The Rawness

It’s no secret I have no great respect for Nick Cannon. He always reminded me of the famous celebrity version of that black guy in college who was kind of corny and solidly middle class, then went and tried to reinvent himself and act “extra boujetto” (bourgie+ghetto) once he hit college. The kind of black guy overdoes it around other blacks he deems to be more “authentically black” out of insecurity because he has a need to feel down and who also overdoes it around whites to play up his street cred and the novelty of being the token black guy hoping they’re clueless enough about genuine street cred to actually buy into it. Unfortunately he’s six years too late as far as the latter category goes. Age 18-34 white people nowadays have become so impressively hip-hop and street cred savvy in recent years that they’re incredibly adept at spotting black cornballs trying to pull a fast one. The days of black cornballs easily capitalizing on an undeserved bad boy image with white chicks just by rocking some baggy pants and using forced ebonics are fast coming to a close. Same for a celebrity like Nick Cannon who’s trying to win over America in the same way, his sassy, ebonic-filled attention whore antics while hosting America’s Got Talent are damn painful to watch. TRYING. WAY. TOO. HARD.

I think a lot of these types like playing up the stereotypical lingo when around white people because they know white people find such stereotypical antics entertaining. You ever watch a movie in a theater filled with whites and the audience cracks up at a line said by a black character simply because its ebonics? Not even because it’s a joke, just the ebonics of it. (90% of Chris Tucker’s lines in the Rush Hour movies for example) I have no problem with this if this is who you truly are. Chris Tucker fills the black stereotype role in the Rush Hour movies but that’s how he really talks and acts so fuck it, get that paper. With Cannon it transparently comes off like “This is the kind of black behavior white people like so let me play it up” and it just comes off really inauthentic.

But lo and behold, I came across a clip this week that managed to make even a guy like me feel sorry for the cornball. I mean this is just brutal.

Part of me hopes this is staged for his sake, but even if it is, that’s not much better. It means that he’s become disturbingly comfortable with his role as an utter joke. A lot of people are claiming it’s not so bad because it may actually be staged. In some ways though, that almost makes it worse!

No point dissecting it, at this point you can predict what I’d have to say if you’ve been reading this blog regularly.

I don’t usually do celebrity gossip but this here is what Barack Obama calls a teachable moment so I’m going to make an exception.

First, here’s the backstory:

Eminem has hit out at Mariah Carey and husband Nick Cannon in his new song The Warning.

It’s the latest in a long feud between the pair who first came to blows when Eminem said he had a fling with Mariah back in 2001 and she denied it.

It’s been claimed recently that Mariah mocked the rapper in the video for her latest single Obsession.

It comes after Eminem mentioned Mariah in his song Bagpipes From Baghdad, which also talked about her husband Nick.

In May, Nick leapt to his wife’s defence and retorted by blogging: “homeboy is still obsessed with my wife”.

And here’s the diss track:

I’m torn on this from a power and career perspective. For Eminem, it generates lots of buzz, and the lyrics and beat are sick, yet at the same time, is it good buzz? On one hand this is a whole lot of energy to devote to a chick, especially if the underlying events go back to 2001. And it comes off like catfighting. I’m of the opinion that when dealing with a woman, whether to woo her or in an argument, you should be talking less than she is. Talk more than her and it seems like you’re trying too hard or care too much. But at the same time, he does it with such skill and panache I’m tempted to make an exception, plus he blasts Nick Cannon and his career so well, which is always commendable. I’m sorry but Nick Cannon making the jump from Nickelodeon to entertainment areas requiring street cred always irked me, kind of like if AC Slater suddenly tried to be taken seriously as a member of Terror Squad after Saved by the Bell.

Which leads to the next question: what’s the best way for Nick Cannon to proceed from here? Any way he proceeds from here just makes him look worse. He’s basically become known as the ghetto Ashton Kutcher by making himself the boytoy of an A-list cougar. He’s tried to rap before but he’s not ready for a battle rap against a lyricist of Eminem’s character:

It’s too late pull the dismissive “I’m too big for all that, it’s beneath me” move because he already publicly issued a warning to Eminem in the media. On his twitter page he’s going that route now with quotes like “Quote of the day: “Never argue with fools because from a distance people cant tell who is who” and When there are no enemies within the enemies outside can not hurt you!” and “Never take your own revenge, but rather give place unto the wrath. For it is written vengeance is mine, I will repay… PREACH!” and “”I will bless those that bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse.” Genesis 12:3″ (Even though these are all well-known sayings, they’ve all been used in Jay-Z songs, making his response come off extra unoriginal and weak) He keeps adding a new quote related to taking the higher ground and being the better man every 6 minutes or so, and the tone is becoming increasingly desperate.

Three mistakes here: First mistake, if you’re going to dismiss a beef as being beneath you, you should just dismiss it once firmly and be done with it unless the opponent keeps coming back at you harder and harder. By saying it doesn’t matter over and over and over, Cannon gives the impression that it does matter. If he pulled such a move right after Eminem’s first volley, it would have been the right thing to do. Jay-Z recently did something similar with attention-whore rapper The Game. But Cannon made the mistake of publicly calling Eminem out on the carpet and threatening him, so after he put himself out there like that with such a blatant warning and his bluff has been called, there’s no turning back and playing the high road now. He backed himself into a corner and taking the high road after warning somebody that there’d be hell to pay if they crossed you again just makes him look weak. So his second mistake was, never make a threat unless you know you are willing to carry it out and specifically know HOW you are going to carry it out. Because if the person calls your bluff and you’re caught hesitating and you wait until then to think of how to proceed, you’ve already lost. For Cannon to respond with platitudes like that at this point is like bringing knives to a gunfight. This is a guy who has rapped multiple songs calling his wife a whore and fantasizing about killing her, written songs attacking his mother and has pulled out guns on multiple people. What did you expect to happen when you called him out, and why weren’t you prepared for it?!

