We must stop annihilating souls that we should treasure. Have you ever considered that the common view may not be the correct one? Whoever said it was “normal” to engage in promiscuity, to drink yourself beyond rational understanding, to routinely fight wars and commit acts of genocide, to hate each other and to carelessly destroy the planet - the only home we have and, perhaps, are ever likely to have. When did that become “normal?”

When did we begin to stop dear Michael getting in? When did it become “weird”, “bizarre” or “crazy,” to choose to shine your humanity in life as brightly as you possibly can, to travel the world bringing comfort, reassurance, guidance and financial and emotional support to families who have nothing, whose lands have been left ruthlessly raped by the avaricious aims of others. When did it become “strange,” to choose to climb a tree or sit atop a roof and gaze in awed reverence at the stars, held as they are in the vastness of a universe which cradles us in its infinity? To watch the swallows dance in extended flight as they fish for insects in the night air, or to revel in the cumbersome journey of the bee from flower to flower?

Michael Jackson lived and breathed these sentiments, these beliefs, which, when you glance beyond the superficiality of man-made gadgets, electronics and concrete, are what truly colour the experience of humanity - it is these elements which form humanity. The official definition of humanity is the condition of being human - to be human, one must acknowledge their individual place in the beauty, grandeur and splendour of the natural world and humble themselves before its divine qualities. To be engaged in humanity is, also, by definition, to be kind and benevolent. What form of humanity exists at present then? If we are none of these things, can we still define ourselves as humanity? And dear Michael - one of several came - he tried to remind us what that word means - he tried to illuminate the darkness by embracing what it is to be human - by revering and respecting natural wonders, not as a means to an end, but as glorious ends in themselves. He tried to illuminate the darkness with benevolence, with love, with kindness.

We wouldn’t let him in.

-Tori Tomkins 

I still remember my first visit to Neverland. I mean, it would be hard to forget. But this was before Neverland was really Neverland – it was just Michael’s new ranch. He had asked me to install a music system in his bedroom – specifically on either side of his bed. It was soon after he bought Sycamore Valley Ranch, and he was just starting to settle in and plan what it could be like over time.

So I drove up to the ranch (he wasn’t there my first visit), and I was escorted into his bedroom. I quickly took some measurements and came up with some ideas… but maybe I lingered a bit longer than was really needed. I mean… it’s his bedroom for crying out loud! That’s pretty cool no matter how you slice it.

It was sort of decorated with movie memorabilia, toys, the gold and red throne (a gift, I assume?), and the classic MJ array of shopping bags and overstuffed Fed Ex and manila envelopes. Everywhere. This was how his office looked at the studio, and how Havenhurst looked, so it was clear that this was his home.

I ordered a pair of Westlake BBSM-4 speakers for his bedroom, and a nice amplifier. We not only recorded at Westlake Studios, but they also manufacture a line of speakers that we (and many professionals) used for recording. They build huge speakers that cost more than a small house, and they also sell smaller versions that sound amazing in a more traditional size. Michael was used to the sound of Westlake speakers, so it only made sense to mount a small pair of them in his bedroom for him to listen to mixes that Bruce was working on.

(I have another story about a pair of Westlake speakers I installed for Michael at Trump Tower in New York, but I’ll save that for now.)

I decided to mount them on arms that would rest above his bedside tables, and he could swing them in, so they would be floating on either side of his head, like a giant set of headphones. I thought it was a cool idea, and I dove into the project the following week. It only took a few hours to get them installed, so I kicked my shoes off and climbed onto his bed, and pulled the speakers on either side of my head for a test drive. They sounded amazing, and I was pretty proud of myself for making the whole thing come together so smoothly. Then Michael came in and listened to them, and he was so excited! We played a few mixes from the studio, and talked about new ideas for the ranch – and the rest of his enormous house.

Over the next many years I spent a lot of time at the ranch, in the house, even in the bedroom. Soon he wanted even bigger speakers in his master bathroom. I knew he loved to feel the music, and when I had it right, he would always laugh and yell, “Hurt me Brad… hurt me!”

Years rolled by, more projects, more albums, more mixes, more laughter. Then one day it was as if the music stopped. Michael was gone, and Neverland would forever be empty without him. I remember watching news reports of strangers and the press touring the house. It seemed so empty, looking at the bare floors and vacant rooms on TV. I remember one reporter walking into the bedroom, and trying to describe something he clearly had never seen. Then I saw the holes in the wall, where I had mounted my swing arm brackets for the speakers. The missing speakers. They were gone now, like everything else.

