Tag Archives: michael jackson

WRITE SOMETHING ABOUT MICHAEL JACKSON PLEASE

FOREWORD BY STAN LERNER: downtownster does not celebrate its first birthday until February, but I still feel compelled to post the TEN BEST downtownster blogs of 2009. And while I think all of our blogs have been great, these are the ones that readers read the most and gave us the highest level of props for writing. “Write Something About Michael Jackson” was not a blog that I particularly wanted to write, but our readers asked for it, I wrote it,  and as things go it wound up making the downtownster TEN BEST list. 

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I received a text message from one of my sources at 3:00 pm that Michael Jackson, often called the King of Pop, was dead. This was fifteen minutes before the official declaration and by 3:30 pm the calls, text messages, and emails asking me to write something were rolling in. My initial response to all requests was that I had no intention of writing a story about Michael Jackson’s death. My reason being: that everyone was going to have something to say and that I had nothing to add. I have a passion for writing and or talking—I’m a storyteller by nature, but a good storyteller should have something unique to say or at the very least a unique viewpoint.

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Over a three-day period I did follow the story. Requests for my attention to it did not cease, some coming from the most unexpected people. As these days passed my response to requests that I write about Michael Jackson’s death changed. I began to tell readers that I might write on the topic of the inconsistent through line that had become so evident in, not only the nonstop media coverage, but among the general population as well. One of downtownster’s most highly educated and respected readers was particularly intrigued by my introduction of the through line concept—and was seemingly not too sure exactly what a through line was. So let me clarify:

A through line is the spine of a story. The concept, first introduced by Constantin Stanislavski, was a way for actors to think about characterization. The idea being that it is not enough to understand what we are doing or trying to do, but rather we must understand our ultimate objective—thus creating a link from action to action that propels us to our ultimate desired outcome.

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As I watched the first few hours of cable news coverage each channel and commentator had a take and in some cases several. Fox News in particular filled their time with inaccurate information that was astounding. And of course the vile Nancy Grace was already ranting about the children and custody issues. Michael Jackson in a matter of minutes was called a child molester, a music genius, the loneliest man on Earth, an adoring father, a boy trapped in a man’s body, an icon, in debt for 400 million dollars, on the verge of a comeback, worth a billion dollars, and ABC’s Martin Bashir, who did more harm to Michael Jackson’s reputation than anybody, except for Michael Jackson, made a statement that knowing Michael Jackson was one of the greatest honors of his life. This actually caused me to shake my head. I recalled him saying that Michael Jackson’s home Neverland was not safe for children. But the words genuine or honest do not come to mind at the mention of the name Marin Bashir. Continue reading WRITE SOMETHING ABOUT MICHAEL JACKSON PLEASE

BETTY BOOZE 3

FOREWORD BY STAN LERNER: Downtownster does not celebrate its first birthday until February, but I still feel compelled to post the TEN BEST downtownster blogs of 2009. And while I think all of our blogs have been great, these are the ones that readers read the most and gave us the highest level of props for writing. This particular blog let the world know that Downtown Oliver Brown had a sister and David Mamet’s assistant Meaghan had some serious talent–readers loved Betty Booze!

<Click Here: To Buy Books By Stan Lerner> 

Welcome back,

Question: What’s better than wearing a skirt?

Why in his right mind, he would ever say yes, is beyond me…  but I wasn’t about to question it. His ASSistant emailed me the address, and then after a nanny emergency, I was emailed another.

I was supposed to meet him that night on the roof at the Standard in downtown Los Angeles. That is definitely NOT where we met.

 When my friend dropped me off (in a 1990 Eagle mind you) I wasn’t at all surprised by the location, but I was convinced that I would have NO real one on one intimate time with him… which was disappointing. I could have swept him off his feet… (sigh)

 I had to show my I.D. at the door. The large man, accompanied by three other large men, was in plain clothes… which insulted my intelligence when I saw his surveillance ear piece.

He asked me if I had any weapons on me and then, as if he’d known me for years, leaned down and gently said “flask please, ma’am”.  I looked at him in my best “f*ck you, how dare you assume… (I can’t even finish that).

 I handed him the flask in my bag. He smiled, and moved out of the way, letting me inside.

There were kids everywhere! It was like Michael Jackson’s house at midnight. I looked around, my hands were sweating so badly, I could have taken a shot with the water shed. I tried to spot him, but there were just so many little humans running, screaming, crying, laughing, shitting, pissing, farting… you name it they were “ing-ing” it. Continue reading BETTY BOOZE 3

MICHAEL JACKSON – THIS IS IT

Foreword by Stan Lerner: in general blogs about Sin City / Las Vegas should read fast and fun. This blog won’t, because Michael Jackson “This Is It” is a brilliant film born from an incredible loss to the world—the musical genius of Michael Jackson.

