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Friday, March 17, 2006

Neverland Closes

Posted by on March 17 at 11:43 AM

I’m surprised that Schmader hasn’t had anything to say about this. Via Defamer

Neverland Ranch, Michael Jackson’s personal Xanadu built on a million candy cane dreams and Underoos-bottom nightmares, has been suffering dearly from neglect as its owner reconfigures his life in Bahrain. First, his large staff of llama wranglers and cotton candy engineers were barred by officials from reporting to work due to hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid wages. Then, after he managed to somehow come up with the money, Jackson decided to shut down the estate and lay his staff off…

THIS JUST IN: Michael Jackson has not abandoned Neverland, despite earlier reports to the contrary.

Michael Jackson has not left his Neverland Ranch for good, his spokesman said after authorities last week raided the ranch and forced the superstar to pay his employees months of back wages.

“It is public knowledge that Mr Jackson currently resides in the Middle Eastern country of Bahrain. He therefore decided to close his house and reduce his workforce,” Raymone Bain said Thursday in a brief statement.

Closing down the ranch, he added, “is a common practice when a residence is vacant for an extended period of time. Reports indicating that Neverland has been closed or ‘shut down’ for good are inaccurate.”


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"we're living in my own personal xanadu!"

You realize that we will all soon have the opportunity to buy half the rights to the Beatles catalog, if we can just get about 250 million bucks together? LA-area auction houses are going to have a TON of really hideous, and really expensive, Italian marble gew-gaws up soon as well, at fire-sale prices.

It's hard to type through a VEIL OF TEARS.

Actually, I was going to Slog about this as soon as I finished up an overdue music piece about DJ Dave Paul, who's bringing his "Prince vs. Michael Jackson" DJ show to Re-bar next week.

So, while I was busy not writing about the closing of Neverland (which has been on its deathbed since Jacko fled for Bahrain, with today's revelation simply a dramatic formality), I was re-listening to the greatest dance hits of both MJ and Prince. And, clearly, Prince is the superior artist. But damn Michael Jackson could make amazing records. By "records" I mean singles, as none of Jackson's albums compare the best of Prince's. But Prince rarely conceived individual songs as epic and amazing as MJ's handful of masterworks, most notably "Billie Jean," which God just required me to listen to 14 times in a row.

Still, sad about Neverland. Should we pool our resources and make a bid?

never say neverland.

OH MY GOD, I can't wait for this: "Prince vs. Michael Jackson"

Exhibit 1: "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough", 12-inch version.

Exhibit 2: "Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground)", 12-inch version.

Case closed. It's no contest. Michael is, or was, one hundred thousand times funkier than Prince.

Has anyone ever fallen so far? From legitimate national treasure and worldwide GOD, to the most rediculous freak show on earth! Compared to MJ, OJ Simpson could have his face carved into Mt. Rushmore. Of course, there seems to be some sort of "slaves owned" quota for getting your face on that mountain.

I refuse to judge a man by his funkiness.

(But I agree about the awesomeness of those two Jackson tracks.)

My Fave: "Never Can Say Goodbye."
.

PYT - that's the cut.

Re: "PYT": I'm sorry, but that's one of the songs that's been irreparably damaged by the "alleged" criminal activity of Jackson's later life. And it's not just the "pretty young thing" stuff: "Tenderoni you got to be"?!?

Oh my GOD, i retract my PYT statement. I replace it, hesitantly, with Smooth Criminal.

Now i am going to go shower in molten lava to wash away the ickiness.

Personally I've always considered "Liberian Girl" my song.

The middle break in "Shake Your Body" where the tracks fall away and it's just the insane plucking noise plucking and plucking and plucking and then it comes back in with a BOOMPH and pluckitachow and pluckitachow and another BOOMPH and finds the groove again somehow in the middle of the million grabbing stretched rubber bands around your feet -- that's the moment. Shit. You cannot not dance. I can levitate when that happens. I have to go change my pants after just thinking about it.

Teddy Roosevelt owned slaves?

My problem with Prince is that he seems to have trouble figuring out when to end his songs. I've been listening to 1999 a lot recently and most of those songs could easily be cut in half.

Yeah, i guess Lincoln didn't have slaves either. sorry, i'm drunk.

There's got to be some joke to be made involving Man in the Mirror, am i right?

In retrospect, Prince's songs are also marred by massive doses of terrible guitar playing. He certainly had a way with a lyric though: "My sister never made love to anyone else but me / She's the reason for my, uh, sexuality / She showed me where it's supposed to go / A blow job doesn't mean blow Incest is everything it's said to be".

Re: Prince's "terrible guitar playing"? WHAT? The guitar shit laced through the funk is one of the prime reasons I love him. (For evidence, see "It," or the gorgeous opening to "When Doves Cry.")

Re: The mildly oppressive length of most of 1999: True. But when the record landed in '82, the endless groove was one of its great attractions. It was a double LP of 12-inch dance tracks. (Plus, if it ended sooner, "Let's Pretend We're Married" would never gotten to Prince's offer to fuck the taste out of our mouths.)

Re: The miracle of "Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)": Agreed.

Re: The extended quote from Prince's "Sister": God bless you, Fnarf, and all hail the timeless miracle of Dirty Mind.

I guess that's it. Now go start enjoying your weekends or I'll fuck the taste out of your mouths.

Yeah, "guitar shit". I just don't like guitar shit even when it's played by a perverted purple dwarf with a funk habit. Veers to close to Lenny Kravitz territory. Not that I'm comparing Prince to Kravitz. I just hate the rock, that's all.

Don't get me started (again) on Lenny Kravitz....

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