"I'M BETTER OFF DEAD!" ~ MJ (repost)

[An excellent analysis of the less-than-glamorous circumstances surrounding the King of Pop's untimely death at 50. Found this article at The Malaysian Insider]

By Ian Halperin

LOS ANGELES, June 29 — Whatever the final autopsy results reveal, it was greed that killed Michael Jackson. Had he not been driven — by a cabal of bankers, agents, doctors and advisors — to commit to the gruelling 50 concerts in London’s O2 Arena, I believe he would still be alive today.

During the last weeks and months of his life, Jackson made desperate attempts to prepare for the concert series scheduled for next month — a series that would have earned millions for the singer and his entourage, but which he could never have completed, not mentally, and not physically.

Michael knew it and his advisers knew it. Anyone who caught even a fleeting glimpse of the frail old man hiding beneath the costumes and cosmetics would have understood that the London tour was madness. For Michael Jackson, it was fatal.

I had more than a glimpse of the real Michael; as an award-winning freelance journalist and film-maker, I spent more than five years inside his “camp.”

Many in his entourage spoke frankly to me — and that made it possible for me to write authoritatively last December that Michael had six months to live, a claim that, at the time, his official spokesman, Dr Tohme Tohme, called a “complete fabrication.” The singer, he told the world, was in “fine health.”

Six months and one day later, Jackson was dead.

Some liked to snigger at his public image, and it is true that flamboyant clothes and bizarre make-up made for a comic grotesque; yet without them, his appearance was distressing; with skin blemishes, thinning hair and discoloured fingernails.

I had established beyond doubt, for example, that Jackson relied on an extensive collection of wigs to hide his greying hair. Shorn of their luxuriance, the Peter Pan of Neverland cut a skeletal figure.

It was clear that he was in no condition to do a single concert, let alone 50. He could no longer sing, for a start. On some days he could barely talk. He could no longer dance. Disaster was looming in London and, in the opinion of his closest confidantes, he was feeling suicidal.

To understand why a singer of Jackson’s fragility would even think about travelling to London, we need to go back to June 13, 2005, when my involvement in his story began.

As a breaking news alert flashed on CNN announcing that the jury had reached a verdict in Jackson’s trial for allegedly molesting 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo at his Neverland Ranch in California, I knew that history had been made but that Michael Jackson had been broken — irrevocably so, as it proved.



Nor was it the first time that Michael had been accused of impropriety with young boys. Little more than a decade earlier, another 13-year-old, Jordan Chandler, made similar accusations in a case that was eventually settled before trial — but not before the damage had been done to Jackson’s reputation.

Michael had not helped his case. Appearing in a documentary with British broadcaster Martin Bashir, he not only admitted that he liked to share a bed with teenagers, mainly boys, in pyjamas, but showed no sign of understanding why anyone might be legitimately concerned.

I had started my investigation convinced that Jackson was guilty. By the end, I no longer believed that.

I could not find a single shred of evidence suggesting that Jackson had molested a child. But I found significant evidence demonstrating that most, if not all, of his accusers lacked credibility and were motivated primarily by money.

Jackson also deserved much of the blame, of course. Continuing to share a bed with children even after the suspicions surfaced bordered on criminal stupidity.

He was also playing a truly dangerous game. It is clear to me that Michael was homosexual and that his taste was for young men, albeit not as young as Jordan Chandler or Gavin Arvizo.

In the course of my investigations, I spoke to two of his gay lovers, one a Hollywood waiter, the other an aspiring actor. The waiter had remained friends, perhaps more, with the singer until his death last week. He had served Jackson at a restaurant, Jackson made his interest plain and the two slept together the following night. According to the waiter, Jackson fell in love.



The actor, who has been given solid but uninspiring film parts, saw Jackson in the middle of 2007. He told me they had spent nearly every night together during their affair — an easy claim to make, you might think. But this lover produced corroboration in the form of photographs of the two of them together, and a witness.

Other witnesses speak of strings of young men visiting his house at all hours, even in the period of his decline. Some stayed overnight.

When Jackson lived in Las Vegas, one of his closest aides told how he would sneak off to a “grungy, rat-infested” motel — often dressed as a woman to disguise his identity — to meet a male construction worker he had fallen in love with.

Jackson was acquitted in the Arvizo case, dramatically so, but the effect on his mental state was ruinous. Sources close to him suggest he was close to complete nervous breakdown.

The ordeal had left him physically shattered, too. One of my sources suggested that he might already have had a genetic condition I had never previously come across, called Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency — the lack of a protein that can help protect the lungs.

Although up to 100,000 Americans are severely affected by it, it is an under-recognised condition. Michael was receiving regular injections of Alpha-1 antitrypsin derived from human plasma. The treatment is said to be remarkably effective and can enable the sufferer to lead a normal life.