This story, for me, begins with a text message on my iphone that read “Michael Jackson has passed away,” which I received thirty minutes before other media sources. I decided not to break the story. It’s just not the type of blogging I personally aspire to.

After several days of friends and readers asking me to write something about the death of Michael Jackson, I acquiesced and did so. I chose to define the thru line that the media would take, given the enormous amounts of money that would inevitably be at stake. I said that the King of Pop’s personal life would be faded and his music both rediscovered and celebrated. Good business and frankly the preference of the public.

As I sat in Jerry Olivarez’s beautiful suite on the 32nd floor of the Palms Hotel’s Fantasy Tower, Michael Jackson “This Is It” was the furthest thing from my mind. Jerry is the Executive Director of PR for Brenden Theatres and I was there to discuss blogsincity business. But as things go Jerry, Joe and I began to discuss the premiere of  “This Is It”, which was being held at the Brenden Theatre just off the casino in the Palms. Because this particular theatre is home base to Johnny Brenden himself it is by definition the company’s flagship. And although it had nothing to do with what I was there to discuss I accepted Jerry’ s gracious offer to attend the premiere.

The event began as anyone would expect, there was lots of press on hand to witness—Johnny Brenden presenting Joe Jackson with a star on the Brenden Theatre walk of fame. And while Johnny himself could be a Vegas reality show, which I’d gladly produce, this blog really takes a turn in a different direction—the movie.

AEG who put up the money for the “This Is It” tour and myself have butted heads on a couple of issues regarding their LA Live project in Los Angeles in the past. The fact that they sold the rehearsal footage to be used for the movie to Sony for sixty million dollars, well added to my discomfort given AEG’s claim of having no financial interest in holding a Michael Jackson funeral event at Staple’s Center. But all of that being said it’s a great thing that Kenny Ortega was given the opportunity to put the footage together into “This Is It” because it answers a lot of questions. Continue reading MICHAEL JACKSON – THIS IS IT

IS AEG BEHIND MICHAEL JACKSON’S MURDER???

In an explosive report delivered this weekend by Fox News’s Geraldo Rivera…Rivera went well beyond implying that Michael Jackson’s concert promoter, AEG, had an interest in the King of Pop’s Death—he used context and comments by Michael Jackson’s mother, Katherine, to accuse AEG of having the man killed whose comeback tour they were promoting. At the root of Rivera’s allegation is an insurance policy for seventeen million dollars that he reports AEG wants to collect on. And adding a tanker truckload of fuel to the fire, is a deal between AEG and Sony to turn AEG’s footage of Michael Jackson’s preparations for his concert tour into two feature length motion pictures—GERALDO SAYS AEG IS TO BE PAID SIXTY MILLION DOLLARS FOR THIS FOOTAGE!!!

Of course AEG denies Geraldo’s allegations…And I know for a fact that AEG President Tim Leiweke has said that this story is going away today—I assume he’s pulling some of those power strings AEG has paid for or threatening Fox with legal action; take your pick. But what everyone has to be asking right now is why did this very same person said that AEG had no financial interest in Michael Jackson’s funeral event held at Staple’s Center? This lack of financial interest is how Mr. Leiweke justified sticking the city with a 1.4 million dollar bill for event related city services. Trying to dissuade ticket holders from cashing in 50 million dollars worth of tickets + 17 million in insurance money (according to Geraldo) + 60 million dollar movie deal = 127 million dollars of financial interest, if Rivera is right.

So, I’ve gone after AEG for a number of issues ranging from taking 300 million in tax credits from the public and not giving the community the events in the public space it promised to being a bad corporate citizen to being in the blogging business and not properly disclosing the obvious conflict of interest when making Tammy Billings the director of marketing for LA Live also the LA Live Examiner. But turning an enormous profit on the apparent murder of Michael Jackson? I write a pretty good novel every now and then and even I couldn’t dream this one up. Continue reading IS AEG BEHIND MICHAEL JACKSON’S MURDER???

NO DEFENDING LA LIVE

Funny, that hundreds of thousands of people have read my blogs either about LA Live or LA Live tenants and only two people have ever bothered to offer a comment in disagreement with the facts as I’ve presented them—that’s a pretty amazing statistic. So when the first comment of the two was submitted I had my doubts about its legitimacy, but I let it go. Yesterday, we received the second comment that disagreed with the facts as I’ve presented them with respect to LA Live, actually we received it twice, so please read both and note that the comment is referring to my blog “LA Live’s St. Patrick’s Day Massacre”.

