Going to Sea in a Sieve: The Autobiography

by Baker, Danny

  My plane was leaving from Heathrow, somewhere Dad had never been to in his life. To be fair, I had only a vague idea of where it was myself – I’d simply never paid attention on any previous trips and was in any case hopelessly woolly about any parts of town outside South and Central London. ‘Heathrow. That’s west innit?’ he said. I said I thought so, and away we went. About forty-five minutes later there we were, pootling along in Robin Hood’s hat, heading up Charing Cross Road – which is at least the West End – because Dad had said he was ‘going to go out through Camden’. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with the layout of the capital, let me tell you, attempting to get to Heathrow Airport from South-East London via Camden makes about as much sense as going to Paris from Dover via Wales. In the event, it didn’t matter because as we crossed over the junction of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road the Austin A40 totally dropped dead and blocked the junction. Again, if you don’t know this intersection you might want to buy The AA Big Book of Worst Places to Break Down – it will be right there on the first page. Neither of us had the faintest clue what to do next, and Spud’s idea of running repairs was to swear vociferously, keep turning the ignition key and pump the clutch like it was the bass-drum pedal on a Motorhead single. Traffic was halted in every direction. A bus driver honked his horn and yelled out, ‘Why don’t you push it into the kerb?’ to which my old man naturally replied, ‘I’ll push you into the fucking kerb in a minute, mate.’ Then he just flopped back in the driver’s seat, informing a host of gawping pedestrians, ‘I’m fucked, I’m fucked,’ over and over again. As the pandemonium intensified, I can remember thinking, ‘I bet Michael Jackson is having dinner in Beverly Hills right now, completely unaware of any of this.’

  So this was the beginning of my legendary trip to meet the most famous pop star in the world. The resulting article has been re-printed many times since – it was the last interview he gave for nearly fifteen years – but every time it’s mentioned to me all I can think about is the humiliation of sitting there amid the fury of London’s road users as my father stubbornly refused to do anything about the death of his forty-quid car. Eventually, I bailed out of the old wreck and took the tube. For what it’s worth, the Austin A40 never went again and was removed by Camden council after it had been left half up on the pavement outside the Dominion Theatre. In the months following, various summonses arrived at 11 Debnams Road – all of which Dad filed straight in the bin until whatever bureaucratic department it was just lost the will to live. A few weeks later he acquired a fifth-hand white Citroën saloon, the back half of which, I remember, would rise up upon ignition via some sort of pneumatic function that worried us all. We later found out this was a famous feature of those cars, but only after several sessions where Dad had asked me to sit on the boot ‘to stop it doing that’.

  And so to Los Angeles. I would be working again with photographer Joe Stevens, a highly respected, if notorious, fast-talking New York hustler whom I’d last laughed myself hoarse with while travelling through Berlin’s Checkpoint Charlie on the Jam tour. On that occasion, Joe had had terrific fun testing the patience of some Russian soldiers who’d boarded our bus, first by offering them three US dollars for their guns, and then chanting ‘USA! USA!’ at them while handing over his passport. They ignored him grimly, which was just as well because when he pointed at me and said, ‘This is the guy you want. He’s carrying many valuable drugs,’ I actually had a little wrap of speed in my back pocket. Now Joe was on the West Coast with me and, when I encountered him now at the Sunset Marquis Hotel, he was lying fully dressed on the bed, his bag still unpacked on the floor bedside him, hanging on the phone for someone. Before I could greet him, he put a finger to his lips and signalled for me to sit down. Eventually he began talking.

  ‘Uh-huh. I see. But you think you could provide one, eh? That’d be terrific. Appreciate it. Yes, Epic Records, and they’ve already OK’d it. This afternoon about two would be great. OK, thanks.’

  He put the phone down and smiled broadly.

  ‘What was that,’ I asked, ‘hooker service?’

  ‘No. You know some hotels have a house tailor? They don’t here, but they’re finding one for me. I’m gonna have a suit made.’