But the disease can cause respiratory problems and, in severe cases, emphysema. Could this be why Jackson had for years been wearing a surgical mask in public, to protect his lungs from the ravages of the disease? Or why, from time to time, he resorted to a wheelchair? When I returned to my source inside the Jackson camp for confirmation, he said: “Yeah, that’s what he’s got. He’s in bad shape. They’re worried that he might need a lung transplant but he may be too weak.

“Some days he can hardly see and he’s having a lot of trouble walking.”

Even Michael Jackson’s legendary wealth was in sharp decline. Just a few days before he announced his 50-concert comeback at the O2 Arena, one of my sources told me Jackson had been offered £1.8 million (RM10.3 million) to perform at a party for a Russian billionaire on the Black Sea.

“Is he up to it?” I had asked.

“He has no choice. He needs the money. His people are pushing him hard,” said the source.

Could he even stand on a stage for an hour concert?

“He can stand. The treatments have been successful. He can even dance once he gets in better shape. He just can’t sing,” said the aide, adding that Jackson would have to lip-synch to get through the performance. “Nobody will care, as long as he shows up and moonwalks.”

He also revealed Jackson had been offered well over £60 million to play Las Vegas for six months. “He said no, but his people are trying to force it on him. He’s that close to losing everything,” said the source.

Indeed, by all accounts Jackson’s finances were in a shambles. The Arvizo trial itself was a relative bargain, costing a little more than £18 million in legal bills. But the damage to his career, already in trouble before the charges, was incalculable. After the Arvizo trial, a Bahraini sheikh allowed Jackson to stay in his palace, underwriting his lavish lifestyle. But a few years later, the prince sued his former guest, demanding repayment for his hospitality. Jackson claimed he thought it had been a gift.

Roger Friedman, a TV journalist, said: “For one year, the prince underwrote Jackson’s life in Bahrain — everything including accommodation, guests, security and transportation. And what did Jackson do? He left for Japan and then Ireland. He took the money and moonwalked right out the door. This is the real Michael Jackson. He has never returned a phone call from the prince since he left Bahrain.”

Although Jackson settled with the sheikh on the eve of the trial that would have aired his financial dirty laundry, the settlement only put him that much deeper into the hole. A hole that kept getting bigger, but that was guaranteed by Jackson”s half ownership of the copyrights to The Beatles catalogue. He owned them in a joint venture with record company Sony, which have kept him from bankruptcy.

“Jackson is in hock to Sony for hundreds of millions,” a source told me a couple of months ago. “No bank will give him any money so Sony have been paying his bills.

“The trouble is that he hasn’t been meeting his obligations. Sony have been in a position for more than a year where it can repossess Michael’s share of the [Beatles] catalogue. That’s always been Sony’s dream scenario, full ownership.

“But they don’t want to do it as they’re afraid of a backlash from his fans. Their nightmare is an organised “boycott Sony” movement worldwide, which could prove hugely costly. It is the only thing standing between Michael and bankruptcy.”

The source said at the time that the scheduled London concerts wouldn’t clear Jackson’s debts — estimated at almost £242 million — but they would allow him to get them under control and get him out of default with Sony.



According to two sources in Jackson’s camp, the singer put in place a contingency plan to ensure his children would be well taken care of in the event of bankruptcy.

“He has as many as 200 unpublished songs that he is planning to leave behind for his children when he dies. They can’t be touched by the creditors, but they could be worth as much as £60 million that will ensure his kids a comfortable existence no matter what happens,” one of his collaborators revealed.

But for the circle of handlers who surrounded Jackson during his final years, their golden goose could not be allowed to run dry. Bankruptcy was not an option.

These, after all, were not the handlers who had seen him through the aftermath of the Arvizo trial and who had been protecting his fragile emotional health to the best of their ability. They were gone, and a new set of advisers was in place.

The clearout had apparently been engineered by his children’s nanny, Grace Rwaramba, who was gaining considerable influence over Jackson and his affairs and has been described as the “queen bee” by those around Jackson.

Rwaramba had ties to the black militant organisation, the Nation of Islam, and its controversial leader, Louis Farrakhan, whom she enlisted for help in running Jackson’s affairs.

Before long, the Nation was supplying Jackson’s security detail and Farrakhan's son-in-law, Leonard Muhammad, was appointed as Jackson’s business manager, though his role has lessened significantly in recent years.

In late 2008, a shadowy figure who called himself Dr Tohme Tohme suddenly emerged as Jackson’s “official spokesman.”

Tohme has been alternately described as a Saudi Arabian billionaire and an orthopaedic surgeon, but he is actually a Lebanese businessman who does not have a medical licence. At one point, Tohme claimed he was an ambassador at large for Senegal, but the Senegalese embassy said they had never heard of him.

