Have you ever wonder what made him laugh in this picture?? why was he so amused?? :))

Photographer Todd Gray speaked about this photo:

"Michael showed me his newly finished private theater, complete with plush red velvet seats. I thought his blue sweater would complement the deep red, and I asked him to take a seat and pretend as if he were watching a movie. “Which movie?” he asked. I said, “It doesn’t matter. Any movie will do.” But Michael insisted: “Todd, you’ve got to tell me which movie I’m supposed to be watching if you want a reaction from me.” O.K., what about a Charlie Chaplin comedy, I suggested. “Which one?” Michael asked. “He made so many, you know.” My mind went blank; luckely, my assistant shouted out, “Modern Times.” Michael responded, “O.K., which part?” Exasperated, I said, “Michael, it’s a comedy, just laugh!” It was getting late and we were all tired and a little punchy, but Michael was having fun with all of this. “Well,” he began, “if you want me to laugh, then you have to tell me a joke. But you said you wanted me to act like I’m watching a movie. Which is it you want?” Finally I gave up and made a ridiculous clown face, which made him laugh."


That was such a cute moment!!! Michael was so funny.. so special!!!

Vanessa Lee - Fook (the little girl in the picture) speakes about how she met MJ:

"I met the legendary Michael Jackson back in February, 1978 when I lived in Trinidad, West Indies. He came there with his brothers, The Jacksons, for a concert. It was a chance meeting that I will never forget that lasted for almost one whole week! When I talk about that time, it sounds so far fetched. If I didn't have the pictures and autographs to prove it, I wouldn't believe it either.
One of the pictures I will share is of Michael and I at Las Cuevas Beach in Trinidad. He was such a gentle, humble, and truly special person. Even back then I could tell he was a perfectionist, a musical genius who loved to entertain people.
Can you name one performer out there today who can truly entertain people the way Michael did and command an audience?"

In this photo from January 27, singer Michael Jackson looks out from an ambulance as he arrives at Brotman Memorial Hospital in Culver City, after suffering second-degree burns on his scalp while filming a Pepsi commercial, according to officials.

I'll try to find better ones !!!

Michael in his giving tree (back in 2002)..
Michael wanted to show his giving tree to Martin Bashir..

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My Brush With Badness (Sam L. Parity)

A few weeks ago, I was at a staff meeting for new employees where everyone in the room was asked to mention one interesting thing about themselves that nobody else would know. I waited patiently 'til my turn came around, and then calmly explained how Michael Jackson once sent me to J.C. Penney to buy him underwear.

Since I have told my friends this story countless times, I was a little surprised by the strong reaction people had to my off-the-cuff comment. I guess I shouldn't have been. Like him or not, there is no denying that Michael Jackson is still a force of nature. Even my 5th graders are aware of him, and they were all of three years old when his last record came out! So to set the record straight, here is the account of my years with the so-called King of Pop.

Back in 1989, I was a fresh-faced college grad in Los Angeles searching for my first job. Since I was one of the six people that year who actually went to college just to learn how to work in a recording studio, I had no problem landing a position at one of the major studios in Hollywood. Of course, even with an expensive college degree, you couldn't just expect to start off working with bands inside the building, because that required actual EXPERIENCE, which of course was what everyone else was out getting while I was pursuing my worthless degree.
Instead, they stuck me out in the parking shack across the street for two months. Strangely enough, I had some experience in this area, as I had spent the summer working as a valet in a garage near Fenway Park.

Parking cars for rock stars certainly had its moments. Iggy Pop once drove up in a Hyundai with no windshield. Either Milli or Vanilli tipped me a dollar for parking their Jeep. The Beastie Boys all sped off laughing one day in their rented Escort, and then drove straight up to Mulholland Drive and pushed it over the cliff. And once a week during lunch, David Crosby handed me a twenty-dollar bill to take his brand-new BMW 750 to the car wash, which really only set me back like three bucks. Once when I brought it back to him, he handed me another twenty for a tip.
Nevertheless, a promotion was inevitable, and in the winter of '89. I was promoted to the midnight to eight janitorial position. At least I was happy to be inside the building, as it was getting cold in the unheated parking shack. But I knew absolutely nothing about cleaning toilets and mopping floors, as evidenced by the huge cloud of noxious smoke that spewed from the cleaning bucket on my first night when I mixed the bleach and ammonia together.

