All Michael Jackson

My Michael Jackson Memory

2009-06-26T03:36:00.000-07:00

The news of Michael Jacksons sudden death is still sinking in.

My best memory of Michael was at the Killer Thriller Party in London, June 2002. The previous day we had headed to Exeter, where Michael was appearing at the football ground but had got stuck in a 4 hour traffic jam and so had to turn back.

The next day Michael was appearing in London at The Killer Thriller Party put together by King of Pop magaizine. He appeared on stage and spoke to his excited audience and watched the show from a balcony in the nightclub. Just seeing him standing on stage was a truly a magical experience and that I'll never forget. There was just an amazing aura about him seeing him in person. The child prodigy and adult Thrilling Superstar.

However, when the party was over many of the fans, myself and my wife included decided to hang around. It was a no brainer Michael was still in view on the balcony!!!

After a few minutes he came over to the edge of the balcony, probably because fans were calling or chanting. He started waving at a few of us excited fans. My wife was calling out "Thankyou Michael"!! "Thankyou Michael". It waslike he really appreciated the fans adoration.

Fans directlly below the balcony were trying to pass Michael gifts or banners and Michael was reaching down to get them. Some he couldnt reach so he climbed over the balcony!!!! He then started really reaching down to the mega excited fans. His security looked amazed and worried trying to grab hold of him to stop him falling.

It was a spontaneous act by Michael. The fans loved it. I loved it.

Many other fans have personal stories of meeting Michael or being sent Pizzasby him when waiting outside his hotel.

If you in a state of grief of feeling down it can help to write down and share your memories. Whether they are of seeing Michael in person or just relating to his music or performances.

Michael Jackson has died Aged 50

2009-06-25T16:24:00.001-07:00

The La Times have confirmed Michael Jackson is dead at the age of 50.

Since hearing this other news sources are also confirming the death of the King of Pop.

Im currently in a state of unbelieving, hoping its not true, but as time passes over the last 1 hour 30 minutes it seems more likely it is true.

Is Michael Jackson Dead???????

2009-06-25T15:17:00.000-07:00

11pm here in the UK and a text comes through saying they have heard news Michael Jackson is dead, is this true?

I quickly looked on the internet and it seems TMZ are reporting Michael Jackson was rushed into hospital and has been pronouced dead.

Quickly with Sky News and they have live footage of the hospital and are saying is as of yet unconfirmed but that TMZ are usually pretty on the ball with this kind of celebrity news especially in the Los Angeles region.

Im just hoping this is all untrue.

Shaheen Jafargholi singsMichael Jackson Whos Loving you

2009-04-20T07:57:00.000-07:00

One of the best acts on this weeks Britains Got Talent was by 12 year old Shaheen Jafargholi from Wales. He starts out with Valerie by Amy Winehouse and the crowd were enjoying it. However, Simon Cowell stops the performance and asks him to perform a more suitable song, ((he must have known the boy had this back up)) and Shaheen sings Michael Jackson Whos Loving You and literally blows everyone away, myself included. Wow. Hes very good!!! One to watch in later rounds if he picks the right songs.

Now watch the real maestro Michael Jackson in this live Jackson 5 performance:

Truly amazing!!!

Michael Jackson Dancing Darth Vader on Britains Got Talent

2009-04-20T07:23:00.000-07:00

One of the featured acts on this weeks Britains Got Talent was a 37 year old guy dressed as Darth Vader complete with mask, breathing voice box and light sabre. He was introduced as you would expect to the theme from Star Wars, however I couldnt help noticing the Michael Jackson white glitter glove and then later the black shoes white socks and Billie Jean trousers.

When it came to his perfomance waving his light sabre around he got 2 quick red buzzers from Simon Cowell and Amanda Holden. He then stopped and asked the sound crew to put on the next track which was Billie Jean and then proceed to do the dance moves, albeit pretty badly, but the overall effect with the Darth vader dress up was all quite amusing. The audience seemed to love it.
Although it did seem he run out of moves after just over 30 seconds which was a shame.

Watch the Dancing Michael Jackson Darth Vader and/or watch Michaels first mind blowing performance of this Billie Jean dance

If the guy polishes up the act it might be quite good but wil obviously lackl the surprise element. To be honest Im surprised he got through and Piers Morgan thinking he was a good dancer, just about sums up Piers abililty for spotting talent.

Michael Jackson Tickets Sold Out

2009-03-13T15:19:00.000-07:00

All general tickets have sold out within just a few hours. One Million Tickets sold out!!!!!

Bit disappointing could only get 4 tickets per household, as fans like myself would surely like to go as many nights as possible.