To me Nick Cannon’s third and biggest mistake though was marrying a woman like Mariah Carey in the first place. This woman has had a history of hanging out with guys so far out of his league when it comes to griminess and bad boy attitude. After her split with Tommy Mottolla, this woman was utterly immersed in the world of hip-hop and urban entertainment. Any chick who is so heavily involved and embroiled in the rap and urban entertainment world as Mariah Carey was for so many years is bound to have some psycho, thug and gangster bad boy skeletons in her closet. Even if she says she never dated or had sex with any guys in this bad circle, it doesn’t matter, because women often lie to cover up their scandalous pasts, and men often lie to boost their number of conquests, and once you’re caught in the middle of a he-say, she-say situation, you already lose. You never know who to believe because there’s no way to prove anything. Even if she and Eminem disagree on the extent of the fling, they both admit there was some degree of a fling between them. That should be all you need to know when it comes to whether or not to marry her.

A woman’s past is always potentially your problem when you become serious with her, so you have to know what level of conflict you’re built for and if your woman’s social circle is well beyond that level, don’t enter a relationship with her. For example I’m no gangster so any chick I met who had a history of psycho gangster ex-es I avoided for long term commitments, because her past meant a higher likelihood of stalker psycho ex-es in my future, guys with way less to lose than me. If she had tough guys in her past who were the type to maybe just have a single one-on-one fight with me and leave it at that, that was an acceptable risk I knew I could handle. If he was in gangs and into gunplay or was an ex-con, fuck that. In college I knew a lot of guys who messed with chicks with ex-es like that and got a lot of grief as a result.

I was acquainted with a girl who was a lawyer, who had a really horrible bad boy streak up through her 20s. She was the smoking hot chick who loved the high-drama relationships with tattooed asshole psycho thugs and the occasional asshole psycho cop, which is even worse because you have even less recourse against a guy like that. She had the problem later when she hit her late 20s and early 20s. She was getting older and was no closer to settling down or finding stability in her personal life, so she wanted a nice guy provider type to settle down with now that she was done getting pumped and dumped by scumbags. Problem was, a lot of her crazy ex-es, including the psycho cop, were periodically resurfacing to stalk her, show up unannounced and threaten all her new boyfriends, and none of these new nice guy professional guys were willing to put up with it. Every week was a new sob story with this woman that related to her past awful dating choices. The lesson the guys in her life learned is the lesson that Cannon is learning now. That if you’re a square and a woman has a history of traveling in circles with thugs, guidos, gangster or convicts, even if she claims never to have dated one, don’t date her and risk putting yourself in a position you’re not equipped to handle.

So I guess the questions are, does this hurt Eminem more than it helps him or vice versa? Is it some gangsta shit or bad move to kiss and tell to that extent? In general, I think getting a reputation as one who kisses and tells without provacation is one of the worst moves a guy can do, but that then begs the question, was there sufficient provocation by Cannon and Carey? And what should Cannon’s next move be? What should his past moves have been?

Okay, this is the last Michael Jackson related post.

As crazy and social maladjusted Michael Jackson was in his personal life, he was peerless in one area, and that was creating a larger than life showbiz persona. And the second video I posted from him, “Liberian Girl,” demonstrates this perfectly and I think has a lot of human principles to teach.

First thing to notice about the video is the use of social proof. Social Proof is a concept popularized by Robert Cialdini, author of “Influence.” It basically says that if something is endorsed by a bunch of people, it automatically rises in value to onlookers. For example if I walk into a venue and don’t say hello to anyone and no one says hello to me I will make one impression. If I walk into a venue and a bunch of people mob me and I seem to know and say hello to everyone, I have social proof. Even if I’m dressed and looking exactly the same in both examples, in the example where I have social proof my value will rise sharply. People who look on will automatically assign value to me without knowing anything about me. The quality of the people also determines the level of social proof. Anyone who has been out with an incredibly hot woman knows this to be true. Men and women both treat you differently and assign you value automatically without knowing anything about you. If you walk in someplace with a model-caliber companion or a famous person like Diddy or Donald Trump with you, the social proof will be significantly more powerful from that one person than if you walked in with a mob of 30 nobodies.

Another good example of this is rapper team-up songs and videos. The format is the same. A rapper who is popular has another rapper who is as popular or up and coming and puts him in the video. He’s endorsing his social circle and gaining social proof. He’s telling people who are watching, “This is my friend. This is the caliber of rapper I hang with. If you think he’s credible, than I am credibly too by association.” Usually the two rappers are of equal or near equal status, and use each other’s presence to mutually give each other social proof. Then as icing on the cake they surround themselves with a bevy of fine women, fancy cars and material possessions. Crude but effective.

There is a current rapper coming up named Drake who is using social proof to an incredible degree to make himself incredibly popular and viral. He’s made himself a household name among rap fans within less than a year just by hanging out, working with and appearig in public with today’s top rappers. This gave him social proofing among hip-hop’s male fans. Plus he was publicly spotted dating female celebrities like Rihanna, which gained him a lot of press and gave him social proofing among females who follow black celebrity gossip.

He used social proofing so well that his album hit #3 on Billboard and he has yet to complete an album! More incredibly, he didn’t even have a record label yet! He has since ignited one of the biggest ever bidding wars for a new artist in history:

Toronto MC Drake, arguably the most talked about up-and-coming artist since Kanye West and 50 Cent, is involved in a serious bidding war between at least three major labels according to Billboard.

As XXLMag.com reported last month, Drake is close to signing a deal, but has yet to sign on the dotted line. Billboard has learned that Drizzy will most likely go to Universal, due to the label’s relationship with his crew Young Money. At the same time, this has not deterred other labels from baiting the So Far Gone rapper, whose mixtape single “Best I Ever Had” is receiving serious radio airplay. In fact sources tell Billboard that three majors are in possibly “one of the biggest bidding wars ever.” It is rumored that an undisclosed company has offered Drizzy $2 million to join their ranks.