Tohme’s own ties to the Nation of Islam came to light in March 2009, when New York auctioneer Darren Julien was conducting an auction of Michael Jackson memorabilia.

Julien filed an affidavit in Los Angeles Superior Court that month in which he described a meeting he had with Tohme’s business partner, James R. Weller. According to Julien’s account, “Weller said if we refused to postpone [the auction], we would be in danger from “Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam; those people are very protective of Michael”.



He told us that Tohme and Michael Jackson wanted to give the message to us that “our lives are at stake and there will be bloodshed”.”

A month after these alleged threats, Tohme accompanied Jackson to a meeting at a Las Vegas hotel with Randy Phillips, chief executive of the AEG Group, to finalise plans for Jackson’s return to the concert stage.

Jackson’s handlers had twice before said no to Phillips. This time, with Tohme acting as his confidant, Jackson left the room agreeing to perform ten concerts at the O2.

Before long, however, ten concerts had turned into 50 and the potential revenues had skyrocketed. “The vultures who were pulling his strings somehow managed to put this concert extravaganza together behind his back, then presented it to him as a fait accompli,” said one aide.

“The money was just unbelievable and all his financial people were telling him he was facing bankruptcy. But Michael still resisted. He didn’t think he could pull it off.”

Eventually, they wore him down, the aide explained, but not with the money argument.

“They told him that this would be the greatest comeback the world had ever known. That’s what convinced him. He thought if he could emerge triumphantly from the success of these concerts, he could be the King again.”

The financial details of the O2 concerts are still murky, though various sources have revealed that Jackson was paid as much as £10 million in advance, most of which went to the middlemen. But Jackson could have received as much as £100 million had the concerts gone ahead.

It is worth noting that the O2 Arena has the most sophisticated lip synching technology in the world — a particular attraction for a singer who can no longer sing. Had, by some miracle, the concerts gone ahead, Jackson’s personal contribution could have been limited to just 13 minutes for each performance. The rest was to have been choreography and lights.

“We knew it was a disaster waiting to happen,” said one aide. “I don’t think anybody predicted it would actually kill him but nobody believed he would end up performing.”

Their doubts were underscored when Jackson collapsed during only his second rehearsal.

“Collapse might be overstating it,” said the aide. “He needed medical attention and couldn’t go on. I’m not sure what caused it.”

Meanwhile, everybody around him noticed that Jackson had lost an astonishing amount of weight in recent months. His medical team even believed he was anorexic.

“He goes days at a time hardly eating a thing and at one point his doctor was asking people if he had been throwing up after meals,” one staff member told me in May.

“He suspected bulimia but when we said he hardly eats any meals, the doc thought it was probably anorexia. He seemed alarmed and at one point said, “People die from that all the time. You’ve got to get him to eat.”

Indeed, one known consequence of anorexia is cardiac arrest.

After spotting him leave one rehearsal, Fox News reported that “Michael Jackson’s skeletal physique is so bad that he might not be able to moonwalk any more.”

On May 20 this year, AEG suddenly announced that the first London shows had been delayed for five days while the remainder had been pushed back until March 2010. At the time, they denied that the postponements were health-related, explaining that they needed more time to mount the technically complex production, though scepticism immediately erupted. It was well placed.

Behind the scenes, Jackson was in rapid decline. According to a member of his staff, he was “terrified” at the prospect of the London concerts.

“He wasn’t eating, he wasn’t sleeping and, when he did sleep, he had nightmares that he was going to be murdered. He was deeply worried that he was going to disappoint his fans. He even said something that made me briefly think he was suicidal. He said he thought he’d die before doing the London concerts.

“He said he was worried that he was going to end up like Elvis. He was always comparing himself to Elvis, but there was something in his tone that made me think that he wanted to die, he was tired of life. He gave up. His voice and dance moves weren’t there anymore. I think maybe he wanted to die rather than embarrass himself on stage.”

The most obvious comparison between the King of Pop and the King of Rock'n'Roll was their prescription drug habits, which in Jackson’s case had significantly intensified in his final months.

“He is surrounded by enablers,” said one aide. “We should be stopping him before he kills himself, but we just sit by and watch him medicate himself into oblivion.”

Jackson could count on an array of doctors to write him prescriptions without asking too many questions if he complained of “pain”. He was particularly fond of OxyContin, nicknamed “Hillbilly heroin,” which gave an instant high, although he did not take it on a daily basis.

According to the aide, painkillers are not the only drugs Jackson took.

“He pops Demerol and morphine, sure, apparently going back to the time in 1984 when he burned himself during the Pepsi commercial, but there’s also some kind of psychiatric medication. One of his brothers once told me he was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was younger, so it may be to treat that.”

His aides weren’t the only ones who recognised that a 50-concert run was foolhardy. In May, Jackson himself reportedly addressed fans as he left his Burbank rehearsal studio.



