Welcome to a New Year and new beginnings. This is the fourth edition of the Random Thoughts series on this blog. The theme of this post is disappointment. I will discuss the update information regarding the whole Michael Bush/Julien's auctions mess. I will also get into my issue with Joe Vogel, the author of the book on Michael called Man and the Music. Let's begin.
I wanted to point out that four (4) experts of authenticators all stated that the signatures are not valid. It is stated on this blog post very well how they believed that the signatures are not Michael's. Here is the link to the information -
http://teammichaeljackson.com/archives/6804
In that blog post, you will read a list of the credentials of each expert and in my honest opinion, these experts are legit.
I know that I stated that I will not bash the Estate executors this year and I will not. However, I do wonder how the executors cannot do something legally against Mr. Bush and Julien's Auctions? They allow fraud to happen before with the Michael album and I think they would have learn their lesson and making sure that they would do something about situations like this mess from occurring. We have to understand that the Michael Jackson Estate is not interested in doing the right thing for Michael's legacy. In fact, according to their statement, it seems that they do not seem to care about any of this.
Michael in 1993.
Michael Bush/ Julien's Auctions - Pathetic Souls
Michael Bush with Darren Juliens.
The auction happened on December 2nd in California and it was heartbreaking to see the items being sold. I have expressed how I felt about the items being sold and felt that some of the Jackson family members should keep some of the items. I seriously doubt that if Michael was here, he would want his items to be auctioned off as if it was some type of a slave auction house. Even Randy had to state something on twitter about the auction:
Randy's tweet about the mess.
It is sad to see these people do this to the family's history and Michael's history. It is even sadder that an artist that was heavily influenced by Michael, Lady Gaga, participated in the auction and proudly tweeted a picture of her paddle.
*sigh*
Then, she decided to state her reasons, in a sense, why she got the items from the auction.
Really?
I do not get it. The items are technically not Lady Gaga's or even Michael Bush's. The items belongs to Michael. If Lady Gaga had any ounce of true respect for Michael, she would give all of the 55 pieces to his family. When she stated that she will "expertly care" for the items, was she trying to insult someone or a group of people in the process? See, some members of Michael's family were taking care of Michael's items until the items were taken from them. When the items were taken from some of those family members, it was stated that the items were ruined. Here is what I think about the whole situation - I think it was an attempt to own Michael and not let anyone in his family have anything of Michael's for themselves. A few years ago, the Jacksons lost most of their personal artifacts to a guy name Henry Varcacco (or something like that) and those items were going to be auctioned off or sold away to anyone that wanted the items. Now with Michael's items being auctioned away in this fashion, will the Jacksons have anything of theirs to own for their own personal collection? After seeing what Lady Gaga did, I refuse to respect her because she has no respect for what Michael stood for and what he had to go through.
In the process of the whole massacre, as I call this auction, Julien's Auctions raised $5 million dollars. That was the whole point of selling Michael's items - money. However, something crazy occurred when the whole foolishness was happening. Over 50 items that were being auctioned off were "signed" by Michael. The reason why I quoted the word signed was because it was revealed that some of the signatures that were on the items are not really Michael's signatures. What item, or rather standee, revealed that unfortunate fact?
Wow....
The image that I posted is a L.A. Gear standee that Bravado did on Michael. According to Bravado, the standee was manufactured in October 2009, three months after Michael passed away. So, how can the "signature" of Michael's appear on this standee if the standee did not exist when Michael was living? That is because Michael did not sign the standee. I always believe that if one thing is fake or fraudulent, then most and maybe even all things are fake.
There were other items that came into questioning in regards to the validity of the signatures. In those cases, the signatures did not look like the typical signatures that Michael would sign. The validity of the signatures became of interest for a story that NBC 4 in Los Angeles decided to do in regards to the signatures. Here is the article of the story -
Investigation: Autographed Michael Jackson Memorabilia May Be PhonyAn auction featuring autographed memorabilia from the King of Pop garnered more than $5 million in one day.By Joel Grover, Phil Drechsler and Chris Henao
Three years after his death, Michael Jackson remains the "King of Pop." Fans are willing to pay big bucks for almost anything with Jackson’s autograph. But an NBC4 I-Team Investigation found evidence that some of these autographs being sold may be fakes.