In addition, Warner Music Group CEO Lyor Cohen and Chief Operating Officer Julie Greenwald made a notable appearance at Drake’s New York City concert last week, showing Atlantic’s interest in the former Degrassi actor.

An astounding accomplishment for a relative unknown in an incredibly short time, accomplished primarily through social proof. In one of Drake’s mixtape songs I heard, he shouts out Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power as his personal bible. I’m not surprised.

However when it comes to social proof in show business, Michael Jackson was great at this, and he knew how to do it better than anyone else. It’s a lesson he learned from Berry Gordy, who used his existing stable of Motown stars to add social proof to the Jackson 5, such as when he created the legend that Diana Ross was responsible for discovering the Jackson 5, which is why their first album was named “Diana Ross presents The Jackson 5.” She had absolutely nothing to do with their discovery, but Berry Gordy created the legend that she did, and had her present them to the crowds at all their early performances and on their debut album, which even contained a written story describing this discovery that never actually occurred in real life. It’s a lesson that stayed with him throughout his life.

The “Liberian Girl” video is a prime example of this:

The video for the song came out in 1989, and it features the prime celebrities of the era: Paula Abdul, Rosanna Arquette, Dan Aykroyd, Mayim Bialik, Bubbles, Jackie Collins, David Copperfield, Emily Dreyfuss, Richard Dreyfuss, Corey Feldman, Lou Ferrigno, Debbie Gibson, Danny Glover, Steve Guttenberg, Jasmine Guy, Whoopi Goldberg, Sherman Hemsley, Olivia Hussey, Amy Irving, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Beverly Johnson, Quincy Jones, Don King, Virginia Madsen, Cheech Marin, Olivia Newton-John, Brigitte Nielsen, Lou Diamond Phillips, Ricky Schroder, Steven Spielberg, Suzanne Somers, John Travolta, Blair Underwood, Carl Weathers, Billy Dee Williams, “Weird Al” Yankovic. Many of these stars may have faded into B or C-list obscurity since then, but at the time they were all huge names.

But putting celebrities in a video isn’t novel or exceptional as far as social proof goes. But what made this video notable wasn’t just the quantity or quality of the celebrities but the context in which they were used. What Jackson was always good at, and it started back in the Jackson 5 era with Diana Ross, is that he’s always been able to present himself as a celebrity to celebrities, or a god to other gods. This is his social proof masterstroke. He makes sure to remind you that he is the idol to your idols. He creates the impression that he’s doing them a favor by letting him appear in his video rather than giving the impression he’s using them for social proof. He has Steven Spielberg waiting anxiously in a chair for him for Pete’s sake.

That’s another notable social dominance aspect of the video. Making people wait for you and getting away with it is a display of social power, a way to remind others of dominance. It’s also a way to build anticipation and anxiety. The whole video is the era’s A-list celebrities waiting for him with bated breath with nothing to do. He sends no apologies, doesn’t send any explanations to them for where he is, they’re left in the dark and even more importantly, no one threatens to leave or get upset. They patiently put up with it. They ask where he is often, but not out of anger but anticipation.

This is also an illustration of Law 16 of Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power:

Law 16 Use Absence to Increase Respect and Honor

The best element is the final one, his actual arrival. Not only is it a nice subtle bit of spectacle, but for those who know classic theatre it’s highly symbolic. First, the direction he comes from. He descends from above like a god. More specifically, he descends like a “deus ex machina,” which translates to a “god from the machine”:

the ‘god from a machine’ who was lowered on to the stage by mechanical contrivance in some ancient Greek plays (notably those of Euripides) to solve the problems of the plot at a stroke.

And what does the god do once he descends from his machine to their cheers and adulation? He simply dismisses them with one sentence. He got what he needs from them without their knowing and is done with them. And they’re happy with that, so long as they get a glimpse of him. It’s incredibly arrogant, but he is able to get away with it by doing it with childlike charm and an innocent smile. The whole video is bragging without bragging, or displaying high value without explicitly having to verbally toot your own horn.

So the lessons you can learn from this video? First, use social proofing whenever you can. Even if you arrive somewhere by yourself you can use social proofing. Within seconds of walking in, walk up to a stranger, ask them some question, smile, pat them on the back, shake their hand and move on. Do this once or twice more and to onlookers you seem to casually know people. Introduce yourself to people, make small talk, exchange names, and remember them. They’ll come in handy later. When you find a person you actually want to keep talking to and engage in a longer conversation, whenever you see the other people you exchanged names with earlier, you can introduce each other. Anything to casually remind people that you know other people who like and endorse you. No one has to know that you just met these people, although even if it comes out no one really cares by that point anyway.

Also keep in mind the quality of social proofing. People of low social value, such as nerds or unattractive women or boorish, loud low-class people, if you surround yourself with them, actually provide negative social value. You’re better off being alone at that point. Also, avoid that type of friend whose preferred method of breaking ice to strangers is to crack jokes and excessively bust on his or her friends. These people are annoying and not only hurt you but themselves. People see you getting busted on and think “wow, what a loser, his own friend doesn’t respect him,” then they look at your friend and think “wow, what a loser, he doesn’t respect his own friend,” and both of you lose value. If you keep quiet you look bad, if you bust back, then you look just as much like a douche as your friend. And it elevates the stranger’s value, because he or she now has two friends taking turns bashing each other for his entertainment, even though they know each other longer and are supposed to be friends. Just like Michael Jackson used flattering words from celebrities to build up his reputation and image, you should be around friends who do the same for you. In fact, this is more important than any other part of social proof. Say for example you are someplace with a hot girl or a powerful man, which would normally give you social proof whether you are a man or a woman, and they spend the whole time berating and belittling you and cracking jokes at your expense? At that point the high quality of your companions does nothing for you.