“Thank you for your love and support,” he told them. “I want you guys to know I love you very much.

“I don’t know how I’m going to do 50 shows. I’m not a big eater. I need to put some weight on. I’m really angry with them booking me up to do 50 shows. I only wanted to do ten.”

One of his former employees was particularly struck by Jackson's wording that day. “The way he was talking, it’s like he’s not in control over his own life anymore,” she told me earlier this month. “It sounds like somebody else is pulling his strings and telling him what to do. Someone wants him dead.

“They keep feeding him pills like candy. They are trying to push him over the edge. He needs serious help. The people around him will kill him.”

As the London concerts approached, something was clearly wrong. Jackson had vowed to travel to England at least eight weeks before his first shows, but he kept putting it off.

“To be honest, I never thought Michael would set foot on a concert stage ever again,” said one aide, choking back tears on the evening of his death.

“This was not only predictable, this was inevitable.”

On June 21, Jackson told my contact that he wanted to die. He said that he didn’t have what it would take to perform any more because he had lost his voice and dance moves.

“It’s not working out,” Jackson said. “I’m better off dead. I don”t have anywhere left to turn. I’m done.”



Michael’s closest confidante told me just two hours after he died that “Michael was tired of living. He was a complete wreck for years and now he can finally be in a better place. People around him fed him drugs to keep him on their side. They should be held accountable.”

Michael Jackson was undoubtedly a deeply troubled and lonely man. Throughout my investigation, I was torn between compassion and anger, sorrow and empathy.


Even his legacy is problematic. As I have already revealed, he has bequeathed up to 200 original songs to his three children, Prince Michael, aged 12, Paris Katherine, 11, and Prince Michael II (also known as Blanket), seven. It is a wonderful gift.

Yet I can reveal that his will, not as yet made public, demands that the three of them remain with Jackson’s 79-year-old mother Katherine in California. It promises an ugly row.

Ex-wife Deborah Rowe, the mother of the eldest two, has already made it clear to her legal team that she wants her children in her custody, immediately.

The mother of the third child has never been identified. I fully expect that it will emerge that the children had a “test tube” conception, a claim already made by Deborah Rowe.

Michael Jackson may very well have been the most talented performer of his generation, but for 15 years that fact has been lost to a generation who may remember him only as a grotesque caricature who liked to share his bed with little boys. Now that he’s gone, maybe it’s time to shelve the suspicions and appreciate the music. — The Daily Mail

Ian Halperin is an investigative journalist who is the author or coauthor of nine books, including Celine Dion: Behind the Fairytale, Fire and Rain: The James Taylor Story and Hollywood Undercover. He coauthored Who Killed Kurt Cobain? and Love and Death: The Murder of Kurt Cobain with Max Wallace. Ian has contributed to 60 Minutes II and is a regular correspondent for Court TV.

In late 2008 The Sun and In Touch Weekly cited Halperin as the source in articles stating that Michael Jackson had serious health issues. Halperin had predicted that he would die within six months; Jackson died on June 25, 2009. The BBC reported that Halperin will release an unauthorized biography on the pop star. Halperin's statements were denied by a Jackson representative, who said in a December 2008 statement, "The writer's wild allegations concerning Mr. Jackson's health are a total fabrication... Mr. Jackson is in fine health, and finalizing negotiations with a major entertainment company & television network for both a world tour and a series of specials and appearances." Shortly afterward, Jackson announced a 50 date residency at The O2 arena, holding a public press conference before hundreds of the world's media. Halperin plans to release his biography on Jackson, titled Unmasked: The Final Years of Michael Jackson, in July 2009. Halperin commented on the timing of the book: "I timed it because I knew around this time he was a candidate to die. I'm being totally up-front about that."

Last photos of MJ taken during rehearsals two days before he collapsed
(Kevin Mazur/Getty Images)

THIS IS IT!

[First posted 29 June 2009, reposted 20 February 2016]

Bob McCluskey's virtual conversation with God (reprise)

Bob said...

Are there ideas about the nature of God that are true and others that are untrue?

If I believe something about the nature of God that is untrue, can I get close to God?

Is truth the same for everyone?

Why is truth above every religion?

September 14, 2010 at 6:25 PM

God said...

Hi there, Bob! Nice of you to drop by and leave a comment. My feisty pal Lily has asked me to help her respond to your questions. Hard to say no to someone so delightful... well, here goes...

Ideas about the nature of God... some true, some untrue? Well, ideas is all most of us have about the nature of God - and the word "God" itself is pretty loaded with all sorts of false notions (that God is male, has an only begotten son, disapproves of human sexuality, hates alcohol, spurns the flesh of pigs, the list goes on...). Let's say that some ideas about God resonate on many levels - from the cellular to the cosmic - while others are just plain ridiculous. It's really a question of maturity. When a 2-year-old says something silly, a sensible adult response would be to laugh with the kid, not at the kid. However, when it comes to institutionalized religion, we often find rabid septuagenarians ranting and raving in an utterly stupid manner - and because they have Ayatollah/Cardinal powers and can order your head chopped off or worse, people tend to keep quiet and avoid arguing with them.

