Michael Jackson Dies

Posted Jun 25th 2009 5:20PM by TMZ Staff

We've just learned Michael Jackson has died. He was 50. 

Michael suffered a cardiac arrest earlier this afternoon at his Holmby Hills home and paramedics were unable to revive him. We're told when paramedics arrived Jackson had no pulse and they never got a pulse back.

A source tells us Jackson was dead when paramedics arrived.

Once at the hospital, the staff tried to resuscitate him but he was completely unresponsive.

We're told one of the staff members at Jackson's home called 911.

La Toya ran in the hospital sobbing after Jackson was pronounced dead.

Michael is survived by three children: Michael Joseph Jackson, Jr., Paris Michael Katherine Jackson and Prince "Blanket" Michael Jackson II.

Story developing...

 A long time ago, when I was 7, I had a crush on Cindy Brady.

I think it was the pigtails, I dunno. Because not long after, in my little elementary class in Westport (3rd grade, I think), I met this girl who was slightly older than me. She was newly 8 years old, also with pigtails. Her name was Gail, and we got along very well. It wasn't long before we were thick as thieves. She was my new crush and I was hers, in fact she asked me one day to "go steady" with her...and I said Yes.

Ah, puppy love...we were a "couple" through that grade and into the next, and then we just sort of drifted apart. There was no formal "break up", we just found new friendships. We kept in touch, here and there, over time. I lost touch when she went off to Brown University. Our paths crossed indirectly after that point - a writer I discovered during my Charlton Comics years was friends with her, and mentioned her in passing, someone else passed along a message of "HI" because they brought me up in passing to her coincidentally.

Then, nothing, as my worlds and cliques changed. 

...

Recently, in the last 6-8 months, I expanded my social networking to include Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Facebook has reconnected me with people I knew in High School, even people who weren't overly friendly to me then have become post-alumni buddies. Along with their personal regret that they didn't take the opportunity to get to know me better back then. At LinkedIn, she just popped up in a random search. My puppy love? Nah, her last name was the same, wouldn't she be married by NOW? Just the same, I reached out. She quickly responded...it WAS her! My Winnie Cooper. Awesome. We have agreed to "keep in touch".

It's amazing to think from such early years that those early connections would really affect your life in any substantive way. But, upon reflection, it always had. I can now perceive aspects of Gail in every actual girlfriend that I've had since. Not all the same things in each, just fragments, but still...

Anybody else have a story like that? Reconnecting with a significant?

 

Comic book shop needs a superhero to survive By: Mary Ellen Godin, staff 5:10 pm 03/16/2009   WALLINGFORD - Michael Cote pores through the marked cartons of comic books on the shelves and finally hits paydirt-- Adam the Blue Marvel. "I love it when things are where they are supposed to be," Cote said. As the owner of DJ's Comics in Staples Plaza, Cote is used to scouring up comics or games his customers are looking for. Customers can even find authentic brown moss for Lord of the Rings scene builders. But Cote and DJ's are likely coming to the end of an era where youngsters, teenager and adults could escape to fantasy through comic books, cards and games. The economy and rent increases are squeezing DJ's out of business and he's now $18,000 behind in his rent. "It's very sad," Cote said. "I've put everything I've had into this store and the kids. "I could very realistically go from having all this to being on the street."

 I haven't written anything here lately as I have been swept up in the miasma of social networking.

Yes, I have cheated on LJ with Twitter and Facebook. *sigh*

I am also working on much behind the scenes (the updated sites for CTkaraoke, United Comics, Obsidian Collectibles, etc.), as well as paying gigs. I don't have much of a life.

Anyway, I got this quote of the day, and thought I would share it:

"There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval." - George Santayana

I intend to. Eventually.

G'Day.

Quote from a friend's 25 Random Things, which I think I'll make into a t-shirt:

 "Nobody who ever told me I couldn't do something I really wanted to do was ever right."

This is the Promo Reel for United Comics.

We're going to a few comic book conventions this year, and I wanted to have a quick promotional video.

Thoughts?

 As of January 1st, I changed the name of my overall business to Obsidian Matador Studios. The LLC part will be added shortly. I kind of needed to change the name, because there is an Obsidian Entertainment that makes video games (We were Obsidian Media Entertainment).

Nothing else changes, Lucky Star is still Lucky Star. United Comics is still United Comics. The name change was most necessary because this year is the beginning of growth for the business overall. I will be working my butt off for the next 8 months, but everything I've been doing for the last 4 years has been leading up to this.

Things are good.

 I have 2 gigs booked for Saturday.

Of course, here comes the snow again! The first one will happen before the snow hits (theoretically), but the second one is at a prep school in NJ. They haven't cancelled, and probably won't, but...

Wish me luck.

