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Following the pattern of many chicken-little, over the top
predictions which never come to fruition, word came down yesterday that Michael
Jackson's Neverland Ranch will NOT be auctioned off after-all. SHOCK! Not.
The
ranch will stay as-is for now according to Jackson attorney L. Londell
McMillan.
McMillan
is quoted in the Associated Press (AP) saying Jackson has reached a
"confidential agreement with Fortress Investment Group" concerning the property.
"Neverland
and MJ are fine", L. Londell McMillan said Thursday.
At
least one news outlet is already ridiculously characterizing it as an “11th
hour deal” which “saved Neverland”. Moreover, it seems like a bunch of people
who previously ran off at the mouth are now trying to backtrack on the story;
explaining it away in the most negative terms possible instead of just saying ‘Hey,
we jumped to conclusions and made assumptions we shouldn’t have’.
What
seems to make the most sense about this whole story is that Jackson was in the
middle of dealing with this situation when someone took it upon themselves to try
to publicly embarrass him or tried to thwart whatever financial deal Jackson’s
people were working on to get this situation squared away.
"Neverland and MJ are fine"
- L. Londell McMillan
Instead
of making room for that possibility within the context of the original reports,
all context was stripped away and the bubonic plague-like Neverland story ran
all over the world without the slightest bit of hesitation or calls to step
back and wait for further details.
Remember
all the internet hysteria surrounding the possibility of Neverland being
auctioned off a few weeks ago? Remember all the asinine jokes from nameless
blogs and their 'you too could own a piece of jacko' posts? Remember how many
internet sites and a few cable outlets picked up that story and ran around the
room screaming as if it were a certainty? I do.
I'm
sure the recent news is not what know-nothing glorified gossip columnists
expected or wanted to happen. The question is why didn't "they" see
this coming before proclaiming the demise of Neverland while trying to be all
up in Jackson’s financial kool-aid without knowing the flavor?
How
many times has it happened where someone will absolutely revel with dreaded
certainty in an allegedly grave situation, only later to change their tune and act
like they knew it all along without admitting for a minute that the initial
chicken-little report was at the very least one-sided in nature?
As
I reported in MJEOL Bullet#327 (Hateful Revelry over Neverland Delayed[1] ), 2008
marks the 7th year (at least) that certain news agencies have
carried reports about Jackson being on the brink of some illusionary financial
abyss. Certain media howler monkeys have been whining about what’s in Jackson’s
pockets since long ago.
According
to one borderline report from the BBC[2] - itself making the unfounded and
unconfirmed assumption that Jackson's Neverland was "closed" in 2006 "after Mr.
Jackson failed to pay its staff" - Matt Fiddes called the Neverland reports “exaggerated”.
Fiddes,
a family friend, is quoted as saying, “I know for a fact that he wasn’t going
to lose it… It’s not a problem – Michael’s keeping Neverland.”
Jackson
himself will get his own situation straightened out, assuming there is anything
to straighten out now. Again, as you read in Bullet#327, many people forget that
Jackson may be still working to correct years worth of mismanagement by former
employees and outright thievery by crooks who gained unfettered access to his
funds.
Though,
whatever he has to deal with, it’s HIS business to deal with it and not the business
of endless numbers of lookey-loos pretending like they know what they’re
talking about.
The
2700 acres of contiguous, prime California land was purchased by Jackson back
in the late 1980s and turned into one of the most splendid pieces of property
in existence.
But
gone are the days of peaceful tranquility and free-everything for thousands of underprivileged,
terminally ill kids and their parents.
Jackson
hasn’t lived at Neverland since his acquittal on false allegations of
molestation back in 2005 and as times goes on, it becomes less like that
Neverland, in it’s pre-2003 form – pre-Bashir, pre-Arvizos, pre-media storm --
will ever exist again.
Isn’t
that what the collective media and know-nothing critics wanted anyway?
Tagged: L. Londell McMillan |
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