The good news is: even if you believe the most preposterous things about God, it doesn't disqualify you from being as lovable as anyone else in the eyes of God. How so? Simply because God isn't caught up in semantics and exists not just as a bunch of ideas - but, indeed, as the nuclear intelligence within every atom and also as the totality of all existence itself. Whatever anyone thinks of God... God is most certainly never petty.

Is the truth the same for everyone? Definitely not! Our human apprehension of "truth" constantly evolves as we acquire experience and expand our vocabulary. A 9-year-old girl would look upon truth quite differently than a 90-year-old great-grandpa. And we're still talking about the realm of human experience and understanding - what about non-human consciousness? It's unhealthy to get addicted to anthropocentrism when dealing with the nature of God. 

The Original and Ultimate Essence of Being caters to amoebae as well as nebulae - elemental, mineral, vegetable, animal, human, angelic, archangelic, deific and so on - it's All-Inclusive and All-Embracing.

Truth is just another way of valuing one's Integrity. Only those with a wholesome attitude can know the Whole and be mindful of being an integral aspect of the All-in-One and the One-in-All. As you achieve Integrity or become an Integer (instead of a Cipher) you will experience Existence as a holographic construct, and your Core Self as a perfect fractal of God. Celebrate that!

September 16, 2010 at 2:02 AM

Bob McCluskey said...

Thanks for your thorough response! Perhaps I could continue the thread of one point, because I didn't make my question clear. When I asked whether the truth is the same for everyone, I didn't mean to ask whether everyone has the same perspective on truth, but whether what is "true" for one person is true for all other people, as well.

Leaving aside the issue of natural law for now, I'll limit my question specifically to moral truth. Let's assume, for example, that it is wrong for me to dishonor my parents, whatever that means. May I assume, then, that it is wrong for everyone to dishonor his/her parents? Thanks!

September 16, 2010 at 6:57 PM

God's Secretary said...

You're a fine gentleman, Bob McCluskey. And you're doing a great job of blending faith with reason. You asked whether what is "true" for one person is true for all other people, as well...

Using the example you gave: first, it may not be true that you are "wrong" to "dishonor" your parents. In what way "dishonor"? Being unappreciative of and withholding love from them? Giving up on them and severing ties? Being rude and mean to them? 

Such behavior is certainly most unpleasant and actually unnecessary. Whether or not it's "wrong" depends on what the parents have done to trigger such a reaction in their child. A violent, emotionally unstable father or a nagging, domineering mother can drive a child to despair and deep resentment.

In effect, if you can't be sure whether what you believe to be true, is true - how can it hold true for everybody else?

Let's not miss the forest for the trees!

September 18, 2010 at 3:39 AM

[Source: http://www.seniorsaloud.com/2010/09/what-is-best-religion.html]

[First posted 26 November 2014, reposted 8 April 2019 & 7 April 2022]

Where have all the Flowers gone? They came to pay homage to Rachel! (repost)

Multi-talented instrumentalist and composer Rachel Flowers was born on December 21, 1993. Arriving 15 weeks premature, she lost her eyesight as an infant due to Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP).

When Rachel was two years old, in order to discourage her from banging on their ancient piano with her toys, Rachel's mother showed her how to play "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." Rachel picked it up immediately, and was soon working out for herself every song she heard.



At the age of four Rachel became a student of the Southern California Conservatory of Music studying primarily with Richard Taesch, Grant Horrocks, and David Pinto. Along with her study of piano and music fundamentals, it was at SCCM that Rachel learned Braille Music Code and adaptive computer music applications. This is also where Rachel met her flute teacher, Toby Caplan-Stonefield.



Rachel spent her school years playing flute in her middle school and high school bands, playing piano with The RPM Jazz Trio, and performing in a variety of music festivals and competitions. She brought home multiple ribbons, certificates, and awards as both a classical flutist and jazz pianist, and ended her high school career by receiving both the John Phillip Souza Band Award, and the Marine Corps Semper Fidelis Award for excellence in musicianship.



Rachel is perhaps best known for her YouTube videos featuring her interpretations of the compositions of Emerson Lake and Palmer, performed as a solo artist on the piano and on the organ.



At present Rachel is in the process of composing the original material which will form the basis of her musical career. Rachel's music is informed by her extensive musical background, with jazz, classical, and progressive rock music all playing a part in helping Rachel to forge a style that is uniquely her own.



Brief bio of Rachel Flowers from her website.