There are a few Thriller Hospitality tickets available still, there are around £770- £795 each and include the best seats in the house.

Demand has been phenomenal. People who I never knew were fans, don't often go to concerts in general are out to get tickets. Why, because its "Michael Jackson!!!".

Michael Jackson O2 Arena Tickets on General Sale

2009-03-13T12:15:00.000-07:00

There's now a total of 50 dates on the Michael Jackson This Is It Tour at the London O2 Arena. Who would have thought Michael would have agreed to that many dates.

There's literally so many people who want to go. Yesterday I had family members contacting me desperate to get tickets. Fortunately I had 2 extra pre sale codes and they were up early and got tickets at 7 am, just as new dates had been added.

Pre Sale Tickets On Sale

2009-03-11T14:07:00.000-07:00

This morning 7am, GMT tickets for the 10 Michael Jackson shows at the London 02 Arena went on sale.

My presale code came through late last night. Not an early bird myself I had to set 4 alarm clocks to make sure I was up in time and online for the sale.

It took me 2 hours exactly to get tickets. Immediately I was in a queue which said 15 minutes or more to wait. I had 2 pre sale codes so I had 2 Internet Explorer browsers open and with about 6 minutes estimated queue time left a message came up telling me your not allowed more than one browser open to the site and chucked me out the queue. Arrrg.

Later while queuing the site went down. So, again I was worried as it was obvious there were thousands of other people trying to get tickets.

I must admit I was worried, I didnt know whether my presale code would work again.

Fortunately it did and I managed to get tickets. Woo Hoo!!!

The build Up to the Michael Jackson Announcement

2009-03-05T08:49:00.000-08:00

Well its 4.50pm and as of yet no news. I've got my Sky Tv set up, as well as numerous browsers open with sites that are expected to transmit the conference live:

MichaelJackson.com
MichaelJacksonlive.com and
Sky News Live

I've also heard on the news that Underground posters have been seen stating that Michael will be performing 10 dates.

While waiting, Ive also used Twitter for the first time, following the Michael Jackson Press Conference Twitter feed.

An excellent way to get a feel what whats actually going on, while all the Tv screens are just showing a red screen with what must be the slogan for these concerts "This Is It".

Michael Jackson To Perform at the O2 Arena

2009-03-05T07:32:00.000-08:00

Wow, mega exciting news. For once reports are actually true. The day all fans have been waiting for, many wondering whether it would actually ever come at all. Well today is the day we are set to find out some details. 4pm today Michael will be giving a press conference at the O2 Arena where its expected he will announce dates for forthcoming concerts at London O2 Arena (formerly the Millenium Dome.

There's excitement everywhere, the news channels, the radio etc etc. All are waiting to find out exactly what is planned from the "King of Pop".

Fans have been invited to attend the press conference and I've watched a number be interviewed today on Sky News.

I'm personally hoping there's a large number of dates as Id like to see him perform as many times as possible, and there's no doubting tickets will be flying out at record speeds once on sale.

Thriller 25th Anniversary Album from Michael Jackson

2007-10-18T06:47:00.000-07:00

I've just read a story at Fox News regarding new material from Michael.

It gives rise to the possibility that Michel isn't planning to do an album of new material at all. The article mentions all the names of current music stars we have heard of lately, including Will I AM, Kanye West, Akon, but not as regards working on new music, insteading remixing old Thriller tracks, for a 25th Anniversary Edition of Thriller.

The album may have new tracks, however these tracks are likely to be old tracks thought not good enough to make the original album. Bruce Swedien is quoted as mentioning a killer called "Don’t Be Messin’ Around" a likely addition.

It also states Michael has no interest in performing or touring, saying that he feels he's done that.

I have no idea if there is any truth to the above news. However, it wouldn't surprise me if it's all true. I do wonder why Michael doesn't perform at all at the events he goes to, he doesnt sing a note (barring the WMA 2006, remember what that caused). If he does a new album of new material is he going to want to promote it? Does he even like going out in public anymore than he has to? Earlier this year he was ill when shipped over to London to make an appearance for a mega rich businessman from the Middle East. He's appearance barely lasted.

There's no doubt he could counjour up publicity one way or another to promote an album and its quite possible that publicity would boost the sales of old classics (or the newer remixes), rather than sell any new music.

Michael ordered to pay $175,000 by U.S judge

2007-10-16T08:34:00.000-07:00

Michael Jackson has been ordered to pay $175,000 in overdue fees to a U.S law firm for services they provided during his 2005 court case.

This is on top of $256,000 that Michael was ordered to pay earlier this year in July 2007, bringing the total now ordered to pay to just over $430,000.

