Firstly, I love reading your replies. They are always so well articulated it's a pleasure to read.
You do make a valid point. Michael was definately the ultimate "cash cow" as you put it. He was milked and bled dry by so many people and I can certainly see how this could be manipulated in the media to make Michael seem flakey.
On the other hand I do believe Michael didn't do himself any favours. When you hear stories about ex-employees having to sue him to get paid it just feeds the medias agenda and in the eyes of a non-fan it adds credibility to the medias largely negative portayal of him.
Going back to the whole 50 dates thing, I think the reason why I have a hard time believing that Michael was somehow coaxed into agreeing to them is because AEG is well-established as being a world class tour promoter. We're not talking about some shady German ex-con adviser here. I know greed can make otherwise decent people act in dispicable ways but none of us know Randy Phillips on a personal level, so we can't really comment on his integrity for better or worse.
All we can really do is speculate. On one hand you have a story about Michael telling fans that he'd never agreed to 50 shows, on the other hand you have Randy Phillips and Kenny Ortega denying this and saying that Michael was excited to get back to work. Michael had a lot of love and respect and trust for Kenny Ortega and they had a history going back two decades. And yet you have fans shouting "murderer" at him when he was out promoting the TII DVD last week. Not everybody was out to get Michael.
i appreciate what you have to say...but...there in lies the trap. you automatically think that 'well established' means automatically on the up and up..and 'shady German' looking, means automatically, shady. you say you don't know Kenny, and Phillips, but you speak like you know Michael, because of reported lawsuits.
you're allowing a traditional 'look' to draw your conclusions. and in the process, you are saying not to judge, but you are making a judgement call, at the same time. is AEG automatically on the up and up, just because they are 'established'? you think every 'established' company didn't step on somebody? you know how i parse between MJ's establishment and AEG's establishment? flattery. that's how.
they flatter AEG, and they don't flatter MJ, but they attach themselves to both. and AEG chases Michael. Michael chases nobody.
if you're going to attach yourself to somebody for financial purposes, at least, admit they are reputable. if you don't, then you know they are lucrative, but you're jealous of them.
if you say they are good, and attach yourself to them, then something's fishy with both of you. it's a trait of human nature, learned with time. people don't flatter those who really have something going for them. they get catty with them. they only flatter those who are truly reputable, and are a threat to them.
everybody seems to be running out of money, and running to Michael to get what they think is 'theirs'.
that says it all, to me. you might be fooled by all other things you think you see, and are reported by the media...but you can't be fooled, by that one. Michael clearly wasn't flattered, but chased, financially, by everyone, and had no needs, for himself. all the others, acted like they had needs.
so...i call them like i see them.
numbers mean nothing. if Mj was on the up and up, and large numbers around him were not..then that's how it is.
a large number of people can be wrong..and the few or the one, can be right, about something. it happens more than you think. it is what it is, whether it sounds offensive, or not.
the greatest giveaway is humility. if you're truly humble, people will think you're pushover, but, in reality, you're on the right track. they misdefine pushover, in that case. if you're not humble, people will tend to see you like a lot of people see AEG. 'established.' there's something about AEG that is not humble..
they're working with the biggest star ever, but they're telling him what to do with money. it was MJ who acquiesced to much of their money requests. it was AEG that made the switch to 50 AFTER MJ made his announcement, instead of BEFORE. at that point, i feel i don't need to speculate, because that's a general selfish common human nature thing in operation.
the reality is, nobody can dispute MJ's humility, because they give themselves away by being sparse on the flattery for him. he was too humble for people to compliment him. yet, he was astoundingly succesful.
don't you think, that with all MJ's success..and people, therefore seeing him as a cash cow, that MJ would know what is best? but those around him didn't treat him like he knew what was best..so, he waited, and even his dancers wondered if he would take charge, before he did, on key points. the point is..he shouldn't have had to wait, at all. so..i believe greed played into mismanagement of the whole thing. and no..i'm not talking Michael's greed. he had none.
if most of those working around MJ were so humble that they weren't flattered either, then i would have no trouble saying that many working with MJ were right. but it's a rare soul that is as humble as MJ was.
ask yourself? why was MJ the ultimate cash cow? maybe his traits contributed to that.
and if AEG is so established, then why did they feel the need to chase MJ? why weren't they the ultimate cash cow that MJ chased after, and begged to do 50 shows from square one?
yeah...AEG are rich, but something is off.