More recent recordings from Rachel Flowers at her SoundCloud page

Docufeature on Rachel Flowers

[Thanks to Solo Goodspeed for the heads up on Rachel! First posted 21 October 2014, reposted 3 April 2019]

In The Nude with Spencer Tunick (repost)

"A body is a living entity. It represents life, freedom, sensuality, and it is a mechanism to carry out our thoughts. A body is always beautiful to me." ~ Spencer Tunick

I was a model for Spencer Tunick

By Chris Dobney, Online Entertainment Editor, Sydney Morning Herald
March 1, 2010

Ever wondered what people in the street might look like naked? Today was your chance to find out. The answer, as I discovered very early this morning, was: remarkably varied, and yet ultimately the same.

This was the aim for artist Spencer Tunick, who conceived today's "installation" of more than 5000 nude people on the Opera House steps and forecourt as an embrace between Sydney's gay and straight communities.

Courtesy of Greg Wood & AFP/Getty Images

Fear of being naked in public was just one of the challenges faced by many of participants, who flocked into the CBD from 4am today. Queuing was to be a hallmark of the day as people queued to get in, queued for the loos, queued for coffees, and, yes, even queued to strip off.


My friends and I left Neutral Bay just before 4am and, after a dream run into the city, came to a screeching halt at the corner of George and Bridge streets. Impatient as we were, it gave us a chance to check out the people in the street. Clearly, at this time in the morning, they were all heading to the same place we were.


There were elderly couples walking down Macquarie Street, single young women in cars and plenty of gay groups whooping it up as they headed down towards the Quay. After 45 minutes stuck in a traffic snarl of soon-to be naked people, we finally emerged from the Opera House car park. We were each handed a plastic bag for our clothes and directed into a marshalling area inside The Domain.


Soon after we arrived, a loudspeaker crackled into life and we were instructed to keep our clothes on for the time being (not hard considering it was a nippy 15 degrees) and to await further instructions. About 6am, Tunick welcomed us, thanking the "heterosexual people who have come here to get naked with their gay friends."


Just on dawn came the instruction that everyone had been waiting for. There was a whoop and a cheer from the crowd as the first group disrobed and ran into the forecourt. Finally it was our turn and, in no time, we were running up the Opera House steps in a state that on any other day would get us arrested. One woman beside me shouted to her friend: "This is surreal. It's like a dream."

"It's like my worst nightmare," groaned her friend.


The excitement was palpable, to be standing naked in such a public place and among so many people. But quite soon the cheers were replaced by "oooooh" as a chilly wind blew up. Inhibitions were soon forgotten as people struggled to keep warm and fulfil Tunick's endless instructions.


"I'm not the world's best photographer but I am an artist and a perfectionist," he said, as he exhorted 5000 people to work in unison. "And I want us to make an artwork you'll be proud of." Six or seven positions later came Tunick's most confronting request. "If you came with a partner, I want you to kiss your partner. If you came with a friend, I want you to kiss your friend. If you came alone, I want you to turn to someone else who is alone and kiss them." Eventually he relented and added, "... or embrace them."


Suddenly I was aware of being alone in a crowd: I was surrounded by couples. Bounding up several steps I came face to face with an elderly man in the same predicament. We took one look at each other and embraced, admitting that, while it felt a little strange at first, it was a pleasant enough way to keep warm. Now the crowd really were as one. It was a beautiful moment.


Once Tunick gave the disband signal, most people scrambled for their clothes, while some hung back, grabbing the unique opportunity to take happy snaps of themselves starkers at the Opera House. As I dressed, I was relieved to be warm again at last but also a little disappointed that it was over so soon.

About 1800 people stripped naked in May 2008 for Spencer Tunick at the Ernst Happel football stadium in Vienna (Photo: Reuters)

Naked volunteers pose for Spencer Tunick in the Europarking building in Amsterdam in 2007 (Photo: Reuters)

Undress circle: naked volunteers pose for Tunick in a Bruges theatre in 2005 (Photo: Peter Maenhoudt/Reuters)

Thousands of naked people fill Mexico City's Zocalo Plaza during the massive naked photo session with U.S. photographer Spencer Tunick in 2007 (Photo: AP)

Spencer Tunick photographs a massive landscape of human bodies in Melbourne in 2007 (Photo: Wayne Taylor)

Naked volunteers pose for Spencer Tunick on the Aletsch glacier in 2007 (Photo: Reuters)

Spencer Tunick in Sydney, 2010 (Photo: Kate Geraghty)

[Special thanks to Hari Ho for alerting me to this uplifting art event. First posted 3 March 2010, reposted 2 May 2016]

Celebrating my Aunt M.Y. (whose stories live on in cyberspace)

Aunt M.Y with my mother Moon Loy in Johore Bahru, 1982.

Sometimes it takes a while to register that somebody you dearly love is no longer around - at least not physically.