Washing David Crosby's car for twenty bucks was one thing. But cleaning the studio bathroom after David Crosby had been in there for twenty minutes was a different deal entirely. For starters, I was supposed to stay awake all night, but after six hours of cleaning the entire building, this was easier said then done. Finally, one morning as I was leaving, the studio manager asked me to take two small brass elephant bookends home and polish them up before my next shift. I spent the day looking for another job instead, and found one right away at a studio down the street on Sunset Blvd.
At my new job, I was hired on as a "runner," which meant I got to run errands all over LA in my trusty '84 VW Rabbit. A couple months later, they moved me out to a studio in the San Fernando Valley for a "special" project.
This project would eventually become Michael Jackson's "Dangerous" album. When I first started, Michael was working with three different groups of producers all trying to take the place of Quincy Jones, who had not been chosen to work on this project. I think Michael wanted to go out on his own for this one, but the problem was that he had no idea what he wanted! One day, Slash from Guns N' Roses would be recording a searing guitar solo, while the next day, a chorus of thirty children would be singing a nursery rhyme or something.
Michael didn't say much to me at first, until one day he ran in screaming that there was a "vagabond" sitting in the alley behind the studio. I took a look, expecting Charlie Chaplin to pop out or something, but there was just some homeless guy sipping malt liquor out of a bag on the back steps.

Eventually, Michael warmed up to me, and even started talking to me once in a while if he was in the mood. Once, he asked if I was going to have to go fight in the (Gulf) war. I told him I was probably too old to be drafted, and he responded by saying that he was relieved, because "if you went to the war, you could die."

He also started sending me out on errands, like going out with his credit card one afternoon to fill his huge Blazer up with gasoline. If I remember correctly, he had an auxiliary gas tank mounted, so he could get up to his ranch without having to get out and fill up along the way.

I guess I should mention at this point that Michael is an awful driver. He hit everyone's car in the studio lot at least once, including mine. One time, he rear-ended a guy on the 101 freeway, and just left the scene because the guy got out of his car and started screaming at him. Eventually, he gave up and got someone to drive him in to work every day.
Other memorable experiences include calling Tower Records (RIP) an hour before they closed, and having them shut down early so that Michael and I could go shopping. Even thought it was just up the road, I was glad to get out of MJ's car and into the safety of the store! I think he dropped about $1500 on CDs that night.

Anyway, one day Michael shyly asked me if I could do him a special favor. I'm pretty sure this was after he stopped driving, so I guess he really didn't have any other way to get stuff during the day. Of course I agreed, which was when he told me flat-out that he had just run out of underwear.

For pretty much the whole two years that I worked with him, Michael came in every day wearing black dress pants and a red button-down shirt. He had a whole rack of just these two items in his office, which I assume he either had cleaned and returned to him, or just threw away at the end of the day. But on this particular day, I guess he was running low on drawers.
At first, he just said that he wanted underwear. When I asked him what kind, he just repeated "Underwear!" When I told him I wasn't his mother and didn't know what to get, he kind of laughed, and then said "Hanes thirty please." When I was almost out the door however, he came running up and yelled "make them thirty-twos, I don't want them to be too tight!" So there it is folks. The King of Pop wears tightie-whities!
Other than that, I never saw any funny business going on for the two years I worked with him. I really enjoyed this experience, and even got my name on the CD! Michael was always polite and reserved in the studio, but he had his silly moments as well.

He was also really concerned about doing anything that would inadvertently upset anybody around him. Even though he was spending five thousand bucks a day on studio time, Michael left me this note one day on my desk. I kept it as a souvenir, and pull it out now and then if people ever question my story. It pretty much tells you everything you need to know about him as a person and an artist.

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"I guess I should mention at this point that Michael is an awful driver. He hit everyone's car in the studio lot at least once, including mine" :)))

Oh God..the note and the final words ... it makes me cry ... I froze .. Michael you are such a special person !!!!!!

