Protections, if Michael Jackson hadn't
died in 2009, what would we expect him to be doing?
So the first one in this is well,
the first aspect I want to look into today is what would you have hoped in an ideal
world as a fan he would have done in the last 11 years.
So, M.J. Farmigo, what's your thoughts?
OK, so in terms of his art, I would have loved to see Michael Jackson
dive into like some different projects, like maybe an all a cappella or
an acoustic album, something like almost like the MTV.
They used to have a show.
It was called I Forgot What It Was Called, but it was like the person the artist
would get up there with, like very minimal band.
Was it? Yes, yes, yes, yes.
All right. Michael Jackson unplugged.
I would have loved it. Oh, my God.
I would.
Because, like,
I feel like a lot of the Michael Jackson we got in the later especially and
as we progress into his career was like very produced.
It always a big production. Yeah.
And I could also imagine him around 2009,
really falling into the hole, kind of also tuned my EDM type.
Let's try to make him really Khurram
and and I feel like he doesn't get enough credit as a vocalist as well.
Totally true. Yeah.
Yeah.
We it like an unplugged show would have totally brought it back to that.
And I also have these lofty dreams about
Michael Jackson having a like Las Vegas residency like Celine Dion.
OK, yeah, I don't know if that would have worked because Michael Jackson show kind
of always had to be like over the top, totally 100 percent on.
But I would have loved to see that,
you know, plan weekends with my friends to on a Saturday show.
Yeah, that would have been amazing.
But yeah, I guess that's why this is like
about as a fan, what you would want to see.
Yeah, exactly. Just my jeans.
Yeah. How about you.
Yeah. So I saw a little bit of a list.
So in an ideal world as a fan so he would have
done the this is a concert so it would be a raving success, it would have been like
two thousand nine again in you know, in terms of the fandom would come back,
people would be embracing Michael Jackson, there would be this real nostalgia and he
would be kind of held up as a great performer and a great artist again.
And then that would lead onto a world
tour, which they were planning as well, which would have been amazing.
And he would have told that for like a few years he would have done all the kind
of philanthropic exploits that he really wants to do
and kind of reconnected with his fans globally.
And then I was thinking it would be absolutely amazing, especially as a video
video editor. Now a videographer now is if there was
like some really well done video specials of his performance.
Oh, that would have been really good.
We we were lacking that, I feel like,
especially in the last two years of his life.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. And, you know, I know he was planning to
a television special Halloween one for CBS, so something similar to that,
where it might be Halloween special, where they might actually just be
reimagining of his music and his performance,
you know, for broadcast as well, that we could kind of hold and keep
and not actually have to be, you know, have to attend the concert.
Right.
I guess really for me, it's also I would love for him to have
some kind of documentary like almost like a
truthful Dabby Madonna type, you know,
where they followed him around and you got to see inside his life.
And that was really in-depth interviews
that went kind of, you know, trying to be really exploitative of him,
something like, I guess what
what was it called, the PR machine or should have been.
Yeah, I feel like that was kind of like that.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I guess so.
Yeah. Just from like a different perspective,
I just think something that just shows him like as he was in that time in his life
and showed like the artistry and like his creative process as well as his kind
of family life and his view on the world and relationships and family
and all that stuff that would have been really good.
I think it would have reminded people
who Michael Jackson was as a person because that kind of got lost.
Yeah.
And then for me also, I would really love a really well done,
very well researched cinema quality miniseries on his whole life
because, you know, they talk about doing a movie here or they might do a special.
Here and there, or TV film or whatever,
I feel like Michael Jackson first, he can't put his life in a film.
It's just there's too much there's too much that you need a miniseries.
It needs to be a few seasons long and needs to be like the crown.
That's what I'm looking for,actually.
Could it just be a next Netflix,
the crown type production of Michael Jackson and done really well,
really well researched, really kind of deep and multilayered in terms of how they
deconstruct him as a human being and is really informative.
I would love that.
I would have loved that.
And then the last thing that I would ask
of him is also for him to have that one film acting role.