  And he did – all on Epic Records’ expense account. Such was the generosity – or, more accurately, bloated ignorance – of major record companies back when sales were astronomical and the budgets were lush. Furthermore, Judy Lipsey, our PR go-between, told us that the meeting with Michael and his family wouldn’t be for another forty-eight hours so we should just relax for a few days and enjoy the amenities. We even had a car and driver on permanent standby outside the hotel, in case we needed to go anywhere.

  When Joe and I were eventually scrambled to the appointed meeting, nothing happened for about three hours. Well, when I say nothing, that’s not entirely true or fair. The other Jacksons began turning up in dribs and drabs. First to arrive was Tito, a surly hunk of seniority among the brothers, who launched right in by saying that any questions I had I should direct by name to whichever Jackson I felt was best suited to answer. ‘So if you are gonna talk about the business or how we came to be what we are today or what our plans are,’ he continued without meeting my eye, ‘there’s no point asking . . . I don’t know . . . Michael, for instance.’ Uh-oh. It was as if the air conditioning had suddenly gone into reverse. I could see that there were going to be two big problems with this proviso. The first was that I suddenly couldn’t recall a single other Jackson brother’s name. Indeed, had Tito not been wearing a baseball cap with the word ‘Tito’ on it I might have believed he was called Harpo. Maybe they would all wear name hats; that’d be a reprieve. Otherwise I was sunk. Suddenly the junior suite at the Sunset didn’t seem so free any more.

  The second snag was that . . . Oh, how should I break this to him in terms he could understand? Well, how about this: Tito, you may find this hard to believe, but nobody in the entire world gives a rat’s ass about the Jacksons – plural – any more. It’s over. In effect, since the release of Michael’s Off the Wall, it’s just John Lennon and His Four Ringos, and you, my ageing bro, have the biggest nose of them all. But of course Tito Jackson didn’t need to be told that. He and Jackson 5 plc knew it only too well; hence his clumsy attempt to chop his kid brother off at the knees before his arrival could reduce his once-acclaimed siblings to mere shadows. This barely concealed panic at Michael’s staggering talent and runaway success was to become the overriding theme of the meeting. But let us first get him into the room.

  Michael Jackson arrived last, accompanied by his sister Janet. At that point, the world hadn’t heard of Janet Jackson and at first I thought she might be his PA. She showed him to a chair and then, taking the seat next to him, appeared to run through an elaborate itinerary in barely a whisper.

  At this point in his life Jacko was still recognizably human. He was still clearly a black guy and not the eerie wraith we later learned to gawp at. However, he was plainly not about to crack open a beer and ask about the sports scores either. He wore the most enormous mirrored dark glasses and, once seated – and this really threw me – picked up a phone and held it to his ear.

  ‘Should I wait until he’s through?’ I said to Janet.

  ‘Oh no, he’s not talking to anybody,’ she replied with a smile, ‘it’s just something he feels comfortable with.’ And she giggled a little giggle. And Michael giggled a little giggle. And the brothers slumped back in their chairs, scowling. ‘Also,’ she went on, ‘any questions for Michael? Could you ask them to me and I’ll get your answer for you.’

  This was too much. ‘What, he can’t just answer me himself?’ I shot back at her.

  ‘Oh, he will eventually, he just has to feel comfortable with everything first,’ she replied calmly.

  ‘But he’s only sitting four feet away,’ I pointed out and, regrettably, we lapsed into bickering. Meantime, Tito, Randy, Grumpy and Sneezy were all saying, ‘Hell. What’s wrong with us? We’re here t
oo, you can ask us anything you like!’ At this point I suddenly realized we were all talking over and around Michael Jackson as though, well, as though he wasn’t really there at all.

  An Epic USA press officer entered and asked if everything was OK. Janet told her with a light laugh that I had a problem adjusting to Michael’s ‘ways’. So I was asked to step outside and the PO gave me a little talk:

  ‘Danny, Michael is a very individual individual. It is important to understand that. It has taken us a long time to get him to where he is now. Now, he will speak to you, but you must let him judge that moment. Actually, I’m glad we have this time because I didn’t get a chance to tell you what he regards as off limits for this interview . . .’

