MJ Benefit: The Dirt

As you might imagine, I had to bite my tongue a LOT this summer for the good of the effort to raise $100,000 as co-producer of "Las Vegas Celebrates The Music of Michael Jackson." Biting my tongue, however, was not in my nature and now I'm ready to explode.

Tomorrow, I open up in my Las Vegas Weekly column, but there's more that didn't find a home or deserved more detail than I had space for there. Ready?

1. The Earl Turner Fiasco. I should have known that Earl Turner, the co-headliner at the Las Vegas Hilton of whom I'd heard little previously, would be a headache when KCEP's Patricia Cunningham tried to get him on her radio show. KCEP is a black-oriented FM radio station and Cunningham wanted Turner to come on to discuss the MJ benefit. Turner refused, I was told, because she had never seen HIS show. Yeah, that's the spirit, Mr. Turner! (Clint Holmes ultimately did the spot.) But it only got better. His producer, Angelo Giordano, called us the night before the show to demand 15 comped seats. We refused this request -- no other performer even requested more than a pair of comp'd seats and many paid full price for several more -- but decided to offer him the seats for $20 a piece as a good-will gesture. At that point, we had sold out of all but the $129 seats, so this was a heckuva deal. Giordano agreed to this and was asked to pay when he picked up his seats at the box office, but when he arrived at the box office he became upset that he had to pay anything and walked off. Result? Fifteen seats that could have raised $2,000 for Las Vegas kids went empty. Nice. [As a post-script, though, Turner and his co-star, Lani Misalucha, performed wonderfully in the show.]

2. Ready For His Close-Up. Or Something. We got a call one day on our Skype line from someone who said he was a casino host at a major hotel asking about the show. I called back thinking maybe he wanted to discuss what we could do for high rollers. Not so much. Rather, the guy tells me, "I do an awesome Moonwalk! I do a better James Brown, but my friends tell me my Moonwalk is pretty awesome." When I explained that this wasn't that kind of show, he was confused and deflated and I felt badly, so I told him to email us his YouTube clips and Web information and we'd take a look. His reply: "Oh, I've never actually performed on a stage before. I thought this could be a great place to get started!"

3. The Girls Will NOT Be Ignored. As the prior anecdote indicated, we heard from lots of acts who wanted to participate and my co-producer, Erich Bergen, carefully selected what would end up in there. (My contributions in idea or organization, by the way, included the Las Vegas Mass Choir, the Green Valley High String Quartet, Lion King representation and the Zumanity singers.) By far the most insistent and bizarre, however, was the lady out of New Jersey who manages The Girls, a trio of female singers who made absolutely no sense to include in a showcase of Vegas or Vegas-relevant talent. Erich let them down politely, but the manager kept coming back via email, more hysterically each time until this:

"Michael is and will always be the King of Pop not merely because of his skill, talent, and the execution of his performances, but specifically because he, more than any other performer truly loved his fans and people. That love was real and not just to impress others. His tribute should be ditto. He would've selected The Girls to perform. He was just that kind of a guy. He was real. He would not shove them away with a thanks but no thanks response. ... He would want The Girls to pay tribute to him, not merely the 'big names.' The Girls are heartbroken and feel additional hurt because Michael is being remembered under 'glory and pomp' and his real fans whom he adored are left out of the tribute."

Erich again replied that it wasn't personal, it just wasn't a fit. The manager quieted down for a few days before sending along this: "Do you know of other places where they can perform?"

4. CUL8R, VH1. At the outset, it seemed like working with VH1's Save The Music Foundation could have benefits. They have a big name and marketing potential and what they do -- provide funding for music educators' salaries -- was in line with what we wanted to accomplish. Except there arose a few serious problems. Besides for the fact that they were very bureaucratic and almost required us to beg them to let us give them our money, the representative told us they do not provide any funding for Nevada schools. Not only that, but if we pledged to raise a certain amount of money and we fell short, Erich and I would be legally obligated to make up the difference. But the kicker was when we suggested that we give some of the money to VH1 and some to the Clark County Public Education Foundation. VH1 would absolutely not be involved in any event for which they had to share in revenues. In fact, they wouldn't even allow us to have an instrument drive -- to collect slightly used instruments for local schools, an idea that didn't ultimately pan out -- in conjunction with something they were branding. And so in the end, they missed out on tens of thousands of dollars as well as all the international publicity we generated. Oh well. Keep all that in mind the next time the VH1 Divas concert returns to Vegas.

5. Hello, My Name is Erish. The beauty of press releases is that they're written down. Even better, when they come on the computer, you can even cut and paste the parts you like if you're that sort of journalist. So explain, someone please, how Erich Bergen became "Erish Bergin" in this ridiculously written piece? Yes, my name gets misspelled, too, although he (accidentally?) got it right once, anyhow. But better yet, given how I have repeatedly stated I was only a casual Michael Jackson fan, where would this fellow possibly have come up with this quote attributed to me: "I’ve been a huge fan of the Michaels music since I was a child."

6. Husband of the Year Joe Jackson: I told most of the story of my encounter with Joe Jackson, father of Michael, the day it happened. But there was one little bit I left out. When we met, I told him I was sorry for his loss. He thanked me. I asked how his wife was faring. His response: "She keeps bursting out in tears every so often all of a sudden, but I keep telling her if she'd only gone over there [to Michael's home] to check up on him like I kept telling her to, he'd still be alive today."