Michael Jackson’s Birthday Party
Michael Jackson would have turned sixty August 29th.
By CBS Television
In 2003, I went to Neverland. This is an edited excerpt from an e-book I wrote Neverland: Michael Jackson of Gary, Indiana.
Neverland was set-up exactly like a deluxe version of Chicago amusement parks in the 1960s. Every kid on the south side was obsessed with wanting to go to Kiddieland on 95th Street or Riverview Park on Belmont Ave., where the TV ads said you could “laugh your troubles away.” Michael Jackson and his brothers and sisters were probably no different than any us kids of that era. But unlike the rest of us, Michael Jackson probably did not have the chance to go to an amusement park when he was a child.
When I saw photos of the interior of Michael Jackson’s house at Neverland with all of its hidden closets, secret passageways and what looked like a dumbwaiter or laundry chute, I realized how typical his family life was as a kid. There were tens of thousands of big families with a steelworker father and a stay-at-home mother in Chicago and Northwest Indiana in the 1960s. Kids were packed into two-bedroom townhouses — a bedroom for the boys and a bedroom for the girls if you were lucky. If you were really lucky you had grandparents living nearby in a bigger house with cabinets and attics and other hiding places where you could have a lot of fun. Most children of that era didn’t know much about racism when we were little, but we knew there wasn’t much money to go around.
My Visit to Neverland: A Michael Jackson Birthday Party
The complimentary invitations arrived the last week in August. Members of the Gary SWAT team were asked to come to a party that was planned for September 13 at Neverland Valley Ranch in Los Olivos, California. The event, a late birthday party for Michael Jackson, was for the benefit of the Make-A-Wish Foundation and also in honor of Romero Britto, an artist based in Florida who became famous many years ago by designing the Absolut Vodka campaign. (A Britto painting illustrated the album cover of Michael Jackson’s release that year and Britto’s happy, colorful, cubist pop art paintings were collected by a number of celebrities besides Michael Jackson, including Michael Jordan and Gloria Estefan.) Though the tickets for the all-day charity event were being sold for $5,000 per couple, the Gary police were designated as personal guests of Michael Jackson. The comped tickets were another gift from Michael Jackson to the police for the extra security required during his two-day visit to Gary seven months earlier. Michael Jackson had already spent at least $100,000 for public and private security, for himself, his children and entourage, who stayed at the Radisson in Merrillville. During the trip MJ had committed to building a performing arts center in Gary.
Also invited, but not comped, were Jewell Harris Sr. and Jewell Harris Jr. In 2003, Jewell Harris Sr. was a political advisor to Gary’s Mayor Scott King, also he was also the controlling owner of the Gary Steelheads, the three-year-old Continental Basketball Association league team that played at the Genesis Center. His son, Jewell Harris Jr., a soft-spoken attorney, was then general manager of the basketball team.
The Harrises had attended a private meeting a month before the Neverland invitations arrived, with Michael Jackson and his point person on the Michael Jackson Center for the Performing Arts project Stuart Backerman, in Miami. The initial meeting with Jackson and the Gary businessmen had gone well. Michael Jackson envisioned the arts center as not only a theater to bolster economic development in downtown Gary, but a Julliard-like school for the Midwest. Jackson said raising the money would not be a problem. His only concern was that his vision be implemented.
The Harrises were both impressed at the Florida meeting with Michael Jackson’s intelligence and seriousness about the idea. They were also happy that Jackson had taken the time out of what they believed was work on his next album to meet with them. Michael Jackson seemed confident, cool, and not the least bit eccentric in the meeting — other than the fact that he wasn’t wearing shoes. Jewell Harris Sr. and Jr. welcomed the chance for an opportunity to follow-up at social event with the Jackson people, even if it would cost $5,000 plus expenses.
Between the Gary Police Department — — Robertson, Smith and Jackson from the security detail, Deputy Chief Kumorek and his wife — — and the Harrises, there were seven representatives from the city attending the Neverland Party which began Saturday morning at 9 a.m. On the advice of the Michael Jackson people Jewell Jr. and Sr. and the Kumoreks spent Friday night at the W Hotel in Santa Monica, 20 minutes from LAX.