Former friend "in shock" after receiving the news of Jackson's death.

In 1988, Michael Jackson contacted the then 14-year old star of "My life as a dog" Anton Glanzelius. He remembers the day they spent together at Liseberg, the largest amusement park in Scandinavia. The park was closed to the general public for the sake of Jackson and his friends' privacy. The news of Jackson's death came as a shock for now 35 year old Glanzelius.

"I couldn't believe it at first. When it was confirmed, I was shocked. It was so strange that it happened so close to his tour and his comeback," Glanzelius tells Göteborgsposten.

Anton Glanzelius met Michael Jackson for the first time when he was 13. Jackson had seen the movie "My life as a dog", directed by Lasse Hallström and with Glanzelius as the leading star, and had enjoyed it so much he invited the boy to his home Neverland. Michael had seen the movie twice, the second time with his mother. The movie was very special to him but Jackson' never revealed why or what the movie meant to him, to Anton. As a 13 year old growing up in southern Gothenburg, he had no idea who Michael Jackson was.

"I ran to the neighbors' house and asked them if they had any records with Michael Jackson. I wanted to see what he looked like." Anton arrived in Neverland along with his mother. They spent a couple of hours in Jackson's company but they did not get to know each other that well that time. Anton remembers that Jackson was very polite.

" I remember walking around and meeting his Llama and a giant snake. Then he went to wake Bubbles up and brought him downstairs. Bubbles was wearing a red t-shirt and a diaper and he shook my hand. I thought it was more strange to meet a chimpanzee than Michael Jackson," he says. "He had a room filled with candy and I ate as much as I wanted."

Glanzelius explains that he was probably too young to realize the greatness of his friendship with the popstar. "As a child, you have a different perspective," he says. Anton Glanzelius describes his friend as "very kind-hearted and humble". On stage he was an artist who influenced the world. In private, he was very shy. "He was a very ordinary guy who lived an extreme life from early on."

When Jackson came to Gothenburg in 1989, he contacted Glanzelius. "It was such an amazing and fun experience as a 14-year old to have the entire Liseberg to ourselves." Glanzelius remembers that they rode the rollercoaster "Loopen", Michael's favourite ride in the park, a dozen times. "He was laughing constantly, we had so much fun."

The marketing director of Liseberg, Pelle Johansson, had been working the first half of -89 to bring Jackson to the amusement park. Jackson was going to hold a concert at Erikberg, Gothenburg, and the owners of Liseberg saw their chance to put the amusement park on the map. They made hundreds of phonecalls and sent letters to Jackson and his managers, but it was still uncertain whether he was going to show up.

"We didn't think it would actually work. The huge media coverage made it hard for him to even leave the hotel and get here," Johansson says. Jackson arrived with his friend Glanzelius and a company of approximately 100 people. "We closed the park and they were able to move as they pleased in the park without any photographers or journalists. The only thing we asked in return was his handprint."

The roofs were filled with photographers trying to get a picture of the smiling Jackson. The visit lasted 3-4 hours. Jackson and Glanzelius also rode the bumper cars, which he really enjoyed, Glanzelius tells Göteborgsposten. "He was fooling around and laughing and we were chasing each other trying to get a hit. He was such a sweet, humble, warm and lovely person."

Glanzelius also spent the evening in Jackson's bedroom, watching movies and eating candy."I tried to make him show a few moves but he wouldn't, he was so shy! He said that it was different to perform in front of 50 000 people. We talked about everything from football and fame, to girls and love," he says. "It was impossible for me to understand what it was like to be a superstar in the US, I was just 14 years old. I probably asked him some really stupid questions," he laughs.

The last time they met was in 1992 in Stockholm. They kept in touch via letters and Jackson often sent him packages with presents and videos. "We were pretty close but then we just lost contact, I don't remember why," he says. Glanzelius remembers Jackson with fondness, and is in shock to hear the news of the star's death. "It's so devastating. I don't want to believe it. It's not ok, he was just 50 years old, it's way too soon."

Glanzelius now works as a TV-producer and is no longer acting.