  Oh brother, this was getting better and better. Individual individual? Where he is now? What on earth did any of that mean? It is important to understand that, at this point in the early 1980s, although Jackson was already one of the biggest pop stars in the world, the words ‘Wacko’ and ‘Jacko’ had never been heard in tandem. Nobody knew he was crazy yet. At least, nobody much outside the people gathered in and around that room. I certainly didn’t. I had brought a notepad full of what I thought would be relevant questions on the state of black music and black culture in America today. Now I was starting to sense that I might as well have been addressing them to Bob Hope.

  So, what was ‘off limits’?

  ‘OK now,’ she continued. ‘Firstly, no swear words. Secondly, Michael is a devout Jehovah’s Witness, so no talk about birthdays and Christmas.’ I ask you to picture my face at this point. ‘Lastly,’ she went on, ‘he will under no circumstances be drawn on what he thinks of the Osmonds. Are we cool with that?’

  The Osmonds? The Osmonds hadn’t had a hit in ten years. This man had just finished Thriller. Good God, where was this kid’s mind at? And now, of course, suddenly all I wanted to ask about was the Osmonds. Anyway, back in I went.

  Michael remained serene and glued to his phone and, if I wanted him to respond to anything, it seemed the only way was to ask him things like ‘Who’s your favourite actor, Michael?’ To which Janet would whisper, ‘He wants to know who your favourite actor is.’ Then Michael would mutter ‘Robert De Niro’ to Janet and then Janet would say ‘Robert De Niro’ to me.

  Was I confused? Intimidated? Freaked out a little? No, I was loving it. I was an NME writer and I was getting plenty here.

  I also noticed that when the brothers answered questions, they wouldn’t talk to me. They would talk, bellow even, at Michael. It was as if this was a rare get-together and they were using it as a surrogate therapy session. They had plenty they wanted to get off their chests before he disappeared into another level of fame altogether. For example, when I asked what it was like in the days before the Jackson 5 were famous, one of them, let’s say Marlon, said: ‘Oh, see, that’s something Michael wouldn’t remember. We were on the road three hundred and sixty-five days a year back then. We had no help, no crew. Tito, Jackie and me, we had to haul the drums, the microphones, everything ourselves. Set it all up, take it all down, move on to the next town. Seven shows a week, man. Michael – he’d be asleep in the bus, man. Just come on, sing and dance, then be too small to do the real dirty work.’

  When I enquired about what sort of music they started out playing, I got: ‘I remember we had this one Joe Tex song, “Skinny Legs and All” – it was Michael’s job to run out in the crowd and lift up all the girls’ skirts during that. He don’t remember those days.’ The siblings all broke up at this. Michael didn’t and seemed uneasy. ‘Oh please, don’t say that. I’m so embarrassed by that now. I would never dream of . . .’ They wouldn’t let him off the hook. ‘Embarrassed? Damn it, Michael, that was your favourite part of the show!’ More laughing.

  Addressing the subject of Michael’s success, I received the following heart-warming response: ‘Well, his sales are good for us because people who buy one of his records will probably look in the section behind and get one of ours too.’ All the time Michael looked as though he would rather be somewhere else. I really started to feel for him.

  Small slips got pounced on. Here he is on the opening track he’d written for the latest, and as it turned out last, album with his brothers: ‘Well, I wrote that opening track in that way . . . because I thought it would make a good opening track.’ There was a pause and then Tito, with some justification, said: ‘Oh, great answer, Michael.’ More laughter and Michael became further detached from proceedings.

  Later, when most of the others had left and there was only him and me, he became a different person. Well, more animated anyway, although, sadly, just as trite. The peacock on their new album sleeve represented ‘colours coming together’. He didn’t feel there was such a thing as black music and was happy for Blondie to have hits with rap songs because they knew how to ‘cross over’. He considered what he did neither rock nor soul, but simply show business. Benny Hill was a genius. The Sex Pistols were cool because Sid Vicious was a funny name. He asked where I went to have fun in London. Often his thoughts would peter out mid-sentence, as if he had caught the sound of his own voice and had no confidence in it. Incredibly, it seemed that Michael Jackson just wasn’t used to being listened to.