The Harrises hired a town car and invited the couple to drive with them to the ranch more than 120 miles away. The rest of the police officers spent the night in a more economical motel near the airport and rented a car to get to the ranch early the next day. It was still dark out when the group was picked up at the hotel.
There was a low-hanging mist over the highway that runs along the Pacific into the mountains north of L.A. When they passed through Malibu, they saw a beautiful beach front colony on the left and palatial estates including a gigantic park preserve area that used to be owned by Barbara Streisand before she donated it for public use. On the right, as the car moved northward through Agoura and some outer parts of Los Angeles, it became more sparsely populated and desert-like. Oxnard, the last big town before Neverland Ranch, is still primarily an agricultural community and acres of fruit orchards were stuck in sandy soil that lined the highway as the road wound upward into the hills.
A dozen cars, very few limos and mostly midsize and non-distinctive, were backed up at the first of three checkpoints on the way into the ranch. Though the highway patrol with the tan on brown color scheme and big round Mounties’ hats were evident, the police seemed to be monitoring the traffic situation more than anything else. Security was being handled by the Jackson people, who all wore standard issue Neverland clothes.
Almost half the people streaming through the gate were male and female, teenage and young adult volunteers who would be working the party. There were approximately 1,000 people at the Neverland that day and about two-thirds working in some capacity, the rest were paying and non-paying guests.
Security was tight, like crossing a border, but without the guns. Checkpoint one was for identification against the guest and volunteer list, so guests had to produce driver’s licenses and passports along with “golden tickets” that had been issued by the party planners. At the next stop, guests were required to sign sets of releases saying that Neverland could take photos, make videotape and interview anyone at the party. Then there was another set of documents in which guests swore that they would not take photos, make videotape or interview anyone at the party. The invitations stated clearly that any cameras or recording devices brought to the party would be confiscated. The third stop was the parking lot and pick-up and drop-off point near the large iron gate into the ranch compound. About 100 yards back from the gate, all the guests passed through a metal detector before they were checked a second time with hand wands.
The parking lot contained a dozen impressive vehicles including super-stretch Mercedes and Bentley limousines. But, although the paved road was wide enough for a small truck, very few vehicles passed through the entranceway. Most people were traveling on foot, equipped with a map denoting 49 places of interest at Neverland Valley Ranch. Once checked in, guests were on their own. The front half of the 2,700-acre estate was meticulously landscaped with a lawn, willow and bulky evergreen and spruce trees, lights ran alongside of many of the walkways and the garden. There was a giant clock in front of the steam locomotive train. The train tracks ran down to the edge of the property where the zoo was, toward a replica of the entrance to the Disneyland train station.
Disney influences were palpable everywhere in Neverland. The logo on printed Neverland Valley Ranch material depicted a boy about 4 years old wearing pajamas with feet, whose legs were crossed at the ankles, sitting on a partial moon set in a circle of light like a swing and gazing down at the fantasyland below. He had dark hair, a turned-up nose and could have been thought to resemble a young Michael Jackson if everyone didn’t already know what Michael Jackson looked like when he was young. When Michael Jackson was young his skin was dark, his nose was wide, and his hair styled into a modified Afro bouffant. The logo with the child also bore a strong resemblance to the Dream Works trademark, which, of course, had common roots with Disney too. Among the child icons around Neverland, only the primary moon swing logo was at all Jackson-esque.
The 20-odd other bronze figurines scattered around the grounds were far more generic, with tiny round heads and doll-like faces perched on perfectly-proportioned boys and girls wearing play clothes, pajamas and night gowns, or the dress-up outfits children used to call party clothes. Some bronze children acted out stories or maybe were in costume. Others were holding hands, but they usually were not alone and seemed always to be laughing and having fun.
The first real animals the group from Gary encountered at Neverland were a herd of 35-or so pink flamingoes standing around a man-made pond near the house where Michael Jackson used to live with his children, their nannies and occasional guests. There were other animals at the zoo on the ranch — including reptiles, birds, elephants, giraffes, orangutans, tigers, and a bear. You had to take the steam locomotive — the electric train which runs parallel on the grounds was much smaller and only went half as far — for the five-mile trip to the other end of the ranch, especially on a 90-degree day in September.
