I first saw Michael perform at Disneyland, when he was the youngest member of "The Jackson Five".
Later on, as an artist, I worked on four projects for Michael Jackson, one Pepsi Commercial, two music videos, and an experimental project. He always managed to get a lot of heavy-weight celebs into his projects. Eddie Murphy was in one of the music videos and Cindy Lauper was in the Pepsi commercial. (I put it on my blog). Michael had a stand-in decoy that came around the set, so you never knew if it was the real Jackson or not.
We had to sign a contract that was several pages long. Contract clauses included not approaching MJ, not directing any jokes towards MJ, never speaking to MJ, and a long list of strange, almost child-like rules. We (the crew) all signed it, in order to work. Strange to have worked on four projects and never really having a verified MJ sighting. A good friend of mine did some mural work in Michael's home and told me that he was very nice and treated her well. His father treated her strangely, but that's another story. With all of his excentricities, MJ obviously had a lot of talent, energy, and a need to succeed. Sorry that he left at such a young age.
