July 21st – Where’s the logic? It would seem that
if the mindset of the perpetrator can be set to denial and this is coupled with
a level of fame (notoriety) then just about anything can be gotten away
with…even if you’re ever-so-slightly mad or, heaven forbid, a danger to others.
I’ve mentioned before about how the performer is the
lynch-pin in the wagon-full of hangers-on and vested-interest salespeople. At
the best end of it you have people who are genuinely interested and concerned
with the performer and have nothing but their best interests at heart. No
sexual involvement, no drug or money dependency, just a willingness to see that
person succeed and achieve. Why? Well lots of reasons. Of course they’re paid
for their work (often paid very well) but when the performer first starts out
the wage levels are not the driving force in any hook-up that’s forged. It’s to
do with being intrinsically a genuinely kind and supportive human being who has
the well being of the performer at heart and just wants them to have success
because of a belief in their talent. The sinister side of things is when the
job of these people is to keep the machine well oiled and fed with fuel so their
wage-packet keeps turning up. The logic would be though that, if the machine
should start to malfunction you get it checked and put right by an expert…
Logic would say that, if that machine was a human being, that the onus of care
exercised by those around him or her would be increased exponentially. I mean,
an engine is just an engine and can be replaced (at a cost but replaced) fairly
easily so surely the need to recognise and treat people we tell everyone is our
friend is paramount?
Enter stage right, Whitney Huston
OK, a car-crash of a life, agreed, but there must have been a
time when she wasn’t tearing headlong to a premature death, when she was young
and vibrant and full of the love of life…? So, skip all the years that followed
from that time to the time when she was in trouble, trouble so deep a giraffe
would have trouble keeping its nostrils clear of the waves of personal
excrement lapping towards it; what then? What do we figure we’d do, say, if Ms.
Huston appeared on our television show looking so gaunt and frail that she
looked near death. Well, we could have a word with her, tell of our concern; we
could have a word with the people surrounding her (of which there were
something like 50) and tell of our concern; we could say, if we were the head
of the network who was putting on the Michael Jackson show she was appearing
on;
“Look, I really don’t
think this is a good image either for Ms. Huston to project or our network or
her fans to be exposed to. How about we drop her from this show and invite onto
something else in the future?”
Or
we could just go ahead, say nowt, take the money and
digitally enhance the footage to make her look meatier; whaddya reckon?
Enter stage left, Mariah Carey.
When the star you manage comes out with the line;
“I just want one day
off when I can go swimming and eat ice cream and look at rainbows”
there are two possible choices of action.
1) You give her a metaphorical day off (week, month, year,
decade) to look at rainbows
Or
2) You keep the star working until hospitalisation follows.
If you choose 2) how do you tell the tale to all the other
interested parties so as to perpetuate the myths? Do you
1) Admit that, as a management team, you’ve let your client
down and will vow for it never to happen again or do you
2) blame it all on extreme exhaustion?
On this day in 1995 an L.A. judge threw out a lawsuit brought
by members of Michael Jackson’s security guards who alleged they were fired
because they knew the truth about his (Mr. Jackson’s) night time visits with
young boys…I quote Mr. Jackson.
“Lies run sprints, but the truth runs marathons. The
truth will win this marathon in court.”
As
things turned out, it’s a pity those others surrounding him didn’t run just a little faster, might have stopped a lot of his
little victories…
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