Second, act humble but avoid self-deprecation. Michael Jackson was great at acting humble while actually having a larger than life ego and self-regard. This is the man who crowned himself “King of Pop,” much like the Stones were the first to name themselves the “World’s Greatest Rock Band.” And in the case of both MJ and the Stones, the names eventually stuck and everyone forgot who originated them. But notice that the biggest celebrities, the ones that even other celebrities look up to, almost never engage in self-deprecation. I can’t think of a time MJ, despite his soft-spoken and shy act, ever was self-deprecating. There’s only one exception to the self-deprecating rule. If you have extremely high-status, you can put yourself down and instead it comes off as endearing. In that case, the ability to still put yourself down despite your obvious high status actually improves your image. If you don’t have blatantly high status, the only acceptable self-deprecation is blatantly insincere self-deprecation. For example if you are in a bar and know everyone there, you can joke “Yeah, I’m a pretty lonely guy with no friends. Look, I couldn’t get anyone to come out tonight!” If you are a musclebound tall guy, you can say “Yeah, it sucks to be a 95 pound weakling.” Ironically, people will be impressed at how humble you are for not taking yourself too seriously in such a scenario, but if you actually were friendless or a 98 lb weakling and said the exact same thing, it would get an opposite reaction!

Third, understand that extreme lateness is a power play that elevates the status of the one being waited for and lowers the status of the one waiting. However I wouldn’t recommend people to be habitually late because it’s not only a tacky power play but often a transparent one as well. It says “I’m so important that I can show up whenever I want, and I consider your time is so unimportant that I expect you to just wait around for me.” Instead what I would tell people is, if you are being kept waiting for too long without an acceptable excuse, just leave and announce that you’ll reschedule at a better time. Don’t act angry about it and indicate annoyance, just do it matter-of-factly and without malice. Display that your time is valuable too and shouldn’t be taken for granted.

Fourth, don’t be afraid to be the most prominent person in your social circle, but don’t be an openly opportunistic dick about it. People love ambition, but hate when it appears to be too naked and aggressive a power grab. Michael Jackson didn’t want to just be a celebrity, he always aimed to be THE celebrity, even to other celebrities. But he didn’t do it by bullying and throwing his weight around. He did it by offering value to his social circle. By bringing them joy and making them value and love his presence and the other things he brought to the table, they were more than willing to give him the highest status in their circle. By not trying to be overly bullying and transparently nasty in his play to present, he reached top dog status without building up resentment and negative backlash in his peers. He framed it in a way where people felt they were being done a favor by being allowed to defer to him. A good fictional example of the opposite is the main character from “All About Eve,” who made it to the top but lost all her friends and companions at the end of the day.

With Michael Jackson’s death last week, I wanted to do a tribute to him, but I didn’t want to just do fawning praise, and I wanted it to fit in with the theme of this blog, which is decontruction of social and sexual dynamics. I think celebrities are great test cases for learning to evaluate psychology because so much of their life is transparent and well-publicized, making them easy to study. Many short-sighted intellectuals disdain pop culture, but I love it, especially gossip magazines and celebrity biographies because they provide great practice for armchair psychologists like myself. And no celebrity is more psychologically fascinating or rich for analysis as Michael Jackson.

So I posted two videos that I thought gave great insights into his psychology with very little comment. I wanted to see if people who read this blog could see many of the themes I discussed being illustrated in the videos. Sometimes I don’t want to just spell things out for people, I want to challenge them to see read between the lines. It was how Iceberg Slim worked in his writing, and something I feel I don’t do enough of. The first video I posted from Michael Jackson this week was Stranger in Moscow.  I love this one for the message in the lyrics, particularly what they say about fame, wealth, culture, race and the different forms of isolation that can arise both because of and in spite of all those factors. But the lyrics to the song become especially poignant the more you understand his psychology and personal history.

Michael Jackson’s life story is a fascinating case study for psychology and human nature.

Joe Jackson was a steel mill operator and failed musician. He worked full-time at a steel mill factory, and in the 50s formed a music group with his brother Luther called The Falcons, where he played guitar. They failed to get a record deal and Joe was forced to go back to working at the steel mill.

While he went to work, the three older brothers would sneak into his belongings and play with his guitar. This is something that would never happen today as kids are rarely left unstimulated long enough to get bored enough to experiment with something like a guitar. Today those three older brothers would be watching BET and sneaking peeks at Internet porn while their dad was at work. The only time they’d probably come close to playing a guitar would be the controller of a Guitar Hero game. But I digress…

Anyway, Tito would play with Joe’s guitar behind his back, while his brothers Jackie and Jermaine sang and danced. One day Tito broke a string, which caused Joe to discover they were playing with his stuff. Being Joe Jackson, he promptly threatened to beat Tito (or actually did beat his ass, depending on who you ass), then changed his mind and asked him to play the guitar for him to see what he could do. As Tito played and the other brothers sang and danced, Joe realized they were actually pretty good and decided to channel his aspirations to be a musician into his children. That’s right, Tito, the butt of endless jokes, was actually the talent in the Jacksons responsible for launching the pop dynasty.

The three brothers formed The Jackson Brothers with some hometown friends, and eventually two younger brothers joined, Marlon and Michael. Michael around the age of 6 or 7 had displayed an uncanny singing and dancing ability and ended up replacing Jermaine, a talented soul singer in his own right, as the lead singer. How uncanny? See for yourself:

An important thing to realize was the type of music and performing the group was doing before joining Motown. Motown’s big innovation was taking a gritty, dirty, sexy and lowdown sound like black soul rhythm and blues (the rhythm and blues that was the precursor of rock and roll, not the genre of music we call rhythm and blues today) and sanitizing and whitewashing it to make it palatable to mainstream America. When you see the clip above, one thing that strikes you is that it’s not the type of music and dancing you normally picture when you picture the Jackson Five. It’s funkier and sassier. Sexier. Less bubblegum and kid-friendly. Very adult. Michael Jackson’s dancing in the vein of Jackie Wilson and James Brown, in a very adult, freewheeling swaggering and strutting sexual fashion. And keep in mind he’s 6 or 7 years old in this clip. And watch him dance again. This is very sexy and adult dancing, especially for the 60s. It’s actually very inappropriate for his age, but the problem was that he was so damned talented you’re willing to overlook it. If you have to choose between being denied seeing such talent and doing what’s right for the kid, most people selfishly choose seeing the talent. And that would be a recurring theme for the boy in his life ahead.