Acting on a tip, the I-Team attended a Dec. 2 auction at Julien’s Auctions in Beverly Hills of Jackson memorabilia owned by the singer’s longtime costume designers Dennis Tompkins and Michael Bush.The auction garnered more than $5 million in one day. Buyers included Lady Gaga, who tweeted that she bought 55 items, including a $180,000 jacket with Jackson’s signature.Experts say many of the items sold for high prices because they were supposedly autographed by Jackson himself. But five nationally-known autograph authenticators tell the I-Team that at least some of the auctioned autographs are probably fakes."I would definitely stake my reputation on the fact that these autographs are not authentic," autograph authenticator Roger Epperson said after examining signatures from 50 of the nearly 300 signed items recently auctioned at Julien’s.Epperson is widely known as one of the nation’s experts on Michael Jackson’s autograph. He authenticates autographs for some of the nation’s biggest auction houses, and sells signed memorabilia himself.One of the items Epperson examined was an autographed jacket (pictured below) from Jackson’s “Bad” Tour, bought for $4,375 by Beverly Hills dentist Joseph Goodman. "I am a big Michael Jackson fan," Goodman told the I-Team. "I wanted something signed.""There’s a zero percent chance that that’s an authentic signature of Michael Jackson," Epperson said after examining the signature on the jacket Goodman bought. "The slant of the 'M' in 'Jackson' leans towards the right. A real one leans more to the left. The shapes are wrong, the slants are wrong, the size is wrong."Experts say authenticating autographs is not science, but rather an expertise based on years of studying signatures. So the I-Team asked four more well-known authenticators to examine 11 autographed items from the Julien’s auction, including PSA/DNA, a company which authenticates for Christie’s Auction House and eBay.Three of the four experts said it was their opinions that all 11 signatures were probably fakes. "Likely Not Genuine" is how PSA/DNA characterized the 11 autographs. The fourth expert said eight of the autograph samples we sent were "not likely to be genuine," and on three of them he was "unable to render an opinion."The I-Team spoke with Michael Bush, Jackson’s longtime designer and the owner of the items auctioned at Julien’s. The I-Team asked Bush, who made millions from the Dec. 2 auction, why he thought experts were saying the autographs on his memorabilia were fake."I don’t know how to respond to it," he said. "I’m going to fake a bunch of signatures, a bunch of clothes, to destroy my reputation for 25 years of working for Michael? No, no."The owner of Julien’s Auctions, Darren Julien, told the I-Team he believes the autographs he sold are genuine. "They come from someone who worked very closely with Michael Jackson … the people who made the items for Michael Jackson," Julien said.The I-Team asked Julien to provide us with the names of any experts his auction used to authenticate the autographed items he sold for more than $1.5 million on Dec. 2. Julien told us to contact Laura Woolley, owner of The Collector’s Lab.But Woolley told the I-Team she’s an appraiser of auction items, not an autograph authenticator. And she said one of the authenticators used by the I-Team, PSA/DNA, is reputable."I think they do great work," she said of PSA/DNA.Woolley did say she’s looked at many of the autographed items in the Julien’s auction and thinks they’re genuine autographs. "I have no reason to doubt Michael Bush. The provenance of these signatures is solid," Woolley said.Many autograph experts and buyers disagree, and are posting their comments on websites like Autograph Magazine Live."All but a few autographs in the Tompkins and Bush sale (at Julien’s) are so bad they don’t even resemble Michael Jackson’s signature," said Steve Cyrkin, editor of Autograph Magazine Live.Those comments appear to have caught the attention of the FBI. Two of the I-Team’s sources said they have been contacted by the FBI about the allegedly fake autographs, and said that the agency requested interviews with them. FBI Spokesperson Laura Eimiller would "neither confirm nor deny" that the agency is investigating the autographs sold in the recent auction.The brewing controversy has some purchasers of Jackson memorabilia feeling buyer’s remorse, including Goodman, who bought that signed jacket. "If it’s a fake signature, I don’t think I’m interested anymore" in keeping the jacket, Goodman said.Julien has told the I-Team if any customer questions the authenticity of an autographed item they bought, he will give them their money back.
I wanted to point out that four (4) experts of authenticators all stated that the signatures are not valid. It is stated on this blog post very well how they believed that the signatures are not Michael's. Here is the link to the information -
http://teammichaeljackson.com/archives/6804
In that blog post, you will read a list of the credentials of each expert and in my honest opinion, these experts are legit.