The main residence at Neverland was striking because it was not a mansion at all, just a very large Tudor style house of a particular vintage. It was similar to nice gabled homes with stucco facades and dark hardwood trim that dot the better neighborhoods on the south side of Chicago and nearby Northwest Indiana. Far less opulent than the houses prominent on the hilltops and nestled in the valleys of Malibu and without the grand vistas those other houses have. Photographs of the interior of the house, which surfaced in the tabloids and on the web after Michael Jackson’s home was raided and searched by 70 officers November 18, 2003, showed an ordinary bedroom suite with a secret passageway adjoining a closet.
The maze-like constructions of pantries, narrow hallways, small rooms with passageways, entrances to attics in closets were features of homes built in and around Chicago in the `20s and `30s, fascinating to children growing up in the `50s and `60s. Adjacent to the main residence, which was the only building at Neverland where the guests were not permitted to go, there was a room with video computer games like a more exclusive, less busy, version of a courtyard in any amusement park.(6)
Photography by visitors wasn’t allowed at Neverland Valley Ranch and there was none on display either. In the depot of the locomotive train station, there was a bronze etching of Michael Jackson’s late grandmother, whom he obviously adored, but that was the only likeness of any family member alive or dead that was apparent to the casual visitor. What the casual visitor could not miss in the depot was the abundance and variety of ice cream, popcorn and candy there for the taking. Or, if you had a problem getting it for yourself, there were people behind the counter who would serve it to you. But the party guests were primarily adults and older teens who felt guilty making a late breakfast out of ice cream sandwiches and large bottles of water.
There were many paintings of Michael Jackson though — portraits depicting him with dramatic and perfectly symmetrical feminine features. With white skin and black hair these likenesses were prototypes for the star’s sculpted features and usually showed him with groups of non-descript children. The largest painting was a mural on the inside wall of a vast covered bridge that the locomotive passed through on the way to the zoo. In this rendition, which was about 2,500-feet long, Michael Jackson was a Christ-like figure with children crowded around him. An aura was drawn outlining the group. It seemed likely that the mural was put in place more than 10 years earlier because it looked so faded in spite of being inside and away from the sun.
Other morning arrivals at the Neverland party included a number of obviously sick and handicapped children sponsored by the Make-A-Wish Foundation. A number of children in baseball caps were being pushed in wheelchairs. There was also a teenage girl, very thin, wearing jeans and a midriff baring top, whose face was drawn, skinny and ancient, like an elderly woman. The girl was a victim of Progeria, a disease that causes accelerated aging.
Around 11 a.m., a lively, happy group from Florida, Britto and a dozen of his fans and sales assistants, opened one of two football-field-sized, air-conditioned tents raised for the party. The entranceway to the tent was set up for lunch and dinner and had the artist’s work for sale and on display.
While you could buy a small oil pen and acrylic paint on canvas for under $4,000, it would take $15,000 to $20,000 to get a substantial painting and at this sale you could pay as much as $65,000 for an original 74.5” x 51.5” Yellow Moon. Immediately the Britto sales assistants fanned out into the crowd seeking guests who were most likely to have paid the $5,000 to get into the party and have an interest in art collecting.
Acting as an impromptu tour guide, one Britto assistant showed the Gary group into the Neverland movie theater, with an authentic lobby and candy, popcorn and soft drink counter. Past the doors into the theater were two rows of plush seating and a giant screen running the length of the building. Behind the tiered seating, near the entrances on either side there were two rooms with double beds that were slightly elevated above the chairs and separated by clear windows where children who were ill and needed to rest would come to watch first-run movies.
There was nothing playing at that moment, but later on after dinner, there was an HBO event — a closed-circuit boxing re-match live in Las Vegas between Shane Mosley and Oscar de La Hoya. The fight was a slugfest and went for 12 close rounds, but Mosley won. One of the commentators, Heavyweight champion Roy Jones, took the opportunity after the fight to challenge former champ and ear-biter Mike Tyson, who was watching the event in the front row of the Neverland movie theater. Tyson had arrived at Neverland in the afternoon and meandered around the grounds. He was transfixed for a short time by the helicopter arrival, departure and brief performance by Ashanti, a Michael Jackson protégé. Ashanti and Tyson were the only two who qualified as “A”-list celebrities at the party. Though there were other guests who may have been connected to celebrities, like the `N Sync management team, big guys who wore low-riding jeans and oversized baseball shirts.
(Part 1 of 2)
