Comment: The Michael Jackson / Conrad Murray trial – “a thoroughly depressing structured reality TV show”
By: Peter Mills
‘The Ovation’
Michael Jackson was conditioned from a very young age to believe in a correlation between the volume of the ovation he received and the amount of love he deserved.
During the twenty years between the record-breaking Bad Tour of 1988 and the ill-fated swansong of 2009, the set-list of his concerts and the way each song was performed rarely ever strayed from the iconic hits of Thriller and Bad. These were the songs of his heyday, and so, naturally, were also the ones in which he received the loudest ovations. Since 1988, every Michael Jackson concert was practically identical; the only thing really mutable being Michael himself. I attended nine of them.
One of these nine was the charity show Michael Jackson and Friends. The tragic tabloid spectacle of the omni-confused, glassy-eyed transvestite surgeon that most came to neither know nor love during the final decade of Michael Jackson’s life, can be traced back to an accident that occurred at this very concert.
During yet another turgid lip-synched rendition of Earth Song, the front part of the stage was elevated to create what Michael himself had titled The Bridge of No Return. No return, indeed. The dramatic prop suddenly and swiftly collapsed, falling into the orchestra pit. But being the consummate professional he was, Michael Jackson spontaneously leapt from the debris to continue performing. Slash was accompanying Michael on stage. He also remained professional; by not batting an eyelid and carrying on pretending to play his guitar.
The story goes that Michael hurt his back so badly in the incident, he returned to the painkillers he was treated with in the aftermath of the infamous burning he suffered whilst filming for Pepsi in 1984. One of the side effects of these painkillers (Demerol - the opiate he sings so plaintively about in his 1997 song ‘Morphine’ – surely the most unattended public cry for help in history?) is chronic insomnia. So Michael eventually started demanding Propofol to make him sleep. And then eventually someone put him to sleep with it for good.
I’ll tell you what’s been a thoroughly depressing structured reality TV show - the involuntary manslaughter trial of just one of Michael Jackson’s Doctor Feelgoods, Mr. Conrad Murray.
It kicked off with aplomb; the prosecution displaying an emotionally-charged graphic of Michael Jackson’s corpse lying on a gurney (faked, of course, according to the terrifyingly numerous let’s-put-on-Scared of the Moon-and-dress-up-as-Blanket-and-pretend-to-breastfeed-each- other-Propofol sector of the fan community), as well as an audio recording (like all conscientious doctors should make) of the patient groaning from the depths of what was a seemingly oft-frequented psychotropic refuge.
The audio recording sounds as if you’ve answered the phone in a nightmare to someone else also having a nightmare, then received a slow-motion review of the ill-fated O2 gigs, in which it is highly recommended that you attend.
Go...go... it’s amazing...
In those night terrors you had as a child where that monster was chasing you down an alley but you couldn’t move because your feet solidified and became part of the ground, if that monster had managed to catch you before you woke up, the voice in this recording is the one it would have used to speak to you.
And who would have imagined it simply wanted to inform you of its plan to create the biggest children’s hospital in the universe? That’ll teach you to judge on appearances.
It’s a sad addendum to his legacy, that the most famously high-pitch voiced man in music signs off in his final audio recording with a disturbingly deep groan of helpless (though still hopeful) despair.
So. The trial. The trendiest theory is that Michael Jackson had been dead for hours before Conrad Murray called the Paramedics, which is why he was apparently making such a half-arsed show of performing CPR. This theory arose from the revelation that Michael’s skin was cold to the touch when the Paramedics arrived, and that his open eyes had had time to dry out.
Think of all those things those eyes had seen. Probably more separate individuals than any other individual that has ever lived. In the fifty years that he was alive, he had more lives and experiences than one hundred normal men (how many people have their life’s work sectioned off into eras?). I maintain the man genuinely understood, loved and feared for humanity.
So. The verdict. Well. The Prosecution pointed at Conrad Murray and said, He did it. And the Defence looked at one another, shrugged their shoulders and replied, Yep.
At the announcement, outside the courthouse, masses of fans whooped with glee, apparently oblivious to the soulless inevitability of it all (I wonder how many of them had been stood outside the courthouse in 2005?). As Conrad Murray was handcuffed and kept on remand, something in my conscience just didn’t sit right.
I must admit to having become more than a little jaded when it comes to Michael Jackson; a state of mind to which I attribute blame to the so-called fans. This group can be divided into two camps - both of whom are also partly responsible for his death - the ones that crept out the closet once he had died, claiming a stoic lifetime loyalty; and the ones that excused and continue to excuse his every unmistakeably lunatic action.
Michael Jackson’s mother once asked him why he never set the record straight when it came to the accusations levelled at him by The Press (I mean the comparatively harmless pre-1993 ones - you know, denying his race etc). Michael responded by saying that everything he had to say was contained within his songs.
Which not only reinforces said idea about the song ‘Morphine’, but also throws the lyric, “you’re a vegetable” from ‘Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ into an altogether more surreal realm).
I’m not ashamed to admit to having been heartbroken by the death of Michael Jackson; not only because of the positive qualitative impact that the man indubitably had on my own life (I’m genuinely thankful to him), but also at the recollection of a life that contained such unquenchable sadness – one in which a five year old boy was whipped into shape for our listening pleasure. Why could Michael convey the pain of heartbreak at such a young age? Ask the man stood behind him holding the belt. It was a veritable tragedy of Shakespearean proportions; one of those unique stories that can never be imitated.
Of course, everyone’s making their money now; allegedly fake posthumous albums, documentaries here and there, a Cirque du Soleil show. He’s being turned into a cartoon character; becoming even more of a commodity than he was when alive. Those same old songs from Thriller and Bad, rehashed and remixed.
Except now the people that loved him don’t clap at all.
Artists in this article: Michael Jackson