The LA Times reports:
Pop star Michael Jackson was rushed to a hospital this afternoon by Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics.
Capt. Steve Ruda said paramedics responded to a call at Jackson’s home around 12:26 p.m. He was not breathing when they arrived. The parademics performed CPR and took him to UCLA Medical Center, Ruda told The Times.
MSNBC is reporting that his father said that Jackson had a heart attack. There is not much information, although the family is gathering at the hospital.
Update [2009-6-25 18:7:51 by BooMan]: TMZ says he’s dead.
Update [2009-6-25 18:11:6 by BooMan]: LA Times (per MSNBC) says he is in a coma.
Update [2009-6-25 18:22:44 by BooMan]: LA Times now says Jackson is dead. I prefer to think of him as a boy.
Mark Sanford owes Jacko big time.
You got that right.
No kidding.
I suppose it is a personal tragedy for him and his family, I guess I don’t get why this sort of thing is national news.
Sort of like why I don’t watch the local news on TV any more – most of their stories are fires or traffic accidents. And these too are personal tragedies, but with all of the other things going on in the world, it makes no sense to me that they would present this information to the general public as “news”.
We’re watching the news, and can’t believe the hyperbole being spouted over the “immense tragedy of this loss for the world”. Um, what??
Groan. Maybe we will try watching the BBC for news this evening instead. Hopefully they will either not have the story yet, or they will barely mention it.
He sold more records than anyone and is one of the most famous (and strangest) people in the world. I’d say it is news by any definition. Was it news when John Lennon was murdered?
Not really news then either. But I generally have little interest in celebrities.
I suppose this would have been worth a footnote, I suppose, but I have a strong feeling that we are going to be treated to wall-to-wall coverage for the next couple of days.
been a tough day for icons, eh.
first farrah fawcett, now mj….more shiny objects the msm can use to distract the hoi polloi from the all too real bs that’s going on inside the beltway.
think we’ll survive?
That’s kind of the point. Yesterday the Mark Sanford thing pushed a lot of news off the air that would have been worth talking about.
When Ed McMahon died, they gave it a short comment here and there, but it wasn’t the nonstop droolathon that we are about to endure.
I agree that the hyperbole will be in overdrive, but this is kind of a big deal.
His family found success with Motown, and you simply can’t argue that Motown was just a bunch of singers. He went on to major success of his own, which might I add was unheard of for African Americans. (Remember that he couldn’t get on MTV initially, as unimaginable as that is now). His influence among R&B/Hip-Hop/Pop is undeniable. Only James Brown would be bigger in that regard.
And then there are those of us who grew up with is music. Hell, even I still have my Thriller album. (Yup, the actual album.)
Now I’m not going into mourning or anything, but yeah–it’s kind of a big deal.
And I’m sure Mark Sanford wishes like hell that he could have returned today.
Meant to say “…unheard of for African-Americans at the time.” Sorry I left that out.
Well, Booman, gotta agree with you.
My memory of Michael Jackson:
I was 19 in 1970, working as a counselor at a summer camp in Connecticut and had a girlfriend from Ft. Lee, NJ. I hitchhiked into the city regularly to meet up with her during my one off day per week.
On that particular evening, she drove over from Jersey and met me on the NY side of the George Washington bridge in her new mustang convertible that rich daddy had just bought her.
And we cruised down the Hudson River Parkway with “I Want You Back” blaring off the 8-track. The sun was going down and we marveled at the World Trade Center just being built–all the way to the Staten Island Ferry which was the rest of our date.
He never really grew up, did he?
That`s why he died young.
There is a rumor, going around again, that his father had Michael as a child take large doses of female hormones in order for him to retain his beautiful voice. I have no idea if it’s true, but it would explain a lot more than his voice. After all, castrati were famed for similar singing voices.
Bob In Pacifica,
If that`s the case, that would be a horrible abuse of fatherly care.
How horrible to be mutilated in this way, for profit.
To ruin your own blood, the most horrific crime against nature, when the only real protection a child should be able to be provided is from his mother & father.
To me that would be the most vile of crimes against nature.
To sacrifice your child`s voice, to sing, & denying him the voice, “to speak”.
“God said to Abraham, kill me a son…”
My sister and I used to listen to Jackson 5 45s at 78 speed and laugh. That was the first thing I thought of today after hearing of his death.
I like to remember him as a boy too. Actually I liked him all the way through Thriller. He was an amazing performer.
I actually went to Kansas City (in 1984 I think) for the Jacksons’ last tour. Michael and the bros. It was a great concert.
Amazing performance in The Wiz also. totally worth watching. Still, the doc about him gave me the creeps re: how he treated those children.
I’m indifferent. I think being nice is to say M.Jackson was strange.
I’m sad. no matter his demons, his talent was undeniable.
He MADE MTV.
He created the term CROSSOVER ARTIST.
Before him, it was Black music and White Music. After him began the ascension of ‘Black music’ as Top 40 Music.
Actually, in the sixties popular music was pretty integrated. Aretha followed by the Four Seasons followed by the Kinks followed by Junior Walker and the All-Stars, etc. With the advent of FM radio as a music delivery vehicle an apartheid began, first between “pop” and “album” music. Then more divisions.
But Jackson did reintegrate music to an extent.
The 70’s… So GONE today. Jackson wrote the soundtrack for a lot of the really good times in my life. My daughter LOVED him and she’s devastated right now.
Jackson was a cultural icon and altered the landscape of the American mind. And a seriously fucked-up person… We’re going to hear too much in the next few days about his impact on music, on style, blah, blah, blah… and his tortured soul. It’s going to be a highly distasteful media circus.