Michael's financial matters continue to make the news more than his music and entertainment news.

Michael's letter to Fans

2007-10-11T11:09:00.000-07:00

Michael Jackson this week released a letter to his fans via various fan clubs:

Here's how it read:

TO MY FANS AROUND THE WORLD:

I would like to thank you for the beautiful cards, photographs, messages, videos, and gifts, sent to me on my birthday.

I was overwhelmed by your kindness.

Your continued love and support means so much to me. I really love and appreciate you all... from the bottom of my heart.

I've been really busy lately. Hopefully, you've all seen the results of my recent photo shoot with L'Uomo Vogue.

Soon, I will be sharing exciting and surprising news with you from my other efforts.

Please know again, that I love and appreciate each and every one of you, and send to you my heartfelt thanks and warm wishes".

Sincerely,

Michael Jackson

Michael not Signed up to X - Factor

2007-10-10T14:03:00.000-07:00

Apparently according to posters in a couple of MJ forums, Michael's spokesperson Raymone K. Bain has denied reports that Michael will be part of the X-Factor.

I'm not surprised in the slightest seeings as it was an "insider" who leaked the story he had signed. I'm pretty sure if he had then there would have been alot more secrecy around it and a big build up.

Anyway, I'm not to sure what Simon Cowells take on Michael is, I'm pretty sure he panned Michaels last album Invincible.

They do get big A-list stars on these shows so I don't think it would be beneath Michael to appear, plus its huge publicity here in the UK.

Michael Jackson to appear on X factor???

2007-10-08T13:44:00.000-07:00

I have heard reports today and over the weekend that Michael Jackson has supposedly signed up to X Factor, the TV talent finding show, a date of December 1st was mentioned.

I have no idea if its true and it seems a bit out the blue if it is. Earlier this year there were rumours Michael would make an appearance on American Idol, but they turned out to be false. That came about because there was alot of hype about amazing superstar guests.

One thing I do notice about X - Factor is that in many recent episodes, of which all so far have been auditions, they play a Michael Jackson songs. This Sunday they played one of my favourites, You Are Not Alone.

I have often thought it would be amazing if Michael did something like X Factor or American Idol. It would literally put him into millions of homes. It would be totally awesome if they had a Michael Jackson week and all the contestants sang Michael songs. A whole new generation of youngsters would be introduced to his music.

Personally I'll believe it when I've heard it confirmed from one of Michael's spokesman.

Michael's Advice to Donny Osmond

2007-10-06T15:51:00.000-07:00

I caught the end of a TV programme this week featuring Donny Osmond, he was being interviewed by Piers Morgan
on "You Can't Fire Me, I'm Famous".

It was quite interesting how Donny and Michael's careers had run so parallel in the early 1970's but then took vastly different directions after a few years.

Both were child singing stars, both as solo artists and with there brothers and then went to star on TV shows, Michael most notably with his brothers in the Jackson's CBS TV Specials and Donny with his sister in Donny and Marie.

However Michael continued to have great hits and Donny's career took a huge nose dive, hitting an altime low when his Broadway show was cancelled after the first night after it recieved such bad critism, mostly of Donny himself. After that couldn't get a record deal or anything.

Donny stated how around 1979 he spoke to Michael and asked him, how does he get hit single and back in the charts. Obviously Michael at this time had released the hugely successful "Off the Wall" album. Michael told Donny to "change your name".

May seem a crazy and an extreme comment. Of course Donny didn't change his name.

However, interestingly it wasn't until 1988 or 1989 that Donny had another hit record. The interesting aspect was that radio stations were playing it without telling the listeners who it was singing. The single "Soldier of Love" was highly requested and eventually Donny was bought on the radio to announce after alot of speculation that he was the singer. After that the single and follow ups become huge hits and he continued to have more success in his career.

It was just interesting how Michael was spot on and proved right that for Donny to have a hit he would have to overcome the stigma of his name.

Also interesting was when Donny was asked whether he would have preferred a normal life or the tough life he had as an entertainer. I missed the beginning of the show so I won't speculate as to why and how tough it was. However, Donny, very emotionally said he would have preferred the non famous lifestyle. Just goes to show that the life of a young star was very tough, the very same lifestyle Michael also had at such a young age. Something the vast majority of us may never even come close to understanding.

New Amazon aStore

2007-10-06T15:22:00.000-07:00

I decided today it was about time I spruced up the store pages of the site, which as it turns out were full of alot of products no longer stocked by the stores I was linking to.

Instead of going through the time consuming process of adding individual Amazon links I went for the fairly new Amazon aStore.

