Una's

*

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public
doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

W.H. Auden.

They shouted at windows at him, "murderer", time encusted on every lamp post. When a srikingly handsome, charismatic, alright gorgeous, fascinating and personable young woman started going on about how she might bonk a really old person, say someone in their 50s, for a billion dollars, but she wouldn't marry them, not for all the money in the world. No amount of money would be worth submitting to something so utterly gross. They all agreed, the bright, astonishingly good looking young group of 20 somethings. It was about then he decided to take his 57-year-old body home to bed, or at least home to the couch to watch Wimbledon. Lleyton Hewett won his match last night, the little Aussie battler now in the final round of 16, putting him amongst the best tennis players in the world. Oh how he wished things were different; how crowded was his head; how deep his longing for another life.

Joyce, about to turn 85, who's heroic story and charming manner had endeared her to him long ago, wanted a plain feed, so as they were in the area he took her to Una's, now a busy, popular German restaurant in the Cross. "I remember Una's when it was Sydney's only 24-hour coffee shop, I used to know the original Una's," he said. "I was 16 and looked young for my age and I would stumble in drunk at two or three a.m. She was always very kind to me. She would sober me up with icecream and black coffee. She encouraged me with my studies, to finish high school. She was a really nice woman. That was more than 40 years ago." He sighed. Joyce listened abstractedly, for she was dying of leukemia and loved being out with what she saw as a handsome young man.

"I never thought I would be out like this ever again," she said. "Out with a nice looking fella." He laughed. The days when he classified as a nice looking fella were long gone. The gruff waittress with the offhand manner, the one who could barely be bothered to notice them until he shouted: "Mind if we order?", took their orders. No one here, almost no one in the city, would remember the original Una. How nice she was. How kind she had been to him. How much it had meant, someone on his side, after he had escaped the extreme and insistent bashings by his father and had become a real person, a delinquent youth, in that place which had always fascinated him, Kings Cross. William Street crossed with Victoria and Darlinghurst Street underneath the giant Coca Cola sign to form a kind of a T-intersection, or a cross, and he always thought of himself as being "sacrificed on the Cross".

"He should be at home with his mother," the voices whispered, as he swayed unsteadily on his legs, the almost empty bottle of whisky still in his hand, the massive damage he was doing himself of no consequence. For who wanted to live forever. Forty, forty two years later, he sat with this elderly woman in Una's, so differnet to the cafe he had known, which had been tiny and astonishingly colourful, full of late-night drag queens, rent boys, the gay crowd. He couldn't believe it when a drag queen swept her manicured nails across his cheek and said: "You'd look lovely in drag". This was nirvana, so far away from the terror he had known and endured only months before. Derek, if that was his real name, swanned in, complaining about the number of clients he had serviced that night. A dozen, or so he said. Nothing that came out of Derek's well used mouth was very reliable, but nonetheless he was fascinated by him.

And Una, Una was always there, a substitute mother, someone who cared. He shared his dreams about finishing high school and going to university. None of the other boys had dreams or ambitions, beyond meeting a rich sugar daddy or having the op or staying out of jail for another month, and she treated him as her own special adoptee. He could have asked her for anything, she would have helped. She always wanted to know how his studying was going. She always said he would make something of himself. And then Una sold up and went back to Germany; and he never heard or saw of her again. The cafe migrated down the road to its present site, and she sold the business and returned to her homeland. She would be a woman in her seventies now; maybe no longer alive. He wished he could reach across time and thank her; and tell her that yes, things had worked out better than anyone could have possibly imagined.
He had a good job and two children and yes, he had finished high school and gone to universithy; and graduated. How proud she would be. How kind she had been.

THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-jackson-tv27-2009jun27,0,5837449.story

Michael Jackson was the first great pop star whose career was shaped by television -- not merely showcased by it, like those of Elvis Presley and the Beatles, but inseparable from the medium. He was indebted to it and influenced it in turn. Across his four-decade career, he was often someone to listen to, but he was always -- for better and sometimes for worse -- something to see. A lifetime of pictures came back into focus on the day of his death, as cable news outlets ran bits of old videos and Facebook bloomed with links to YouTube clips.

He first appeared on TV in 1969, on "The Hollywood Palace" and "The Ed Sullivan Show" at the time of the Jackson 5's debut single, "I Want You Back." The sound of that single is astounding -- like Jackson's moonwalk, it seems to deform time. But the song told only part of that story: There is the dancing and the colorful funk of the costumes, and above all there is the face of Michael Jackson, the face of Things Beginning. The song is about a loss, but there is only elation in his performance. Watching that "Ed Sullivan" appearance now, he looks fearless, clear-eyed, beautiful and in charge. That he was only 11 years old -- you couldn't ignore it, and it was completely beside the point.

A family-friendly family band then, before they became a thing of tabloid fascination -- expressed in a 1992 TV movie, "The Jacksons: An American Dream" -- the Jacksons were made for television, and appeared there often in the twilight of variety. (They also became an animated cartoon, like the Beatles before them.) But as time went on, as Michael grew taller and unpredictably different, they seemed momentarily to fade. Things were changing, but you couldn't see where it would lead.

That was settled on the night of the 1983 TV special "Motown 25: Yesterday, Today and Forever," in which he appeared with his brothers, but also, for five minutes, claimed the stage for himself -- performing a song not released on Motown, "Billie Jean," seizing upon the occasion to remake himself utterly. (He had already begun to remake himself physically.)

The appearance replayed the look and moves of the song's video; he wore a suit of spangles, a fat white glove, pants cut short to show his ankles and make his long legs look even longer. The dancing was encyclopedic, one move following hard on another: spins, crouches, kicks, Bob Fosse angles, Gene Kelly silhouettes, and of course the brand-new moonwalk. But the smile of the happy kid or the earnest entertainer was gone, replaced by a pleading anger that would thereafter become the dominant note in his self-presentation. It was a beginning, and it was also

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/feedarticle/8579812

Further tests will be needed to determine whether prescription drugs played any role in Michael Jackson's death, coroner's officials have said.

The results of the post-mortem examination were deferred, possibly for between four and six weeks, and attention turned to Jackson's doctor, who was with him when he fell ill.

Dr Conrad Murray, a cardiologist who practices in California, Nevada and Texas, will now be questioned further by detectives, while his car was seized from outside Jackson's house in case it contained drugs or other evidence.

Charlie Beck, assistant police chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, said it was "way too early" to draw any conclusions about the singer's death.

He said officers spoke to Dr Murray immediately after Jackson's death but now wanted to carry out "an extensive follow-up interview".

Craig Harvey, operations chief of the Los Angeles County Coroner's office, said there was no evidence of foul play or trauma on the superstar's body but further tests were needed.

He said he could not comment on any specific drugs which Jackson may have been prescribed, but added: "We know he was taking some prescription medications."

He said: "There was no indication of any external trauma or any indication of foul play on the body of Mr Jackson."

The post-mortem examination took about three hours and Jackson's was later released to his family, he said.

A source close to the investigation said Jackson appeared to have suffered a heart attack. A heart attack would not rule out drugs playing a role in his death, but could also indicate a long-term problem such as heart disease.

http://www.tmz.com/2009/06/27/michaels-estate-may-turn-around/

It's the ultimate irony -- Michael Jackson's death could make his struggling estate flush with cash.

It's simple math. Jackson spent millions of dollars every year. He was paying $100,000 a month just for renting the Holmby Hills house.

We're told the bottom line could get significantly better and quickly.

That brings up an obvious point -- with significant child support on the line, there's even more of an incentive for Debbie Rowe to fight for custody. If she does, there will be an epic fight between Rowe and Katherine Jackson.