I know that I stated that I will not bash the Estate executors this year and I will not. However, I do wonder how the executors cannot do something legally against Mr. Bush and Julien's Auctions? They allow fraud to happen before with the Michael album and I think they would have learn their lesson and making sure that they would do something about situations like this mess from occurring. We have to understand that the Michael Jackson Estate is not interested in doing the right thing for Michael's legacy. In fact, according to their statement, it seems that they do not seem to care about any of this.
Oh boy....
The estate should do something when fraud is being committed using Michael's likeness, the likeness that the Estate is in charge of and owns, is being used. This is the same Estate that gave problems to Ms. Jackson, thanks to the letter that was leaked this summer. In that same letter, John Branca let Ms. Jackson know that he was "Michael Jackson now". For the Estate to state what they stated says a lot about them. This is going to continue with the Estate - they are going to allow these people to ruin Michael's legacy and make sure that the Estate gets some type of benefit from all of it.
I read a blog post done by a blogger name Valliegirl67 about other legends who had forged signatures. Here is the link to that blog post -
No offense to the blogger but in the article it was stated that assistants and secretaries would forged the signatures of publicity pictures of celebrities. That is, in a way, normal in the world of celebrity. The situation that is discussed regarding the items of Michael's such as standees, jackets, outfits were not the signatures of Michael's. Also, the person who forged Michael's signatures on those items were not assistants or secretaries of Michael's. I am not sure if the blog post was the blogger's attempt to discredited the concrete information about the validity of the signatures. At the end of the day, the proof is in the pudding - the signatures were compared to Michael's signatures of legal documents like his passport and contracts and those signatures on those items from that auction are not Michael's signatures. There is no way of looking at it.
Tom Mesereau Supporting Randall Sullivan's Book.
Tom Mesereau in 2005.
I have made it a personal mission not to purchase any book that is about Michael that does not talk about his music. When a book states crazy things about Michael regarding is sexuality and his manhood, I have to state something about it. That is my nature when it comes to Michael. There is a reason why Michael kept this part of his life private and to assume that Michael did not have a sex life because of the lack of information is pathetic to me. Michael did not come into the entertainment business to discuss his sex life or brag about how many women he had sex with. He had flings, girlfriends, a fiance and even a wife and he did not have to talk about it. Michael has stated publically that he was not gay and that he loves women. Michael has never stated publicaly when he lost his viriginity. All of this talk about his sex life is just another way to disrespect this man and make him into a joke instead of a damn genius. That is why I am so disappointed in Mr. Mesereau because he knew how much Michael suffered in his life and he knew that the root of the child abuse mess was because of the created sexual orientation that the media label him as and Michael's lack of not talking about his sex life. When I read the reason why Mr. Mesereau contributed in Randall Sullivan's book, I wanted to scream. Here is the statement that he made:
You know, at times I do not know where these people come from. I do not think Mr. Mesereau truly understand what he did. I remember reading the foreword to the Conspiracy book that crime author, Aphrodite Jones did on Michael in which he stated that he was hesistant in dealing with her because she was a tabloid-type reporter. I wonder if Mr. Mesereau thought the same about Mr. Sullivan when he decided to contribute to his book. I thought Mr. Mesereau was a smart man but after this stunt, I am starting to believe that Randy made a huge mistake by getting rid of Mark Geragos and replacing him with Mr. Mesereau. Ever since Michael was vindicated, Mr. Mesereau has made it his mission to prove to anyone that Michael was innocent of those laughable allegations of child abuse. However, when Michael stated in 1993 and 2004 that he did not do any of the things that he was falsely accused, that should have been enough.
Michael's behaviors and demeanor shows that he was not capable of harming children. I think that Mr. Mesereau and a lot of people fail to understand that the public are not bright. If the public will believe a complete stranger over the very person who lived the life, then what does that say about that person who believes the stranger? We live in a world of uneducated, not well read, stupid idiots. Plain and simple. It does not take a rocket scientist to tell a person that Michael did not abuse a child. That is not his nature. There are so many ways for people to get the correct information but they refuse to research and find out for themselves. This is what Mr. Mesereau does not understand. When Mr. Mesereau contribute and defended Mr. Sullivan's book, he gave this man credibility. In a way, by Mr. Mesereau actions, he told the fans that studied, learned and researched about Michael, to go and effed themselves. That the information that we, the fans, not the bagwagons, the actual true fans, know about Michael means nothing to Mr. Mesereau. That is how I take the shade and I can never truly respect Mr. Mesereau for what he did. I do not care if he is this great lawyer. Any defense attorney who had the child abuse case would have won because Michael was innocent. If Mr. Mesereau wanted people to know the truth about the case, he should fought to have the trial televised or write a book about it. However, like Michael's own handlers, his lawyers failed on him as well.