Basically it creates all the store pages for you. For example I decided I wanted a page on Michael Jackson Posters, so I just search there products, clicked "Add" for each poster I wanted and its imported into the store. I then did the same for a number of other categories.

Then all I had to do was place the link in an iframe and the store page shows up on my own webpage, all nicely designed by myself to fit in with my colour scheme. Amazon itself doesn't actually let you know you can link to the individual categories you create, so I was pleased when I tried it that it worked and looks greats. Each of my individual pages shows the right products.
No doubt if I didn't have individual store pages created I would just link to the new astore index.

I also added a large block of store adds at the base of the index page. These are set to open the store in a new window and if anything looks better this way than my actual own store pages with the iframe.

Whether they increase salesonly time will tell. I'll be suure to keep you informed.

Back In Business

2007-05-27T04:44:00.000-07:00

I've moved the site to a new web hosting company this week which lead to some images not displaying most of the week which makes the site look like a ghost town.

The new host offers me loads more web space and tonnes more bandwidth, so that bandwidth usage will no longer be a problem.

My previous bandwidth problems were ridiculous. I had to make hundreds of changes in an effort to lower bandwidth usage as advised by my web host. I was resizing and lowering quality of images, inserting anti- hot linking code etc. What a waste of time the changes had virtually no effect on my bandwidth usage. I should have just jumped ship and gone with a better web host. Its not as if it has cost me much extra.

Anyway, I'm back in full swing with a few weeks of up dates to get on top of. There hasn't been too much of interest going on the last couple of months. Other than usual rumours and the pending Michael Jackson and Jackson family memorabilia auction which has been surrounded by alot of gossip.

Anyway that auction is taking place this coming week so I will get the site back up to speed before then, and more importantly - keep it up to speed!

Michael Arrives In Japan

2007-03-05T13:12:00.000-08:00

Wow, what a reception Michael got on arriving in Japan. I added a video which captures the excitement of the large number of Japanese fans when Michael and his 3 children arrived.

Who knows what it must be like for his children, even though they were safely out of harms way.

A statement was released prior to Michael arriving, letting fans know where and when he wasarriving so they obviously wanted Michael to recieve a warm welcome. Must make a huge difference after such long aeroplane journeys, to be greeted so warmly.

I also added a gallery of pictures of Michael arriving in at Narito Airport.

Hotlinking update

2007-03-02T08:48:00.000-08:00

I have implemented a new HotLink Protector on the site server this week which will stop other sites being able to show my images and using my bandwidth.

When I looked at my site stats it was astounding how many different MYSpace pages had taken an image, it was hundreds. Its a compliement that these people like my site and I'm sure the vast majority don't realise they are doing anything wrong by hotlinking.

Before doing the server changes I did have a little fun with some of the images. On one MYspace account it had one of my large Michael Jackson pic below "Who I would like to Meet", so I searched google images for "ugly man" and then replaced that with the MJ file. A nice big picture, and wow he sure was ugly, I felt sorry for the guy, someone who actually has to live his life living looking like that.

New Galleries

2007-03-02T08:40:00.000-08:00

This week I added a whole range of new Michael Jackson picture galleries to the site.

I'v been collecting the pictures and photos over the last few months so its was just a matter of arranging them and getting them added to the site.

I have covered every era of Michaels career from the Jackson 5 up to the Invinclible Era.

I've also added galleries for all the missing tours, mainly those pre Bad tour.

The actual picture gallery page looks amazing, that page alone speaks volumes aboout Michael career and how he has evolved as a musical artist.

There is one problem, as soon as I put the galleries up they proved hugely popular and sent my bandwidth through the roof, so Im going to have to review alot of the image sizes.

For now I'm sure many fans will truly appreciate this part of the site, a part which was very much needed, as many of the individual pictures say so much. I fully intend to go through each one and write a little info about each picture.

New Music Videos Section

2007-02-22T14:36:00.000-08:00

Well its taken me long enough but I've finally (with a little help) completed the new Michael Jackson videos section! I never seen anything like this before, so I'm the first site to offer so much information combined with Youtube videos of each of his actial videos.

I've basically created a page for every music video Michael has ever produced as well as information on each one and the accompanying video via YouTube.

What a great collection, starting from his very first, the disc video for Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough , through to Billie Jean the first video played on MTV featuring a black artist! Yes, Michael changed that as well!

Then there's Thriller, the one that changed how the music industry viewed music videos forever. Michael was the first to spot and fully utilize the potential of the music video to sell records.

When a new Michael video was due to be released it would be a huge event, especially if it was the first one from an album. I remember the excitement before and when Bad, Black or White
videos were released.