I know he always wanted to be an actor.
He loved cinema.
And it wasn't it was kind of a career that was you know, it was difficult for him.
He didn't get the opportunities that he wanted.
And when he tried to find his own opportunities, it didn't work out for him.
So I think me as a fan and also for him, I would love for him to have that one role
that was almost like an Oscar worthy role that he was really recognized for.
And people really celebrated him as an actor, you know,
as well as a performer and a singer and all that.
Yeah, I think when Michael acted in his
short films and moonwalker, we see that the potential is there.
So, you know, it would have been cool to see him expand on that.
Yeah.
And I imagine this, again, being kind of like a comeback or
reimagined the reinvention of his career if he was able to do that.
So that's me in terms of me being a fan and what I would like to see
what would have been
a good, realistic future for Michael Jackson.
So not like you as a fan, but what do you think?
If you were like managing Michael Jackson
in 2009, this was the next stage in his life.
What would you suggest to him is a realistic,
good outlook on his career in life?
If I were managing Michael Jackson,
I would know that Michael Jackson puts an immense amount of pressure on himself
to like outperform himself and outdo himself every time.
So I would have told Michael, hey,
we're six months out of the year, take six months off something where
Michael could have found, you know, found the time to.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Be with his family.
Be with his kids, you know, maybe,
you know, date around, do some fun stuff and then get back to work.
Because I think that Michael, when he was like recording albums or
preparing for shows, he was just like engrossed in this bubble of pressure.
And in order to relieve that,
I would have liked to see him, you know, have some time on, some time off.
And I also
wanted to read a small passage
from the Rabbi Shmuley book where he he taped some conversations
with Michael Jackson, because I think it's important here
to really hear in the last few years what Michael was saying about his own career.
Rabbi Shmuley said, do you feel that if the next album is not
amazing, that you are not going to be special?
Michael says it would be a terrible blow to me if I did not perform as well as I
wish because I put real pressure on myself and I demand the best out of myself.
I really do the best of the form or
the medium that I work in, and I put a lot of pressure on myself.
So to have that happen,
if that was to happen, it would be psychologically destroying for me.
So I would have totally tried to make sure
that there was a balance in his life for sure.
And I would have loved to see him do film, like you said,
because I feel like that would have been a different realm.
So maybe there wouldn't really be that thing of like, oh,
I got to do better than Thriller because this is a whole different medium.
Well, I think that's what he was trying to look for.
You know, after the battle,
he was thinking, I've already done that, accomplished.
I need to move on to something different
because you don't want to just constantly try to outdo yourself.
But I think he was very much a character flaw.
He was greatly motivated once he was
in it, but once he was out that he was out of it.
And it was really hard for him to get back into it because he had this huge
expectation, this huge legacy behind him weighing over him.
You know, it was like a very long shadow that kind of haunted him right.
When he tried to do anything else, creative creatively.
And it's hard because, like,
even when you look at Invincible and the other day I was looking
at the album reviews for Invincible when it came out.
And even that people like the reviews
on like Rolling Stone and like some of the initial reviews that came out were
not very fair to Michael Jackson as an artist.
I felt like because they were comparing it
to the past, you know, or using the fact that he was like kind
of a spectacle in the media and then talking about the album.
So it was like he could never really win in that case.
And it's funny, like.
This was always the conversation after
Thriller, it always became, hey, look, I know we say a lot of stuff about
Michael Jackson, but he does actually quite decent music.
The music was kind of sidelined, like constantly.
It was always about his own personal life, his, like, media personality.
It wasn't so much about the music or his talent as much.
Yeah, I know.
I hoped that if he would have lived past
two thousand and nine, that that would change eventually, you know.
Yeah.
But I guess he was also his worst enemy in that.
But he always built this huge persona.
They couldn't be low key and always had to be big about a massive histeria everyone.
So
yeah, it was kind of like a gift and a curse in a way, as a gift to us,
as fans and as the general public to like, oh, we see all Michael Jackson doing this
and that and things would get bigger and bigger.
But I guess personally it was it was hard for him, so.