 Since Thanksgiving, I've joined more of the world of social and business networking. LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. I'm back in touch with people I haven't talked to in over 10 years. Wow. People that you lose touch with because you move, or they move, or phone numbers change. I've made money on bookings from connections of connections, and this is the slow season. I can't wait for Spring!

I may even get a chance to work with one of my influences on a comic book version of an old TV property. Can't say more yet, so as not to jinx it.

Life's not too bad.

 I sleep now.

Much shoveling later, then on to the delayed festivities.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

 'Santa' opens fire at Calif. party; 3 dead

COVINA, Calif. (AP) — A man dressed as Santa Claus opened fire at a Christmas Eve party in a suburban Los Angeles home that subsequently caught fire, leaving three people dead, police said.

The man arrived at the party in Covina late Wednesday and immediately opened fire with a handgun, police Lt. Pat Buchanan said.

Buchanan says three bodies were found after the fire was put out. He could not say how the fire started or how the three people died.

Buchanan says three other people were injured. A woman in her 20s and an 8-year-old girl had gunshot wounds that were not life-threatening, and a third person had a broken ankle.

Police are seeking a man they are calling a person of interest, 45-year-old Bruce Jeffrey Pardo. Buchanan said Pardo is the estranged husband of a person who may have been at the party.

Police received several 911 calls with reports of shots fired at 11:30 p.m. Wednesday night, and were still hearing gunshots after they arrived and found the house in flames, Buchanan said.

At first, firefighters were held back by police because shots were still being fired, authorities said.

Firefighters had extinguished the blaze by about 1:30 a.m. Thursday, fire Captain Mike Brown said.

There was significant damage to the two-story home on a cul-de-sac in Covina, a quiet suburb 25 miles east of Los Angeles.

CELEBRATE ME HOME

Home for the holidays,
I believe Ive missed each and every face,
Come on and play my music,
Let's turn on the love light in the place

It's time I found myself,
Totally surrounded in your circles
Whoa, my friends

Please, celebrate me home,
Give me a number,
Please, celebrate me home
Play me one more song,
That I'll always remember,
And I can recall,
Whenever I find myself too all alone,
I can sing me home.

Uneasy highway,
Traveling where the westerly winds can fly,
Somebody tried to tell me,
But the men forgot to tell me why,

I gotta count on being gone,
Come on woman, come on daddy,
Be what you want from me,
I'm this strong, I'll be weak

Please, celebrate me home,
Give me a number,
Please, celebrate me home
Play me one more song,
That I'll always remember,
I can recall,
Whenever I find myself too all alone,
I can make believe I've never gone,
I never know where I belong,
Sing me home.

Please, celebrate me home,
Give me a number,
Please, celebrate me home
Play me one more song,

Celebrate, celebrate
Celebrate, celebrate
Celebrate, celebrate
Celebrate me home

Please, celebrate me home,
Please, celebrate me home,
Well I'm finally here,
But I'm bound to roam,
Come on celebrate me home
Well I'm finally here,
But I'm bound to roam,
Come on celebrate me home
Well I'm finally here,
But I'm bound to roam,
Come on celebrate me home
Please, celebrate me home,
Please, celebrate me home,
Please, celebrate me home,
Please, celebrate me home,
Please, celebrate me home,
Please, celebrate me home.

December is screwy.

Shows cancel, then un-cancel. Weather trumps EVERYTHING. Because of the past Friday's impending storm, my show cancels for Saturday. An hour later, another show takes it's place. No complaints, the new gig paid more. 

FRIDAY:
I figure I can get out and back quick before it snows, since not one flake has hit the ground yet here. I go for gas, beef for fajitas (yes, I cook DAMN well) and strawberry soda, in that order. Stop & Shop. No snow yet. Good.

Getting gas. The guy in front of me was Methuselah's little brother, emulating the wizard in "Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town". "Put ONE foot in front of the OTHER..." Took him 15-20 minutes to get his gas, hobbling to the payment booth and back for his receipt. In that time, the snow began. DAMN. Got my gas, went into the store, got out...BOOM. The car is covered in snow completely. I get in after brushing off the outer covering, back out of the spot...and the SLIDING begins. I've NO traction. I just replaced the front tires about a month or two back. WTF?!? Somehow, I make it out of the Stop & Shop parking lot onto the main road, a big steel hockey puck. Not a good idea to keep driving. I call a tow truck, it takes a while because of all the accidents happening while I was trying to avoid one. He drops me down at the bottom of my hill...er, street. I trudge home.

That night, I watched as a snow plow from the city comes past my place, and slides into a parked minivan...CRASH!...then a car...BASH! (that one left on a flatbed). Note to self: stay off the street when it snows, park in the DRIVEWAY.