***Update: I have since changed my mind about Mr. Mesereau. Please read it here -
http://michaelandthetruth.blogspot.com/2013/05/his-friends-his-foes-and-undecided.html
Michael's behaviors and demeanor shows that he was not capable of harming children. I think that Mr. Mesereau and a lot of people fail to understand that the public are not bright. If the public will believe a complete stranger over the very person who lived the life, then what does that say about that person who believes the stranger? We live in a world of uneducated, not well read, stupid idiots. Plain and simple. It does not take a rocket scientist to tell a person that Michael did not abuse a child. That is not his nature. There are so many ways for people to get the correct information but they refuse to research and find out for themselves. This is what Mr. Mesereau does not understand. When Mr. Mesereau contribute and defended Mr. Sullivan's book, he gave this man credibility. In a way, by Mr. Mesereau actions, he told the fans that studied, learned and researched about Michael, to go and effed themselves. That the information that we, the fans, not the bagwagons, the actual true fans, know about Michael means nothing to Mr. Mesereau. That is how I take the shade and I can never truly respect Mr. Mesereau for what he did. I do not care if he is this great lawyer. Any defense attorney who had the child abuse case would have won because Michael was innocent. If Mr. Mesereau wanted people to know the truth about the case, he should fought to have the trial televised or write a book about it. However, like Michael's own handlers, his lawyers failed on him as well.
***Update: I have since changed my mind about Mr. Mesereau. Please read it here -
http://michaelandthetruth.blogspot.com/2013/05/his-friends-his-foes-and-undecided.html
My Issue With Joe Vogel.
Author and Professor Joe Vogel.
There might be some of you fans wondering how come I never done a book review on Man and the Music. Well, before I can actually do a review of a book or film I have to view/read the item. I read Mr. Vogel's book up until the History era and I had to stop reading. The reason I stopped reading had nothing to do with the book at all. I stopped reading the book because I did not like some things about Mr. Vogel. I have decided that I will not finished reading the book and I will never read the book ever again. I did not like his stance on the family drama that happened over the summer. That really bothered me because Mr. Vogel is an author of a book that deals with Michael's music and the culture at the time the music was released. He was supposed to be objective and not try to add his opinions about the whole situation. If Mr. Vogel was not going to be the solution to the problem, then he should not be one of the problems to the problem. Even though Mr. Vogel was becoming an annoyance, I still wanted to do something on him for my blog. I wanted to do a Q & A session with Mr. Vogel for this blog so I emailed him through his website and he did not respond. That does not shock me at all. I decided to contacted him three times through twitter (via twitlonger) and of course, no response from Mr. Vogel. I then contacted the University Press Officer (Mr. Vogel is a professor for the University of Rochester) Valerie Alhart and I was letting her know that I have been trying to contact Mr. Vogel for a session for my blog. To my surprise she responded to my inquiry. I do not post emails on this blog for privacy reasons so I am not going to post the emails. I am going to tell you in my own words what she told me.
Ms. Alhart stated to me that she would forward the inquiry to Mr. Vogel and he will get with his answer soon. When I emailed her back to check up on Mr. Vogel's answer, she responded to me. Ms. Alhart stated that she spoke to Mr. Vogel and he stated that he was unable to take on any media requests at that time because he was doing his Dissertation. In doing his Dissertation, he had no time to actually participate in any media requests, MJ theme requests included.
(I wanted to point out that at times when I request to do Q&A sessions with various people for this blog, those people do assume that I am part of the media. I have to tell these people that I am a fan of Michael's, I am not part of the media and I do this blog independently.)
That was that..... so I thought. After I had the email exchange with Ms. Alhart, I had a feeling that something was not right. I could not put my finger on it but something was not right. I went to Mr. Vogel's twitter account some three weeks ago and things that I saw really angered me.