Now keep in mind, this boy is 6 or 7 years old and can dance with an incredible sexual swagger. This is the kind of dancing that could make a grown woman moist to watch. Yet another often overlooked aspect of the Jackson family is that they were very devout Jehovah’s Witnesses, especially the mother, and Michael grew up very much a true believer. This created a very profound conflict in him, as he was incredibly sexualized from a tender young age, and encouraged to increasingly play up his sexuality in his suggestive dancing and singing, yet on the other hand he was very indoctrinated with a belief system of repressive religious social attitudes. He was so deeply involved in the Witnesses that he was going door to door professing the faith as a youth. Yes, he was one of those door-to-door Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Many psychologists theorize that this is where many of Michael’s dysfunctions arose from: the mental and emotional conflict from trying to resolve the freewheeling and inherently sexual lifestyle that he was exposed to and encouraged to chase with the intensely repressive and morally rigorous Jehovah’s Witness religious belief system he was indoctrinated into from birth.

But it gets worse. The boys got their start performing gigs in the circuit of strip clubs, burlesque houses and adult black dance clubs called the chitlin circuit. At one point they even had a residency in a strip club, where they performed in between stripteases and during down time. Anyone with a kid knows their minds are like sponges, and you can only imagine the type of vulgarity he was exposed to and forced to process. Yet while he wasn’t being immersed in that life, he was being immersed in his mother’s devout faith. At the same time, it’s probably very likely that much of the sexualized titillation he saw in the performances highly influenced his own showmanship as well.

When he wasn’t performing and being involved in religious activities, he was forced to practice, practice, practice at a feverish pace. If he wasn’t performing or involved with religion, he was in practice being overseen by his dad. His father was like a drill sergeant and Michael never had a childhood. The act of interacting with other kids in a peer group is very important to properly socializing a human being. Socialization through peer groups is something we often take for granted, so we never realize the severity of damage it can do to one’s psyche and social skills to be deprived of it:

Developmental psychologists Vygotsky, Piaget, and Sullivan have all argued that peer relationships provide a unique context for cognitive, social, and emotional development, with equality, reciprocity, cooperation, and intimacy maturing and enhancing children’s reasoning abilities and concern for others. Modern research echoes these sentiments, showing that social and emotional gains are indeed provided by peer interaction.

When Michael was 10 years old, they got a recording contract with Steeltown records. He had been singing and performing for over 3 years at this point:

Journalist, J. Randy Taraborrelli said of the groups two singles released through Steeltown Records, “Both were mediocre numbers that don’t really hint at Michael Jackson’s potential as a vocalist, but the boys were thrilled with them just the same. After all, these were their first records”. The Jackson family gathered around a radio to hear the song broadcast for the first time. Michael Jackson—who was 10 years old at the time—said of the period, “[the family] all laughed and hugged one another. We felt we had arrived”. “Big Boy” did not appear on any Billboard charts of the period but sold in excess of 10,000 copies…

The Jackson 5 would release a second and final single through Steeltown Records—”We Don’t Have To Be Over 21 (to Fall in Love)”. The two singles were to be supported by an eleven track studio album but it was never released. On July 26, 1968, the group signed a new contract with Motown Records. However, as the groups Steeltown contract had not yet expired, the new contract could not be fully executed until March 11, 1969. Motown Records tried to get the group out of their Steeltown contract, ultimately with a financial settlement.

By the time he was ready for the national stage at Motown, he was now 11 years old and a seasoned performer.

In his autobiography, Moonwalk, Michael Jackson has described his childhood as “mostly work.” The Jackson brothers were rehearsed and managed by their overly-strict father, whose insistence on perfect performances … in school work as well as in rehearsals and talent shows … frequently ended in physical and/or verbal violence. Michael was eleven-years-old when the group signed with Motown in 1969 (although the Motown press corps published his age as nine, explaining that he would be much cuter and more appealing to the public if he were two years younger. They called it “public relations.”)

Apparently Michael was very disturbed at this lie. We’re used to adult performers lying about their age all the time, but it’s important to remember that he was 11 years old and very devout in his faith, meaning he took much of it literally, including the ban on lying. Yet he was being asked to lie about his age in interviews and press conferences. To get him to do this, the adults around him explained to him the lying was okay so long as you’re doing it to further his career. Young Michael accepted this answer as satisfactory and went along with it. But that message, that the truth is flexible and lying is acceptable when done to further your career is said to have stuck with him throughout his life. Now his sense of right and wrong and his relationship to honesty were warped.

As grueling as his work schedule and the demands of his father were before the big time, they only got worse after fame:

He gives a rare glimpse of his youth in his statement that in the summer of 1970, the Jackson 5 performed in 45 cities, with 50 more cities being added later in the year. Forty-five cities within a ninety-day period meant that he and his brothers were performing concerts [on average] every second day during that summer. Travel to and from the concerts accounted for a portion of the non-performing day. And this does NOT account for recording sessions, picture sessions, interviews, or the interminable rehearsals Joseph Jackson insisted upon. It also does not account for the fact that, unlike many lead singers of the time, Michael was present at EACH of these recording sessions. He recorded with his brothers and his is the beautiful, clear treble in the backgrounds of all of the Jackson 5 early hits. Later, he would return to the recording studio while his brothers played basketball or tinkered with cars to lay in the lead tracks and round off the recordings.

