From watching "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" I understand that Michael Jackson is upset with the president of Sony because Jackson's latest album isn't doing so well. Something about "racism." Of course, one should not rely on late-night comedy for the ultimate truth about the news. Maybe this was satire and exaggeration.
But no, it was the same old lame-o smirking faded mimeograph of the story that often passes for parody on Conan. Sony honcho Mottola is "devilish," says Jacko. "The recording companies really, really do conspire against the artists--they steal, they cheat, they do everything they can," according to Jackson. They especially conspire against the millionaire black artists.
It doesn't exactly enhance Jackson's credibility that his back-up crooners are such champions of objective fact as Al Sharpton and Johnnie Cochran. Sharpton is notorious for having propagated Tawana Brawley's false rape charge against white cops. Cochran is best known for having helped murderer O.J. Simpson get off the hook by explicating as to how if the glove don't fit, you must acquit.
Of course, that two such bums are joining forces with Jackson is no disproof that Sony has pillaged and robbed its artists and particularly black artists. But it doesn't exactly help the case either. (And "even" Rev. Sharpo says Jacko is off-target in his Mottola-bashing; it's just the recording industry as a whole that has the conspiracy, Sharpo believes.) It also doesn't help that Jackson's net worth is larger than the combined budgets of several small kingdoms; let Sony rob me just like this, please; I can moonwalk, no, really. Or that Sony has no plausible motive for wanting the megastar's latest offering to fail. What would be helpful is some evidence of breach of contract, perhaps even including details. None such is proffered in the news reports, and Jacko has not returned my calls. Could this all be a publicity ploy? Hmm...
But we do learn that Tommy Mottola is "mean" and "devilish." Other "victims" of "the recording industry" include James Brown, Sammy Davis, Jr., and pauper Mariah Carey. Jackson says Sammy Davis died penniless; Davis's attorney says he left an estate of $6 million when he died.
"If you fight for me, you're fighting for all black people, dead and alive," according to Jackson, as quoted by CNN. "We have to put a stop to this incredible injustice." The incredible injustice being, that Sony did not do enough to launch Jackson's recent album, which cost $30 million to produce.
It is time to stop the bleach treatments.
--David M. Brown, 7/11/02
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