SATURDAY:
I shovel my car out at the end of the street. Someone informs me that the police almost towed my car that night, and the only thing that stopped them is the tow truck driver. Turns out he's the same guy that dropped me there in the first place, and explained why he put the car there...so they left it alone.

Did my gig, which should've cancelled, but I'm glad they didn't...$$$. I go home and close to the house, I slide into a snowbank. Annoying, but I can get out. A guy in a SUV comes past and asks if I need help (in exchange for "a coupla bucks"). I say thanks, but no thanks, I'm good. He decides to help anyway...by pushing my car from the rear, which only pushes me DEEPER into the bank AND causes damage to my rear end and knocks off my license plate. Joy. I ask for his insurance card, which he can't seem to find. His mother is in the passenger seat, and she's cussing up a storm in Spanish. While he's out of the car, I get his plate number, and she takes the driver's seat to DRIVE AWAY! He is trying to assure me that he's not evading responsibility, that he'll stay to wait for the police to arrive. His mother zooms back, yells at him to get in the car (which he does) and zooms off screaming, "You F***in' N****r!!" Turns out that the plate doesn't even belong to the SUV, and obviously no insurance. I get the car out of the snow with the help of a friend of Bri's who lives nearby, and eventually get home.

SUNDAY:
I never leave the house. We go out to shovel, and then it snows again. A dusting...but that, combined with the plow coming down the street minimizes the work we did on the sidewalk. 

Can't wait for Wednesday's rain, hopefully that'll wash some of this mess away. The car is acting up again, it does that in really cold weather. It's time to start looking for a replacement.

Hey, I'm entitled. It's MY LJ.

We're up to 176,000+ karaoke tracks. New Beyonce ("If I Were A Boy" AND "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)"), new Britney (just "Womanizer", "Circus" isn't out yet.), more Taylor Swift AND Pink than anyone will sing.

We picked up UCONN Storrs as a client, we'll be doing Friday Night Karaoke up there starting in January. I think it's students only though.

I need a good song to sing for tomorrow night's karaoke benefit. Anyone got any ideas?

 Leave me a comment and I will reply with why I like you. If I don't know you all that well, I'll either make something up or tell you why I like your LiveJournal. You must pay for the privilege by posting a message like this one on your LiveJournal.

Strange Year, this one.

So yesterday, I hear that Bettie Page passed on of a heart attack after an extended illness. If you're not a fan of "good girl" pin-up photo art, you may not think you know who she is. If you've seen the Disney film "The Rocketeer", the character of Jenny Blake - played by New Haven native (and Academy Award winner) Jennifer Connelly - was inspired by Bettie. She has been the subject of a documentary and feature film starring Life On Mars' actress Gretchen Mol, and was a Playboy playmate back in the '50s. She will be missed by those in geek fandom who only discovered her in the last few decades.

The ODD thing is - the guy that brought her back into the public eye, Dave Stevens, a movie storyboard artist and the writer/artist/creator of The Rocketeer (great guy, I met with him years ago in the hopes of getting a cover for a project I was working on at the time) passed away back in March of Leukemia at the age of 52. Not ironic by any means, but eerie nonetheless.

Kay-Bee Toys has filed for bankruptcy. They're NOT coming back. All stores will shutter after liquidation. Thanks, Wal*Mart. Will the automakers follow? Thanks, Congress.

We need to start making things in this country again, not just farming it out to Mexico and China. I'm watching the nation running around like sheep, wondering what happened to their money. Answer: we sent it all overseas. Hello?!? 

We need to start reading again. Not just Harry Potter and Twilight, but actual literature. Knowledge is power. 

But what do I know? I publish comic books.

Starting TODAY, and running through the 13th, all area McDonald's are giving away a FREE small hot or medium iced McCafe Beverage. ALL DAY. No purchase necessary.

Latte.

Mocha.

Cappuccino.

Yes, McDonald's is trying to steal Starbucks clientele. Good Luck with that, I don't have to pay for Wi-Fi at Starbucks.

But hey, FREE.

 Something I wrote elsewhere about the G1 in response to the following:

> The G1 is nice, but it's not got the "buzz" that the iPhone has had.
> I sing in a men's chorus and since the iPhone came out it's incredible
> that lots and lots of them now have iPhones and many of these people
> were on Verizon.


I believe that the "buzz" the iPhone has was due to the look and innovations it
had at the
time it came out (like the accelerometer, which the G1 also has). I remember my
friend
calling me up all excited about the iPhone release, citing most of the reported
features. I
wasn't impressed, my Treo 600 (which I refer to as the "Grandaddy" of
smartphones) could
already do most of the things he mentioned as "awesome" with the iPhone. The
look (ooh,
pretty sleek shiny thing...!) was the only real selling point to me, I didn't
care about having
an "iPod phone". I certainly wasn't (and stlll am not) a fan of Cingular/AT&T,
and I didn't
care to buy one and try to "jailbreak" it to T-Mo.