Michael Jackson describes his relationship with his father, Joseph, as “turbulent”, understating rather than sensationalizing that relationship. But, much later, during a televised interview, he replied to his interrogator’s questions regarding this relationship with the words, [I was] “frightened … very frightened. There were times when he would come to see me, I would get sick. I would start to regurgitate.” When asked if such occasions occurred “as a child … or as an adult,” he responded with one word … “both.” He was 35 years old at the time of the interview.

Then it got even worse than that. On the road, they had a lot of groupies. The older boys were better socialized than Michael because they had more of a life before fame, including more years of formal schooling and peer group socialization. They had a healthier relationship to sex and girls than Michael did, especially the older brothers, who were approaching 18 at the time and had the raging hormones that come with that age. Since the brothers shared a room, they would have sex with the groupies in the same room as Michael. Michael would hide underneath the sheets and pretend to be asleep as the brothers banged out their groupies. This apparently traumatized him greatly. To make matters worse, Joe Jackson didn’t want to be left out of the sexual rewards. Joe would present himself as a “gatekeeper” to the boys, and groupies would often have to provide him sexual favors before they were able to get a crack at the boys.

Then young, extremely religious Michael would have to go home to his devout, beloved mother and lie to her face about everything that happened. Lie about the sex that his brothers had as well as the sex his dad had. The pressure and guilt of such secrets and the burden of having to lie to his mother, who he adored, combined with the grueling schedule and the psychological terrorism waged by his father wore greatly on Michael’s psyche and is the reason many mental health experts theorize his psyche fractured and became frozen at that age, 11 years old.

The seeds for all his adult problems were sown in his youth, and you can see it in what I’ve described: His issues with sexuality, both being obsessed with it from constant exposure and sexualization, but not being able to get a healthy relationship with it due to his extreme youth, his repressive religious values and his lack of peer group socialization. Not to mention that sex was something he was trained to be secretive and dishonest about. Adult sexuality became something that terrified him for all the reasons described.

As for his obsession with being around children, it was never proven that he molested those boys, so as far as I’m concerned they will remain allegations and not facts. But his obsession with children I think comes from two factors. First, he never got that peer group socialization that he so desperately needed, and since his psyche was frozen at age 11, he chose a peer group of that age. Second, his whole life consisted of being used, abused and let down by adults. Second, adults were either selfishly using him for short term benefits without any thoughts of the long term detriments, like his father, Berry Gordy or the Motown publicity machine, or they were letting him down like his mother, who failed to protect him from his father’s abuse and stayed with him, implicitly cosigning his behavior. So he probably was very distrustful of adults and wary of them. “I haven’t been betrayed or deceived by children,” Jackson once said. “Adults have let me down.” And because he was so horribly tyrannized and abused by his own dad, this caused him to be excessively gentle and nurturing to children when he became an adult.

I think it was Bill Murray who said (I paraphrase) that with fame, it’s not about whether you get screwed up or become an asshole, but how much of a screwed-up asshole you become. His point was that when fame hits you, nothing can prepare you from it and at some point you get screwed up. If fame does that to healthy adults, imagine what international superstardom did to an 11-year old with the dysfunctional background I just described?

When Michael Jackson was acquitted of molestation charges in 2005, a great piece appeared in Slate celebrating his acquittal and explaining the reasons it was likely he didn’t do it, and I suggest if you guys click one link in this whole piece you make it this one. I’d also suggest watching VH-1 to see if they ever air a special called “Michael Jackson’s Secret Childhood” again. Both touch on a lot of what I mentioned here and more.

Many say that the child abuse trials were the final emotional blow to him, something he perceived as his last and greatest betrayal, and that he sank into a depression that he never fully recovered from, because now not only were his relationships to adults ruined, he now had to be distrustful of kids. He was never safe from feeling used and isolated. Which is why I posted the song “Stranger in Moscow,” as it’s incredibly exposing of his personal psychology:

“Stranger in Moscow” is the fifth and final single from Michael Jackson’s album HIStory. The song was released worldwide in November 1996 but was not released in the US until August 1997. The track was written by Jackson in 1993, at the height of the highly publicized child abuse accusations made against him, while on tour in Moscow. In the ballad, Jackson sings of a fall from grace that has left him lonely, isolated, paranoid and on the verge of insanity.

See if the meaning and emotional impact you derive from the song has changed at all after reading this piece. Below is a version of the video with the lyrics printed on the screen for you to read as you listen:

UPDATE: GQ released an article in 1994 titled was “Michael Jackson Framed?” that made a pretty strong case that the first accuser was severely lacking in credibility. The article can be found at this link here.

Not only was insufficient evidence found in all criminal matters against Michael Jackson, but there was a matter of a $20 Million settlement paid to the accuser that Jackson’s detractors use as proof that he was actually guilty. After all, he was innocent why pay the money, right? Well I’m glad you asked.

A recent article by Daily Mail reveals the reason:

When Jackson settled out of court with his first accuser, Jordan Chandler, for more than $15million in 1994, his career went into a rapid decline from which he never recovered.

Jackson had not wanted to settle the case. I have obtained legal documents proving that his insurance company forced the settlement on him against his will.

The documents state: ‘The [1994 Chandler] settlement agreement was for global claims of negligence and the lawsuit was defended by Mr Jackson’s insurance carrier. The insurance carrier negotiated and paid the settlement, over the protests of Mr Jackson and his personal legal counsel.’

Jackson was said to have almost collapsed as the settlement was forced upon him. His aides insist this marked the beginning of his mental and physical breakdown.

That last sentence also adds more context to the lyrics and theme of the “Stranger in Moscow” video.

Also, this video covers just about ever flaw in the molestation charges:

Next: Dissection of MJ’s “Liberian Girl” video.