My Aunt M.Y. - better known to her friends and fellow Wesleyans as Grace Lee - was born Dai Moong Yang on 18 October 1916. She spent her final years at the Lentor Residence nursing home in Singapore, gradually succumbing to senescence, and died sometime in February 2009 a few months after her 92nd birthday.

Those are but the barest facts of her life. What does it mean when you see the figures "1916 ~ 2009" engraved on a commemorative plaque in some airconditioned columbarium? Nothing much, really. Every human existence is essentially a multi-layered jigsaw of memory fragments stored in a multitude of contemporary minds. It takes a storyteller to assemble and reconstitute each life that has come and gone. To me that is what resurrection means. Each of us is a story unfolding in time and space and when we no longer inhabit our physical forms, all that remains are anecdotes.

I have only a tiny fragment of M.Y.'s story. I'm sure there are a couple of faded sepia photos of Aunt M.Y. tucked away somewhere in the appalling clutter of my study, salvaged from silverfish-eaten photo albums that survived a series of floods and stuffed in a manila envelope or two, but I have yet to locate them.

Fortunately, M.Y. was a compulsive storyteller and took pains to record a bunch of anecdotes typewritten on double-spaced foolscap sheets. She handed me a collection of her stories sometime in 1991 and asked if I could edit them for publication. I spent weeks hunched over a manual typewriter retyping her manuscripts, tweaking her syntax here and there for ease of reading - and, occasionally, adding a few literary effects to make her enchanting stories more vivid. I suggested she commission my then 19-year-old daughter Belle to come up with a few cartoons to spice up her stories.

She liked the cosmetic changes I had included and subsequently passed the material to her granddaughter, also named Grace, who owned a word processor and knew about preparing text for publication. Finally, in 1995, a thousand copies of a slim, self-published volume titled In Those Days... were printed and distributed to her friends, colleagues and relatives.

On one of my last visits to Aunt M.Y. in her Singapore nursing home, I was pleased to hear that a new edition of In Those Days... was in the works. M.Y. had just celebrated her 90th birthday and I thought it would be wonderful for a spruced-up version of her one and only book to appear as a celebration of her seemingly ordinary - yet in many ways extraordinary - life. I offered to proofread and help with the book design, as I had plenty of time on my hands and had since acquired some facility with computers.

However, as with so many good intentions, nothing transpired in the end. With my aunt's passing in early 2009, only a tiny handful knew of her humble collection of short stories. Family members are funny that way. I remember asking my own mother, M.Y.'s middle sister, whether she had finished reading In Those Days... and what she thought of it. "Oh, you know your Aunt M.Y. She loves telling tall stories!" That was all I could get out of mum.

Years later I realized how fortunate I was to have at least one storyteller in the family. Nobody else seemed interested in recording the everyday occurrences of their lives or of their ancestors - though my mother religiously kept a diary for many years. But after she died in July 1995 and I finally had access to her diaries (she had agreed to bequeath them to me after I pestered her), what I found in them read like a series of Facebook status updates: "Bad cold since Monday. Took some Aspirins but that didn't help much." Mundane stuff like that, apart from a few more intense entries whenever there was a bit of domestic drama. Truth be told, I still haven't read all my dear mother's diaries (there were at least half-a-dozen leather-bound volumes). She wasn't a natural-born storyteller like her big sister M.Y., who had a gift for narrating juicy sagas with genteel discretion.

When my affable and jocular Uncle Kong Beng (affectionately known as K.B.) died unexpectedly of a heart attack, leaving his beloved M.Y. an attractive widow in her late 40s or early 50s, a few tongues began to wag, just because she began spending a lot of time in the company of Uncle Ho - who had been best man at their wedding. In 1970 I got a job in an ad agency and moved in with Aunt M.Y. She kindly let me sleep in a curtained-off portion of her kitchen and often cooked wholesome meals for me.

Aunty M.Y. & Uncle Ho in the early 1970s 

Uncle Ho would drop by almost every day and that's how I got to know and like the man. He had worked and lived in Singapore for years and had raised a family there. Now he was estranged from his wife and found M.Y.'s company far more appealing. In turn M.Y. found Ho mentally stimulating because he was a well-read man who enjoyed discussing politics, philosophy and literature with her. I thought they were a perfect match for each other and was delighted when Aunt M.Y. bought a house in Bangsar and invited Ho to move in with her.

I often visited M.Y. in her cozy Bangsar home. She invariably insisted that I have something to eat and would busy herself in the tiny kitchen preparing a good old-fashioned meal while I tinkled on her antique upright or discussed current affairs with Uncle Ho. He struck me as essentially a pragmatist, torn between socialist ideals and a conviction borne from bitter experience that a great divide would forever exist between theory and practice because of the damnable recalcitrance of "human nature."