I didn’t really notice anything else, just the missing speakers. I knew he loved how they sounded, and I imagined him cranking them up and eating popcorn (“corn”). In a way they symbolized where he came from, and what drove him: Music. After seeing the holes in the walls where my speakers used to hang, I generally avoided all photos and videos of inside the house. It wasn’t the same. The missing speakers represented, at least to me, a great loss.

It’s just one of those days.

~ Brad Sundberg

www.inthestudiowithmj.com

Javon rolled down the window, waved her over. When she got to the car, Mr Jackson rolled his window down just a little bit and said, “What’s your name?”

“Amanda,” she said.

They talked for a bit. He wanted to know her story. He asked her where she was from, where’s her family at. She said she used to be a dancer, a showgirl. Then I heard him reaching around in the backseat for something. I heard the sound of paper. He was pulling out money. He pulled out three one hundred dollar bills, gave them to her and said, “Here. Take This.”

She was floored. She was almost crying, saying, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

After he gave her the money, she backed up a few steps and I started to drive off. The guy that had been sitting near her got up, came over to her and tried to snatch the money away. She pulled back, but he kept trying to grab it from her and they started fighting again. She started yelling, “No! This is mine!”

Mr Jackson saw that and said, “No, no, no! Javon, stop the car. Pull back over.”

I pulled back over, he leaned back out of the window and called the man over this time, saying, “Don’t do that! Here, I’ve got something for you too.” He pulled out another three hundred dollars and gave it to the man. The lady started crying, like she’d been saved.

He told them to use the money for food. “Get something nourishing,” he said. “Don’t get any drugs.”

“No, sir!” they said. “No, sir!” They were both gushing with thank yous and God bless yous, when all of a sudden the man stopped and looked in the car window and said, “Are you Michael Jackson?”

“No. No, I’m not.”

As we were driving away, Mr Jackson asked us if there were a lot of people like that in the area, and after hearing that there were parts of Vegas where many homeless people lived, he asked us if we could drive there. “You want to get there tonight, sir? Tonight wouldn’t be a good time.” “No, no,” he said. “We can go another day. I just want to see.”

When he mentioned going there, I was hoping he’d forget about it. Sometimes when he made unusual requests, things I knew weren’t feasible or just weren’t a good idea, I’d wait a bit before following up, to see if he’d drop it. Sometimes he would. This time, he remembered. A couple of days later he came up to me and said, “When are we going to that side of town?”

“What side of town is that, sir?”

“Where the homeless people are.”

“We can go there today.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

We headed up Main street, and all of these people were out. You could hear in his voice that he was shocked that all of these people were homeless. “It’s just amazing,” he said. “This country is so rich and these people are poor and living on the street.”

He asked Javon to pull over, so we pulled over. I was a little antsy. I wasn’t cool pulling over in a nice car with all these people around. We sat there on the side of the road for a bit. Then Mr Jackson said, “I want to give them something.”

I thought he meant he wanted to get out of the car and I said, “I don’t think it’d be a good idea to go out there, sir.”

He said, “No, no, no. I’ll pass it out of the window.”

He cracked the window open and started waving people over. He had a fanny pack he was wearing. He opened it up and the whole thing was stuffed full of cash. They would come to the window and he would pass out a hundred dollar bill through the crack in the window to each one. One thing I noticed was that he was trying to catch the attention of the women. He wanted to make sure that they were the ones who got the money. He was like, “Come here. No, no, no. You. You come here.” A lot of men got money too, but I could hear him singling the women out of the crowd, calling them forward. People started lining up outside his window, like it was an ATM.

He gave away so much he ran out, and he got upset with himself. He was saying he should have brought more. We started to see another side of him, his compassion for others, and it was kind of amazing. There was no media out there, no cameras. There was only a crack in the window, so no one could tell it was him. It was just something he wanted to do.

After that, we went and handed out food to the homeless a number of times. He’d say, “Me and the kids are not going to eat this. Let’s take this down and give it away.” One time, he wanted the kids to come with us and see it, so we brought them along.”

~ Bill Whitfield och Javon Beard (livvakter)