(Latest additions to this ongoing list appear below in red)

#1. When people admonish you to “be more original,” what they really mean is “be more like me.” When people admonish you to “be a free thinker,” they really mean “try to think more like me.”

#2. Everyone knows you can’t turn a ho into a housewife…but turning a housewife into a ho ain’t no picnic either.

#3a. Always keep this in mind when trying to win someone’s love or respect: people care more about how you treat yourself than how you treat them. If you treat someone better than you treat yourself, especially if you help them at great expense to yourself emotionally, financially or psychologically, they will actually end up loving and respecting you less.

#3b. If you treat someone better than they think they deserve to be treated, they will punish you for it. You may think treating someone better than they think they deserve to be treated will raise their self-esteem and make them see themselves in the same great way you see them. This is not the case. Most of the time, they end up losing respect for you for seeing such great things in them that they are unable to see in themselves, and they label you as weak, foolish, naive or in possession of poor judgment and will try to punish you for it. Oftentimes they are so sure they’ll disappoint you eventually and prove unworthy of the faith you placed in them that they self-sabotage things (consciously or unconsciously) sooner rather than later just to get the “inevitable” disappointment over with. That is why so many relationships where a girl tries to redeem a hopeless bad boy with her love or a guy tries to play Captain Save-a-Ho with some hard luck case girl usually end up with the charity case dragging down the rescuer rather than the rescuer redeeming the charity case. This human nature tendency is perfectly illustrated in the famous Grouch Marx quote “Please accept my resignation. I don?t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.”

#4. People see weakness in a woman and their natural instinct is to protect from harm and nurture it until it’s strong. People see weakness in a man and feel revolting disgust and their natural instinct is to crush it out of existence and get it out of their sight as soon as possible. (This is a paraphrase of a quote by Norah Vincent, author of Self-Made Man: One Woman’s Year Disguised as a Man) Feminism has been teaching women for decades that it is acceptable for them to express themselves emotionally and sexually in the same ways men traditionally have. This has lead men to gradually accept that the reverse is also true for them, that it’s now acceptable for them to express themselves emotionally and sexually in the same ways women have. And when they do it the results are disastrous. They bare their souls to their girlfriends and wives and cry regularly in front of them, thinking they’re bonding. They talk about their feelings nonstop. They think of any attempt at being macho as an outdated and unenlightened throwback concept and get totally comfortable with showing weakness, emotional wishy-washiness and sensitivity publicly. And instead of being rewarded as enlightened and progressive by the new age modern women they love and the peers they want to impress, it blows up in their face. Despite how our culture changes and celebrates gender equality, our biology hardwires us to expect strength and leadership from men yet excuses the lack of these traits in women. Maybe it’s an unfair double standard, maybe it’s not, but it’s not going anywhere anytime soon, so you better accept it and adapt. People, and especially women, are ruthless about their digust at weakness and lack of leadership in men.

#5. Brutal self-awareness can go a long way toward overcoming a surprising amount of personal shortcomings. Consider the following generic statement: He is [x], but he knows that he is [x], and that almost makes him [not-x]. Let’s see some specific illustrations. John is stupid, but John knows that he is stupid, and that almost makes him smart. Jill is a cliche, but Jill knows she is a cliche, and that almost makes her unique. The substitution works with an astounding array of shortcomings.
Brutal self-awareness on it’s own is not enough to fix a shortcoming, decisive and directed action must be taken, but it goes a long way to fixing it and is a major first step most of us never achieve.

(The following two are the latest additions. I wrote it all stream-of-consciousness, so please refrain from any nitpicking over semantics or any of that other intellectual hair-splitting and pedantry that so often passes for higher discourse these days. I am quite aware of how coarse and unpolished they are, too coarse to ever serve as usable ideology or rhetoric, but there’s something undeniably raw, universal and honest about them that makes me want to publish them as is)

#6. People at all times need someone to feel superior to and someone to feel inferior to. The most powerful and charismatic forces of nature among us have typically been those who can excite both sentiments in us at the same time, often in the form of a single, romanticized polarizing figure: contempt and worship in the same breath. Hatred and lust. Reverence and disgust. Revulsion and attraction. Elicit just victim imagery and you cease to be taken seriously. You’re just trash no one wants to acknowledge. But elicit just winner imagery and you will be taken too seriously. Suddenly people will start to notice all the things you have that they don’t. Your egalitarian ruse will be shaken to its foundation and you’ve become a target, no longer a bohemian, or even a bourgeous bohemian, just…bourgeous. You’ve become the Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, except the uniforms now a faded pair of Rock and Religions. You always have to portray the dual role of oppressor and oppressed. No matter how low on the totem pole we get, we derive comfort from knowing there is still lower. And no matter how high on the totem pole we get, we derive comfort from knowing their is still higher and we should never be held totally accountable for our life circumstances. It’s “bigger than us.”

In our quest to escape the same classist trappings we just ended up recreating them over and over again with new names and labels. None of this is new.

We create a psychological fiction for ourselves that gives us just enough control and individuality to take credit for those cultural forces that we may want to be associated with for future generations, but then we also reserve the right to call upon that victim mindset when convenient and we need to absolve ourselves for something that happened in the past.

People hate to have this balance shaken. This is why even men who appear to have it all on the surface will appear to go to unreasonable lengths in order to feel inferior to someone, to the point where they have to pay someone to debase them (BDSM). Because if you ever were to totally relinquish that victim mindset, not just symbolically or verbally, but truly relinquish it? Embrace true individual liberty and the chaos that comes with it? Then you have no one left to blame if at the end of the day it doesn’t turn out the way you want it to. If you give up your cultural and political scapegoats, strip them all away, the only thing left to blame at the end of the day for life not being as satisfying as it could be is you. And that scares the shit out of people. So next time you see someone who looks all-powerful and could want for nothing, remind yourself that he or she, too, is searching for someone to subconsciously assign the oppressive villain role to as well.