Comment 1:

“do you really think bashing la live is going to get you anything?  we as a community should be supporting everyone and talking bad about someone on a BLOG.  you’re a jerk.”

Comment 2:

“oops, typo. 

we as a community should be supporting everyone and NOT talking bad about someone on a BLOG.  you’re a jerk.”

Now most of my readers know that I take being part of the Downtown community pretty seriously—I’ve lived Downtown for fourteen years and of course I founded downtownster. I was also a major supporter of LA Live until the time I concluded that AEG had betrayed the community and my trust. I met with Michael Roth, LA Live’s Vice President of Communications, he made promises that he did not keep—I’ve been more than fair to LA Live, I was willing to give them a second chance, and frankly for the good of the community, still would. But not by compromising on what I believe is right. And certainly not because of comments that call me a jerk.

AND WHAT ABOUT THAT COMMENT FROM THE CONCERNED MEMBER OF OUR COMMUNITY?

Here’s the problem for big corporate, corrupt, America—the Internet and blogs like downtownster have become the great equalizer. So now big corporate, corrupt, America is trying to defend itself—by lying. That’s right, companies like AEG either own their own blogs or employ people to post bogus comments in order to defend their interest around the Internet. AEG owns the examiner.com, which allows them to examine their own interest favorably. And apparently their tenant Outback Steakhouse Inc., the owner of Fleming’s at LA Live, has a bogus commenter doing their bidding—because, although the comment above was posted anonymously a trace of the IP address identified Outback Steakhouse Inc. 2202 N. Westshore Blvd. 5th Floor Tampa, Florida 33607 as the origination source. And yes we even know the name of the person whose workstation the comment came from, Patrick.

HOW DID A GUY WHO SENDS EMAIL FROM FLORIDA BECOME PART OF OUR COMMUNITY?

He’s not…And frankly, I can’t imagine what type of whore a person like this must be to throw away their integrity to defend a company from the truth…Hear this well bogus commenters…downtownster writes the truth and exemplifies why the founding fathers were such advocates and protectors of free speech.

So dear readers, to discourage corporate America from trying to interfere with the truth that we work so hard to bring to you, I’m going to repost at the bottom of this blog “LA Live’s St. Patrick’s Day Massacre”, “Three Things To Miss Downtown”, and “Why Pay To Bury MJ?” I urge you to read them, and use our share function at the bottom of each post to send this post to all of your friends—this helps to move the content way up on search engines and corporate, corrupt, America loves this.

Also, while downtownster loves getting legitimate comments, I promise the next bogus commenter that we will not only post your work address, we’ll post your full name and make sure everyone knows that you are fraud—Promise.

PLEASE TAKE A FEW MINUTES TO READ THE THREE POST’S THAT SOME VERY RICH PEOPLE DON’T WANT YOU TO READ!!!

LA LIVE’S SAINT PATRICK’S DAY MASSACRE Continue reading NO DEFENDING LA LIVE

SPECIAL GUEST BARISTA

A FEW MONTHS AGO

“Another Jack and Coke,” I said, ordering my fifth drink—I try to drink minimally at Lakers’ games. “Look Ray, you have to have an espresso machine at the bakery,” I urged.

“We’re going to have coffee,” responded Ray politely. He’s from Denmark they’re polite.

“That’s great, but you have to have espresso.” I wasn’t taking no for an answer. “Look how busy the Starbucks right around the corner is.” Referring to Starbucks at 11th and Grand. “You could take half their espresso business in your first month…They don’t even make their drinks by hand…And they still get the orders wrong half the time.”

“I don’t know why I come to these games,” chimed in Ed, as in Ed Yawitz our host. “Stan’s right Ray, you have to have espresso drinks.”

“Hell, I’ll be your barista—no charge, if you’re worried about the extra staff,” I offered getting carried away in the moment.

Ed nodded. “Stan’s a world class barista—I’ll come every day.”

Ray hadn’t had as much to drink as I. “Okay, I’ll put in an espresso machine, but you have to come in as our barista, not all the time, but…”

I held up my hand. “I’m there. I’ll be your special guest barista and I’ll train up some protégés.”

A FEW MONTHS LATER

Ray opened Hygge Bakery (1106 South Hope St.) and if you’ve read my blog “Let’s Hygge” you know that I was there crafting a very fine story, which I later wrote while on vacation in Las Vegas. Oh and while I was on vacation I launched downtownster’s sister site blogsincity.com a must read before any trip to Vegas. And if you haven’t read my blog “Let’s Hygge”, you should!!!

So on my way back from Vegas I received a text from Ray. “We’ve got the espresso machine.” I texted him back, that I’d be in the next day. Continue reading SPECIAL GUEST BARISTA