possible. . it's happened before. . . .
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July 3, 2009 10:30 AM
Why Wasn't Jackson's House Declared a Crime Scene?
By
Neil Katz
LOS ANGELES (AP) The investigation of Michael Jackson's death is widening as questions intensify about the drugs he took, the doctors who provided them and the actions of police.
Why didn't police seal the mansion where he had been living? Why were moving vans seen at the home, and were any items removed before police wrapped up their search? Why didn't they get immediate search warrants? Why did they tow away a doctor's car right after the death but not declare the home a crime scene?
Los Angeles police say proper procedures were followed based on the circumstances officers encountered when they were called to the home at 12:21 p.m. on June 25. A doctor was attending to Jackson and stayed with him when he was placed in an ambulance at 1:07 p.m. There was no sign of foul play.
Others say police should have assumed it was possible a crime occurred and taken precautions to ensure the scene was not disrupted so evidence wasn't lost or tainted.
"If I was the chief detective on the case, I would have said, 'We don't know what's going on. We should seal the scene,"' said defense attorney Harland Braun, who has represented celebrities including Robert Blake, Roseanne and Gary Busey. "You always have to think of the worst-case scenario and you have to think fast. I would have sealed the scene just because it was Michael Jackson."
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bluetopez
Proud Member
That's very right, The house should have been sealed immediatly because it was MJ that's the truth! I never liked how people were coming and going out of the house within hrs after his death like the Jacksons. And in Jermaine book he says Toya's BF was sleeping there for 2 weeks? WTF? Is that how Rebbie got her hands on Mjs things and sold them? SMH
Ashtanga
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Well... many fans believe that Grace was the secret girlfriend of Michael.... :smilerolleyes: :doh:
MJ TinkerBell
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Re: 'You Are Not Alone' - Michael, Through a Brother's Eyes" by Jermaine Jackson ** EXCERPTS **
:bow::clapping::ciao: Thanks TCO..:clap::agree::flowers:
:bow::clapping::ciao: Thanks TCO..:clap::agree::flowers:
Anniesnotokmj
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May I please politely ask, that some users, calm down with all the different colors...I know they are pretty and unique, and I have no problem with that, but my eyes and some others, can't focus on it properly without getting dizzy. Again, I like the colors and appreciate them too.
Petrarose
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Funny how the last chapter makes a case for the AEG lawsuit. Everything is blamed on AEG there. He felt AEG should cancel the concert. Why not simply get Michael a better doctor then there would be no need to cancel the concert. He says AEG hired Muary and are responsible for Muarry's actions.
The last time we checked, AEG never signed off on a contract with Muarry.
The last time we checked, AEG never signed off on a contract with Muarry.
bluetopez
Proud Member
Same ol questions from the "ladies" of the view! And it doesn't help that Jermaine can't answer alot better here but, he tries! *SIGH*
WOW! JOY IS A B*TCH! She will never understand MJ innocence! He did a better job here puttin this hag in her place about the allegations! I think he scared her, she look scared! LMAO This made my day!
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LastTear
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I believe that everything should be balanced, and credit where credits due, if Jermaine put this woman in her place then we should give him credit for this, not many people have dont that. It doesn't mean to say that we necessarily agree with everything but just that we can recognise the good as well as the bad.
Memefan
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Wow..Jermaine scared that old hag Behar. Thank you Jermaine!
But for the rest ....he is not articulate. At times, it's painful watching him struggle with the answers. Makes MJ looks bad. And for Jermaine to say he would share his bed with kids...smdh
I cannot wait for Jermaine to be done with this publicity tour.
I want Tom Mesereau to handle all molestation questions from now on.
But for the rest ....he is not articulate. At times, it's painful watching him struggle with the answers. Makes MJ looks bad. And for Jermaine to say he would share his bed with kids...smdh
I cannot wait for Jermaine to be done with this publicity tour.
I want Tom Mesereau to handle all molestation questions from now on.
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8701girl
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So do i