I’m not above this, with my baiting of liberals and feminists and racial ideologies, all the while pretending to be above the fray.

#7. There’s only one real culture war worth watching right now, and it’s a sideshow indeed: the angry bitter white male versus the guilty bitter white male. Most of us were tricked into thinking we had to choose sides in this great family battle. But we don’t. Even white males don’t have to predictably jump into their expected role in the whole matter. We all have our own family battles to work out. All we really have to do now, if you really want to get brutal about it, is just watch them tear each other to shreds. Our primary concern shouldn’t be how to emulate their neuroses or even hasten their neurotic collapse along but rather to just make sure our own houses are in order and primed to take advantage of whatever the new cultural, racial, societal landscape is going to be once the final Boomer exits the stage.

#8: No matter how you try to dress it up or ennoble it (or demonize it) throughout history, charisma boils down to one thing: Charisma is just the ability to make other people wholeheartedly buy into your narcissism. The ideologies, the mantras, the dogmas, all those are just excuses we use to rally behind the alpha dog we’d most like to visualize ourselves as.

#9: No matter how you romanticize the past through nostalgia, make no mistake, the most exciting time to be alive is NOW. It always has been NOW, whatever it may be that NOW represents to you. Because NOW is the only part of existence where we don’t know what comes next. What made the exciting eras of the past so exciting wasn’t the intellectual or moral or racial or ethical underpinnings to them. We make the mistake of chasing that when we chase nostalgia. What made those eras of the past so wonderful wasn’t knowing that things would turn out okay, it was the possibility for the people living in those eras that shit may not turn out okay.

#10. No success has ever happened without a healthy dose of self-promotion at some point. Some of us are cruder at it and more overt. Some of us make it look elegant and accidental. Most of us are just trying to find the balancing act between the two competing insanities (there is no objective sanity, just competing versions of insanity). You are not above it. Stop pretending you are above it and join the rest of us. Your heroes, no matter who they are, at some point in their lives were pimping the shit out of themselves to get noticed by someone. Anyone.

#11. It’s impossible to become wildly successful at something without ending up disillusioned by that very thing you thought would solve all your problems. This is why we can never be 100% happy.

#12a. Good-looking and rich people get away with more. And the dirty secret: they all know it. Even the ones who pretend they don’t. It’s not bad, it’s not good. It’s just life. Which leads to corrollary 12b.

#12b. Life’s not always fair. If you want to get mad at someone, get mad at the person who told you life would always be fair.

#13. Most of the opportunities you were denied in life aren’t because some big bad bogeyman withheld them from you. They didn’t come because you were too chickenshit to straight up ask for or demand them.  Note that I said “most,” not “all.” This is not a wish fulfillment fairytale I’m preaching that will apply to every situation. Hard work and healthy self-promotion must be involved (see Raw Truth #10) And of course, the request has to remain remotely in the realm of possible reality. You have to be somewhat qualified or deserving of what you’re asking for. You can’t be an unemployed homeless guy and go apply for the job of CEO of a big company. And if you are competing for something against others who have accumulated more competitive advantages than you, then you may not get what you wanted at that particular point in time. And even if you are still deserving, you may still get overlooked because life isn’t always fair (see Raw Truth #12b). But the point remains and I stand by it, a majority of what me miss out on comes from not asking. No matter what temporary setbacks you receive, in the long run if you don’t embrace defeatism or reject yourself before others have chance to and keep asking for what you want and reasonably deserve, you will gain more opportunities than you miss out on.

#14. No city cries when you leave it. No city rejoices when you arrive. That’s something only families and friends can do. So get over yourself, you raging narcissist.

#15. There comes a time in every person’s life when they realize their parents may actually be more screwed up than they are. The fool finds this realization depressing and disheartening. The wise ones find it liberating and inspiring. Many of us grow up thinking our parents are infallible. We think our dad is the strongest man in the world. We think our mother is an all-knowing beacon of purity. And as we get older, we get more and more evidence that this is not true and feel betrayed. This is the source of most adolescent rebellion. But part of maturity is the realization that your parents were just doing the best they can, and were just human. And as a result, we no longer have to live up to these images of infallibility either. If we allow them to be free to be human and make mistakes, that also gives us the freedom to be human and make mistakes. Because so many of us nowadays are in perpetual adolescence though, many in our society are stuck in the adolescent rebellion stage where we can’t forgive the betrayal and disappointment we felt at the hands of our role models and elders for daring not to be infallible and perfect or for making mistakes. But this is a psychologically claustrophobic state and stunts your emotional development and leaves you trapped in a state of bitter reactionary helplessness. Embracing the fallibility and imperfection of your parents, role models and elders allows you to forgive them, let grudges go and move on, and it allows you to move on to the next stage of your life without the inevitable disappointment some unachievable perfect ideal to aspire to, thanks to the more grounded expectations you will now have.

16. Class and Power = Level of Control over matters of Sex, Death and Money. Every last negotiation and transaction in life, whether in a boardroom or a bedroom or a wedding chapel comes down to Sex, Death or Money. That’s it. Sex, Death or Money. Everything exciting? Had to do Sex, Death or Money. Everything enticing? Had t0 do with Sex, Death or Money. Everything that makes you warm and fuzzy? Had to do with Sex, Death or Money. Every memory that makes you weepy? Had to do with Sex, Death or Money. Every betrayal you received? Sex, Death or Money. Every spiritual moment you’ve had? Sex, Death or Money. Your greatest fear? The one that keeps you awake at night in a cold sweat? Sex, Death and Money. Conquer your anxieties about Sex, Death and Money and you can conquer anything. The unfulfilled in life are those who let their anxieties about Sex, Death and Money conquer them.

17. The less people you need to accomplish any task in life, the more power you have. The more power you have, the more you matter. That’s why people love the idea of God so much. Who has more power? Who matters more? Who needs the least people to accomplish any task they want to accomplish? God. That’s why the world worships Him so.