Michael really had to do something special for the first release from the HIStory album, and with Scream it was expensive at $7 million! But Wow, what a video!

One of my personal favourites is the You Rock My World video . It was that song, combined very much with the video that inspired me to create this very site.

I think this will be hugely interesting section to any new fan. They can see, hear and learn a bit about every video all from within my site.

One problem is going to be the fact that some of the videos will be removed from YouTube quite frequently, so I will have to keep an eye on this and hopefully fans will contact me if a video isn't working.

Updates

2007-02-20T14:31:00.000-08:00

I've mainly been cleaning up the site the last few days, for example the Thriller album page was just one block of text so I've paragraphed it and added tracklistings. I don't think it needs much more information than that. I did the same for the other album pages.

Also, late last night I went through the Michael Jackson 30th Anniversary Celebrations and added a one line caption for each picture.

I did this for 2 reasons, firstly to see if the extra words used made any difference to the Google AdWords displayed, for which I have to wait 48 hours to find out. At the moment every page of that section displays the same ads, as you would expect given every page is very similar to a search engine like Google, as they don't see the image.

Secondly I think the captions will be useful and interesting to anyone visting the gallery. Whether I'll do them for other galleries I don't know yet. Have to see.

Behind the scenes I've been working on a new galleries. However, rather than do a bit of one gallery and then upload it and add pictures to it another day I prefer to go all out and find as many pictures as possible for a specific category and then upload the gallery and then leave it at that.

I'm going to upload all the main key galleries in one hit and I'm sure it will make a big difference to the site as fans love to browse picture galleries.

Back to Adsense, I placed a block of Ads quite high up on the page underneath the latest pics.
I think they fit in very well and hopefully don't take anything away from the content of the site.

Actually one of the sites in the block of Ads went to a site that on its front page had my Michael Jackson biograpghy, word for word!!!!

Hmm, just thinking what to do about.

Hotlinking My Images

2007-02-19T14:18:00.000-08:00

Its obvious Ive been really busy as 12 days later I'm just picking up from where I last left off!

Hotlinking
My site bandwidth usage has been huge the last few weeks. Only now have I got round to fully investigating why. Obviously the site gets alot of daily visitors and many of those visitors have there own webspace for example via MYSPACE, and it turns out many of these people like some of the Michael Jackson images hosted on my site!

Not only that, but they like the moving gif images, which are actually huge files and use alot of bandwidth from my site alone, let alone being on other peoples.

Not being to tech minded, or when I do find a technical solution its either doesn't work or wasn't designing for my sever, typical! I'm having to go through my new site stats and workout website offenders and the worse image offenders.

Hotlink is actually a form of bandwidth theft. Not that the people doing it probably actually realise this. In a way its flattering that they like the images from my site.

The moving gif images were a great way to bring some life to certain pages, for example I used them on my Michael Jackson dance page to show the moonwalk in motion. Anyway, I think some of these pages could be improved by replacing the gifs with relevant YouTube videos or similar and they don't use any of my bandwidth! :)

Help with the site

2007-02-07T04:16:00.000-08:00

I need more time or help
Finding time to improve the site is proving difficult. I'm sure in the old days I used to be able to get much more done in a day but these days I just end up with lists of ideas and jobs to do that seem to take forever to get through. For every job I do I add 2 more to the list.

I left a message in a forum this week asking for help with the site. I've been fortunate enough to have had some interest, so hopefully that will be a big step forward in building and improving the site further. It's not easy trying to cover over 30 years of the greatest ever living entertainer in just a few hours a week.

Traffic and bandwidth issues
This week the guy who hosts my site was ringing me letting me know the site was using alot of bandwidth. He thought it was the recent YouTube streaming videos I added. This seemed strange to me and I researched and posted on some message boards and everyone said that the embedded YouTubes would not use my bandwidth.

I did a little checking and found that some other sites had copied whole pages of my site and were hotlinking the images. God knows how many other images have been hotlinked over the years. Some of them were big gif image files that I used to highlight Michael in movement, for example doing a specific dance move. I can now replace these with actual YouTube videos. Although even that can present problems because some YouTube videos get removed for copyright reasons.

Michaels Latest Comeback News
Well the Michael Jackson comeback seems to be definetly in the planning stages if a recent news article I recieved today is anything to go by, this motivates me even more to get the site the best in can be in time for any future Michael projects.

I just hope he doesn't get a long term gig in Las Vegas and end up a reclusive in some hotel. Look what it did for Elvis. Albeit Las vegas is a great place, I've had the fortune to visit there myself and I loved it on the Strip.