Ms. Alhart stated to me that she would forward the inquiry to Mr. Vogel and he will get with his answer soon. When I emailed her back to check up on Mr. Vogel's answer, she responded to me. Ms. Alhart stated that she spoke to Mr. Vogel and he stated that he was unable to take on any media requests at that time because he was doing his Dissertation. In doing his Dissertation, he had no time to actually participate in any media requests, MJ theme requests included.
(I wanted to point out that at times when I request to do Q&A sessions with various people for this blog, those people do assume that I am part of the media. I have to tell these people that I am a fan of Michael's, I am not part of the media and I do this blog independently.)
That was that..... so I thought. After I had the email exchange with Ms. Alhart, I had a feeling that something was not right. I could not put my finger on it but something was not right. I went to Mr. Vogel's twitter account some three weeks ago and things that I saw really angered me.
Joe Vogel's tweet on an interview he was doing with MJ Themed Radio Show.
The advertisement of Mr. Vogel being on Rev. Gross radio show.
Mr. Vogel tweeting about another interview with an MJ related radio show.
Isn't that interesting? I was clearly told that Mr. Vogel was doing his Dissertation and did not have any time to do any MJ related interviews. However, he found the "time" to do interviews with two MJ themed radio shows. When I saw this, I immediately contacted Ms. Alhart explaining to her my findings, I felt lied to and wanted to get a clarification of what was going on.
Ms. Alhart told me that I was not lied to and that Mr. Vogel was declining to do all interviews at the time that I was requesting to do one with Mr. Vogel. Even Ms. Alhart stated that she was aware of MartyinLA interview requests but not Rev. Gross and she stated to me that if I was interested in doing an interview with Mr. Vogel, she would let him know. I decided to take some time to think about if I wanted to do an interview with Mr. Vogel or not. I decided that I did not want to do an interview with him and that I thanked Ms. Alhart for taking the time to respond to my email.
When he declined to do the session for this blog, why didn't he decline to interviews with the other MJ theme radio shows/blogs? It was also stated that MartyinLA directly contacted Mr. Vogel to do an interview with him and Mr. Vogel responded. I directly contacted Mr. Vogel and I did not get any response from him. I am beginning to wonder if I am being discriminated against because of my stance towards the Estate. I noticed that Mr. Vogel is a supporter of one of the executors to Michael's Estate, John Branca and have often defended him. I believed that Mr. Vogel read my blog and felt that I was being very harsh towards Mr. Branca.
I looked passed the fact that Mr. Vogel has a positive connection with Mr. Branca and wanted to do a session with him for this blog. I bought his book, read a good amount of it and actually liked the book. I recommended fans to purchase this book and read because it was focusing on Michael's art and work and not the foolishness of the tabloids. Let's say that the reason why Mr. Vogel did not want to do a session with my blog was because of my stance - why judge me because of it? Why assume my fanhood over a difference of an opinion? Why assume that all Michael Jackson fans think alike? At the end of the day, we are all fans that love Michael but we show our love for him in various different ways. Should I put my beliefs aside so that Mr. Vogel would accept my offer to do a session for this blog? What did Rev. Gross and MartyinLA had I did not have? What did they give Mr. Vogel what I cannot give him?
I am not going to tell fans to attack Mr. Vogel because of his obvious bias or encourage the fans to do so. I do not want fans to think twice before buying Mr. Vogel's books because of what I went through was him. I stated this about him because I am disappointed in him along with Mr. Mesereau and Mr. Bush. As a fan of Michael, I would expect people to do right by him, his family and his fans regardless of the differences of opinions and point of views. Sadly, that did not happen.
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References:
Articles/Blog Posts -
Autograph of the Items Maybe Phony
The Credibility of the Authenticators
Tom Mesereau Endorsing Randall Sullivan's Book
The Most Forged Autographs
Twitter-
The tweets from Lady Gaga came from her official twitter account, @ladygaga (verified).
The tweet from Randy Jackson came from his official twitter account, @randyjackson8 (verified).
The tweets from Joe Vogel came from his official twitter account @JoeVogel1.
Facebook -
The facebook advertisement came from facebook.com.
Pictures -
The image from the Standee came from this blog:
John Branca's response to the fraud supposedly committed by Michael Bush came from the same blog:
Some of the pictures come from my personal harddrive and some came from a google.com search.