  At the time I wrote that Jackson was like Chance the Gardener in Being There. That’s clearly wrong, because Chance was mistaken for a genius. Jackson was a genius and I was with him at about the time that gift began to truly overwhelm him. Seismic personal and professional changes were happening to him that would prove impossible to govern. Chief among these was surely that his family, the only connection he had to a wider world, was starting to lose any meaning for him and he was about to destroy everything they had slogged and sweated to build. He was condemning them to become the post-Donny Osmonds, and there was nothing he could do about it.

  I remember watching the video to the song ‘Bad’ some time later, the one Martin Scorsese shot as a gangland fight in a subway station. In the film, Jackson was at his peak, a cutting-edge pop star playing the coolest member of a streetwise gang setting the pace and breaking the rules. Everybody wanted to be that Michael Jackson at that point – especially Michael Jackson. Instead, here was a confused and frightened boy who, though totally comfortable, assured even, headlining Madison Square Garden, had not the slightest idea how to walk to the corner shop and buy a loaf of bread. In the real world he was a sham, and the worst thing about that was not only did he know it, but he wasn’t allowed to forget it by those closest to him.

  The last time I saw him was in Los Angeles, a few days later, when he acquiesced to a photo session. (The camera had really panicked him at the initial meeting.) He was far more relaxed and friendly now, and kept reminding me of different Benny Hill sketches, even asking me to do bits of Monty Python stuff ‘in a British accent’. He was fun. But then, he was away from everyone and wearing stage clothes and make-up.

  As I bade him goodbye at the lift, I said, ‘Take care, Michael.’

  He reacted as if he’d never heard the phrase before. ‘Yes. Take care. Yes, I will “take care”,’ he said, chuckling. ‘You take care too, Sid Vicious!’ he said.

  Then he caught himself again, and stopped still. For a moment he didn’t know what to do. In that instant a PA said he was wanted on the phone. His voice became small again. ‘Do you know who it is?’ he asked. The assistant said she wasn’t sure. He looked uneasy and walked back down the corridor.

  That was my last glimpse of what was left of the real Michael Jackson. Though he was not yet completely insane, I believe he still knew the difference between Jackson the unassailable megastar and the little Jackson kid. Soon he was going to make a choice and that was all going to change. Totally, irrevocably and so thoroughly that not even his own family would recognize him.

  Head & Heart

  Crocs Nightclub in Rayleigh, Essex, was a grungy suburban sweatbox that attempted to justify its name by keeping a live, full-sized crocodile in a glass tank just inside the entrance. About a fort
night after filing the Jackson piece I found myself in Crocs for Twentieth Century Box, filming a show about the up-and-coming new electro-pop sound that Janet tipped, once again correctly, to sweep the future charts. To this end we were following a group of local hopefuls called Depeche Mode as they attempted to get some heat going under their fledgling stab at stardom. Alongside Depeche Mode – who would indeed attain global fame – the show also featured another band, Naked Lunch, whose fortunes were destined to hurtle in the opposite direction. On the day, of course, I declared that things would go entirely the other way around.

  At one point in the evening, the director, a terrific documentary maker called Daniel Wiles, decided that a great opening shot to the film would be me delivering a speech straight to camera that, as the picture widened, would reveal that I was actually in the tank with the eponymous crocodile. Everybody agreed this would be a terrific attention grabber, and it was only I who had a small follow-up question about how the effect might best be achieved. To satisfy my caution – which I remember was seen as a terrific wet blanket – a member of the crew was dispatched to find the manager and ascertain if the crocodile really would attack someone who got in there with it. The manager said without question it would. By this time, however, the director was so sold on this image that he was smelling BAFTA awards and so the production crew had a meeting to come up with a way round it.