As to the G1:

PROS:

It's rubberized on it's exterior (The keys aren't rubber, they're plastic, but
look like rubber.
They're plenty durable.). In the time I've had the G1 (over a month now), I've
NEVER
dropped it. Not ONCE. Not even ALMOST. Ask iPhone users about accidents they've
had
over slipping or dropping phones.

The apps (more so now than at launch) are comparable to apps on the iPhone
(Apple
markets them better). Case in point - Apple promotes SHAZAM in it's ads. It's an
app that
"listens" to songs on the radio or TV or in a club, and allows you to download
the song
from iTunes. G1 HAS THE EXACT SAME APP. Instead of iTunes, you go to Amazon's
mp3
store for downloads AND allows you to view the video on YouTube (which you CAN'T
do
on the iPhone version). The G1 has the BEST eBay app I've ever seen on any
smartphone.
There is now even an app that allows you to accept credit cards on your phone
through the
Authorize.net gateway (if you already have a merchant account, or plan to get
one).

All my eMail comes to the phone, all my IM's, all my social networking. Other
than not
being able to "see" Flash (apparently common with smartphones, and this is
rumored to be
being worked on), the Internet experience is great. I can input my contacts and
calendar
online at my Gmail account from any Internet terminal (my laptop, my desktop,
etc), and it
syncs that information to my phone. If I lose my phone or damage it, I don't
lose that
information.

CONS:

The Look. When I first saw it, I thought, "That's It?" It's a brick. But it's so
basic looking, I
don't think I have to worry about anyone stealing it. That may be a "plus".

Battery Life. Bring your chargers with you when you go forth. If you use your
phone as
extensively as I do, you'll be recharging every 3-4 hours. You CAN shut off GPS,
and
certain other non-essential functions to save battery life, but you're still
looking at every
6-8 hours between charges. The good news is that you can charge your phone
through
your laptop, an outlet or your car pretty easily. Energizer even makes a mini
USB portable
battery charger so you can use regular batteries to recharge anywhere.

The Keyboard. While there is now an app that has a touchpad keyboard for the
search
function, if you need to type most information, you have to use the flip open
keyboard. It's
annoying initially, but you get used to it. I'm used to using my Treo 600
one-handed, and
now I have to use both hands to type.

That's it. With new apps arriving literally daily, it improves constantly. The
marketing for
the G1 is cute, but not informative. They're promoting it as an "information
phone", but it
really is much more. It does go head to head with iPhone in most areas. I love
it, and until
Palm catches up and gets with the program again, this will be my phone of
choice.

There's a few, actually:

The Jacksons Victory Tour. Just after THRILLER made Michael Jackson "MICHAEL JACKSON".

Prince's Purple Rain Tour, I saw it the day after he won the Academy Award for Best Original Movie Soundtrack, and he had the Oscar on stage with him. AND did an encore for only 50 people (I was one of them).

Michael Jackson's 30 Anniversary Concert. EVERYONE was there, either watching or performing. Seeing the Jacksons perform together for the first time in YEARS alongside *NSYNC. Britney Spears being stalked by Michael as he sang "The Way You Make Me Feel". Marc Anthony singing "She's Out Of My Life", leaving not a dry eye in the house. Sitting at one point within arm's reach (I was all over the arena) to Jermaine Dupri. Watching the audience boo Marlon Brando off the stage for being a little TOO dramatic. 

This Is It. I will be everywhere this coming year, running around like crazy. But I intend to accomplish a lot. Aside from the changes I plan to make to CTKaraoke.com (look for the cellphone interface in early 2009), and the Lucky Star expansion plans (more DJ and KJs!), I have this print publishing operation that has been neglected. I will be increasing the amount of publications released this year, most notably comics. This is tough, because outside of a computer or copies of Stefanie Meyer's books, people aren't reading as much as they used to. I want to create a small presence in bookstores in CT. The Philistine TPB is a start, and there will be more graphic novels to come (Hollywood likes those). But I plan at least one prose novel by year's end. I'm a guest at the upcoming New York Comic-Con in February (with others to follow, probably Texas and Chicago and maybe Pittsburgh, no San Diego this year but probably NEXT), and hopefully I'll have a chapter or two to show there. I'm not talking about the plotline yet, but it does involve the experience of being "more". The film project I'm putting together is developing, nothing to discuss yet. The music thing is still in the works, but again, later in the year. Not ready to discuss that, but this is not a forgotten idea. These are mainly held up due to financing. I'm now on the Internet 24 hrs a day. I don't sleep anymore. I FINALLY joined Facebook. And Twitter. This has allowed me to connect with people I haven't talked to in years from around the U.S. Back to work.