On one of these visits I learned from M.Y. that not everyone "approved" of her cohabiting with Ho, who was still legally married to his Singaporean wife. I didn't wish to poke my nose into other people's affairs, so I never asked Ho why he didn't obtain a formal divorce - and in any case it has never once occurred to me that couples who opt to share space must first apply for a licence from any government or seek approval from some priest.

Ever since I found out about these artificial constraints imposed on human behavior I have felt nothing but contempt for those who actually believe God personally laid down those rigid rules and regulations. As a kid I had come to my own conclusion that if a God truly existed, he or she or it would most certainly be completely free of the mental shackles of society's Caucasian chalk circle taboos.

Aunt M.Y. had been a dedicated Methodist all her life. Indeed, she told me her grandfather had been among the pioneer Foochows who migrated to Sarawak at the turn of the 20th century and established the first Methodist church in Sibu. Yet she never once presented herself as a prude, and always showed a profound empathy for human frailty. To me, if one insisted on professing Christianity, the ultimate exemplar would be my Aunt M.Y., who was well-known as Mrs Grace Lee to all Wesleyans in Kuala Lumpur because of her vigorous efforts in community service. Indeed, she was perfectly comfortable sharing her modest home and her widowed life with her old buddy Ho, a lifelong atheist and pragmatist.

My Aunt M.Y. and I were, in many ways, kindred spirits, despite our generational differences. She told me about her adventures in the astral realms, revealing how she often found herself floating out of her body and moving around with utmost freedom and facility. For months after her husband K.B. died, M.Y. would encounter him in the astral. He apparently missed her greatly and she him. The last time she visited her departed husband in the astral zone, she saw him happily remarried. He was now a simple farmer, working his fields in an idyllic valley, where life flowed in harmony with natural rhythms. She was finally able to put closure to their previous life together.

Quite often she was asked to clear stagnant ectoplasm and poltergeists from haunted houses. She described how she would get goose pimples upon entering certain areas and that would indicate the presence of discarnate entities or lost souls. Often she would be accompanied by a clairvoyant friend or two and they would simply acknowledge the cobwebs of psychic distress and pray for the release of the unhappy souls. The simple fact that she entrusted the ritual cleansing to Jesus and the Archangels made her unquestionably a disciple of the Christ.

Before she moved to Bangsar, M.Y. underwent surgery for a thyroid disorder. She reported to me, a wee bit regretfully, that she no longer astral projected after her thyroidectomy. Instead, she caught the physical travel bug and relished her speaking tours of the United States, representing Southeast Asian women at Methodist World Conferences. Back home, she devoted a great deal of time to serving in various church committees and providing free counseling to all and sundry.

Many a time when I visited M.Y., she would be dispensing sage advice and spiritual succor to distraught young women or friends undergoing domestic crises. She also began to upgrade her mastery of Mandarin and try her hand at writing articles and short stories.

In Those Days... has yet to be resurrected in print - and I can understand why, because publishing books involves not only money but an enormous expenditure of time and effort. Besides, very few publishers are prepared to invest in unknown quantities like a humble collection of personal stories written by a rank amateur, especially if there is absolutely no sensational content to be found - just a frank and sympathetic documentation of memorable episodes in a fairly ordinary human life.

After giving the matter considerable thought, I was convinced that if my Aunt M.Y. had been introduced to digital technology while her faculties were still acute, she would inevitably have become an ardent blogger or at least a ubiquitous commentator on a variety of social-political forums. Indeed, I would go so far as to visualize M.Y. getting her first whiff of tear gas at the Bersih 2.0 rally for clean and fair elections on 9 July 2011.

So I created a blog on her behalf, called... In Those Days... and when better to go public with it than on what would have been her 95th solar orbit? I have had to retype every single page, beginning from the end, so that when I finally complete this labor of love, the blog will be an online version of her first and only book. I've only managed five chapters to date, but will shoot for at least one more after I upload this post.

To any member of the family who may be displeased with the liberty I have taken by making M.Y.'s stories accessible online, I humbly apologize for disagreeing with the notion that it's best to "keep it in the family." I sincerely feel that my Aunt M.Y.'s stories have a charm all their own and provide an invaluable record of what life was like if one happened to be the granddaughter of a Chinese immigrant in British Malaya, born just after the First World War. I feel a deep enough spiritual connection with my Aunt M.Y. to assert that nothing would please her more than for her modest contribution to literature to be preserved and shared with the world at large - the world she has left and which she so unconditionally loved.

Last photo taken with my Aunt M.Y. in Singapore @  February 2008

The fact that my Aunt M.Y.'s stories will now be floating around in cyberspace may indeed catalyze a hard-copy reprint of her limited first edition - and I think that would be the most appropriate way to celebrate her 108th birthday!

CLICK TO READ!

[First posted 18 October 2013, reposted 18 October 2017 & 17 October 2024]