MJ was the ultimate cash cow, and had no needs. nothing is off, there.
it's not really a difficult thing to see. everybody has the choice to be extremely humble. but not too many people want to be. so, if one person is successful in a good way, and a lot surrounding that person is envious and greedy and underhanded...that is why.
a lot of people love MJ, but, a lot of people question his business practices, based on
media reports. that may be love, but it's not flattery. the media doesn't like that brand of humility. human nature. so, his business practices were good, cus extreme humility and good business practices go hand in hand .
if you're really really humble, to the point where it bothers somebody else...you're on the right track.
what told on some of the people surrounding Michael is that he was the cash cow being chased, but NOT respected. if you think someone is money, but you don't respect them, and you chase them, then, you'll do underhanded stuff, when you catch them. if they respected his financial and business ability, enough not to call the shots, after having had chased him, then, it would be easier to trust them.
he was the cash cow. they should have figured, since he was the cash cow, he must know something, and they should have let him call all the business and financial shots.
people see that he was a cash cow, yet too many people didn't respect him businesswise, and financial wise. i don't get that.
he made it so that Sony is the only company not cutting back. they're in a position to buy stuff, instead of sell stuff. they got that idea from MJ.
of all the mistakes that can be made assessing the circumstances...the one mistake that can't be made is that MJ was the most humble of them all, and..therefore..he was the cash cow.
and the less humble someone is, the more likely they are able and willing to and have done underhanded stuff. it never fails.
it has to be obvious. if you look a cash cow in the mouth, that means you don't respect him. there are fans that do that. how much more will people who had access to him, do that?
a lot of people just don't respect extreme humility...no matter how successful that humble person is...so..out of disrespect, comes underhandedness.
and the secret of the lawsuits, really is this...you have seen it. how much MJ was slandered. how much people did things to MJ that were worth him suing them, yet he practically never sued anyone, with very very very few exceptions. this is the mark of a person with confidence in his good name. people who are overeager to self preserve, tend to do it at other peoples' expense, therefore making themselves look bad in the process. the more sue happy you are, the more you tend to do things that you should be sued for.
so the extreme number of lawsuits really prove MJ's honor, and the sue happy peoples' dishonor.
seeing how MJ was treated makes that easy to conclude.
if a person is so confident in their good name, why go on the offensive so often? they'll only go blind in a lawsuit frenzy. and, if they aren't confident enough to let it go, maybe there is a reason, and they should look in the mirror. maybe their name isn't so good. and usually, when they go on the ultra offensive, they prove that. they ruin their name, in an attempt to preserve it.
MJ obviously wasn't like that.
then there's just the envy. there are people that tend to get tired of everything working out for MJ, all the time. acquiring a catalogue, writing stellar hits, that don't need radio, being good at business decisions. the disrespect for the humility of Michael, and the envy, go hand in hand. the tendency for some people just wanting something to go wrong for Michael, and then twisting things so that wrong becomes right, and right becomes wrong. the same mentality that people had, when wrongly deciding that he was a child molester. people working with him, had that attitude, because it's human nature to envy. people admit it all the time. they always say..'we like to build somebody up, and then we like to tear them down.'
that's just more human nature, in action.
whatever path MJ walked, they should have walked it, if that's what it takes to get rid of the tendency to want to tear somebody down.
cus MJ wasn't like that. he certainly did NOT like to tear people down. and that's rare.
you know something is wrong, when people admit liking to tear people down.
and let's face it. there are plenty of people out there who are jealous of a cash cow. and MJ showing love and respect for people doesn't make those people innocent of being envious, and in following up on that envy, with underhanded acts.
MJ never had a bad thing to say about anybody, except the media..and it took him more than thirty years to say even THAT. and in LWMJ, he seemed to be feeling guilty to admit that. and we do know how evil the media was, to him.
so MJ is hard pressed to say bad things about people. so, it's hard to go by that, as proof that other people around him, didn't betray him.
