talk誌interview 【 Liz talks, Michael talks 】 1999

來源：mjfcmoonwalk.com

＝　リズとマイケルとの関係は、リズの結婚生活以上に長く強固なものである　＝ by : Paul Theroux ―― … インタビュアー　　　LZ … リズ　　　MJ … マイケル
リズは、マイケルの肖像画を自宅のトロフィー・ルームに飾っています。 　（ マイケルからのメッセージ ： 『 愛するエリザベスへ、僕は貴女を永遠に愛し続けます。 Michael 』 ）
――	あなたがウェンディーで、マイケルがピーターパンなのかい？
LZ	その通りよ。私たちの間には魔法のようなものがあるの。 マイケルは、私が最も愛した "素晴らしい真実の人間" の１人だわ。彼は、私の心の一部なの。 私たちは、お互いのために何でもするのよ。
マイケルは、1980年代初期のドジャーススタジアム・コンサート（2月27日： リズと彼女の息子クリストファーの誕生日）で、リズに14枚のチケットを用意しました。 　彼女たちはそこへ座ったものの、ガラスに覆われたVIP席のため、ステージからは程遠い観覧でした。「テレビで観た方が良いかしら」 　翌日マイケルが電話してきて、泣きながら言いました。「ごめんなさい。本当にごめんね」。 　彼らは2時間も話し込みました。
LZ	それから、私たちは毎日話すようになったの。月日が経っても、それは変わらずに続いたわ。 本当よ。 3ケ月ほど経つ頃には、私たちは電話でお互いを知るまでにもなったのよ。
ある日、マイケルは 「僕のチンパンジーを連れて行ってもいい？」と、バブルスを抱えてリズに見せた。 　彼らの仲は、それ以来不動のものになった。
LZ	私たち、南アフリカに旅行することになっていたの。
――	マンデラ大統領（※当時）に会うために？
LZ	マンデラ大統領が電話してきて、「マイケルと一緒に来ないか？」って。 私たちは電話で話をしたの。「ハイ、ネルソン！」ってね、フフフ。
――	マイケルとはよく会うの？
LZ	他のみんなよりはね。
彼らは変装して、ウエストウッドかどこかの映画館へ出掛け、手を握り合って後方の座席に座ります。
LZ	マイケルは、全てに正直よ。可愛くて無邪気。"子供じみてる" という意味ではなくてね。 私たちは一体感を持っているの。一緒にいて楽しいわ。遊ぶのよ、私たち。
MJ	僕たち、ピクニックをするんだよ。 …彼女といると、リラックス出来るんだ。だって僕たちは同じ生活を送って、同じ経験を味わってきたのだから。幼年期スターの悲劇をね…。 そして、僕たちは同じものが好きなんだよ。サーカス・遊園地・動物…。
――	リズはどういう人？
MJ	彼女は暖かいよ。抱き締めたいほど可愛いブランケット。僕を包んでくれるんだ。 彼女を信用しているし、信頼しているよ。 …ある人は、誰のことも信じられなくなっている…。
――	どうして誰も信じられないって？
MJ	その人は、誰が友達なのか判らないから。 何故なら、すごい人気者で多くの人が群がってくる。すると逆に孤立する。 成功するという事は、囚人になるという事。外に出掛けることもままならない。 普通のことをしていても皆がそれを見ている。
――	そのような事があったのかい？
MJ	何度もね。 彼らは、僕が何を読んでいるのか知りたがる。買った物の全てを。彼らは全てを知りたがる。 いつもパパラッチが階下に待機している。僕のプライバシーを侵し、真実を歪める。悪夢だよ。 リズは、僕を愛してくれる。本当に僕を。
――	私はリズに、彼女がウェンディーで君がピーターパンだ、って指摘したよ。
MJ	彼女は、僕にとって母のようでもあり、それ以上でもあり、友人でもある。 彼女はマザー・テレサであり、ダイアナ妃、そしてウェンディーなんだよ。
話は再び "孤立感"について。
MJ	僕を追い回す "その道の権威者たち" は、それに夢中になる。―彼らは、それを制御出来ないんだ。 コンサートの後、アドレナリンが世界の絶頂に達するほどに― 眠れないんだ。 深夜の2時とかでも、完全に目が覚めてるよ。
――	それでどうするの？
MJ	アニメを観るんだ。アニメは大好きなんだ。 あとビデオゲームをしたり、時々は本を読んだり。本は短編が好きだよ、何でも。
――	何か気に入っているものは？
MJ	サマセット・モーム, ホイットマン, ヘミングウェイ, トウェイン。
――	ゲームは何をやるの？
MJ	X-menが好きだな。 ピンボール，ジュラシックパーク，モータル・コンバットなんかもね。 ツアーの時は、いくつか持って行くんだ。
――	ビデオゲーム機器って結構大きいけど？
MJ	2機の飛行機で行動しているから。
――	リズと一緒に書いた曲はあるのかい？
MJ	"Childhood" だよ。
――	"Have you seen my childhood～♪" っていうあの曲？
MJ	そう…。 "Before you judge me, try to ‥‥"
・・・END・・・

Paul Theroux: conversation with Michael Jackson in 1999

My phone rang and I heard: “This is Michael Jackson.” The voice was breathy, unbroken, boyish – tentative, yet tremulously eager and helpful, not the voice of a 40-year-old. In contrast to this lilting sound, its substance was denser, like a blind child giving you explicit directions in darkness.

“How would you describe Elizabeth Taylor?” I asked.

“She’s a warm cuddly blanket that I love to snuggle up to and cover myself with. I can confide in her and trust her. In my business, you can’t trust anyone.”

“Why is that?”
“Because you don’t know who’s your friend. Because you’re so popular, and there’s so many people around you. You’re isolated, too. Becoming successful means that you become a prisoner. You can’t go out and do normal things. People are always looking at what you’re doing.”
“Have you had that experience?”
“Oh, lots of times. They try to see what you’re reading, and all the things you’re buying. They want to know everything. There are always paparazzi downstairs. They invade my privacy. They twist reality. They’re my nightmare. Elizabeth is someone who loves me – really loves me.”
“I suggested to her that she was Wendy and you’re Peter.”
“But Elizabeth is also like a mother – and more than that. She’s a friend. She’s Mother Teresa, Princess Diana, the Queen of England and Wendy. We have great picnics. It’s so wonderful to be with her. I can really relax with her, because we’ve lived the same life and experienced the same thing.”
“Which is?”
“The great tragedy of childhood stars. We like the same things. Circuses. Amusement parks. Animals.”
And there was their shared fame and isolation.
“It makes people do strange things. A lot of our famous luminaries become intoxicated because of it – they can’t handle it. And your adrenaline is at the zenith of the universe after a concert – you can’t sleep. It’s maybe two in the morning and you’re wide awake. After coming off stage, you’re floating.”
“How do you handle that?”
“I watch cartoons. I love cartoons. I play video games. Sometimes I read.”
“You mean you read books?”
“Yeah. I love to read short stories and everything.”
“Any in particular?”
“Somerset Maugham,” he said quickly, and then, pausing at each name: “Whitman. Hemingway. Twain.”
“What about those video games?”
“I love X-Man. Pinball. Jurassic Park. The martial arts ones – Mortal Kombat.”


“I played some of the video games at Neverland,” I said. “There was an amazing one called Beast Buster.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s great. I pick each game. That one’s maybe too violent, though. I usually take some with me on tour.”
“How do you manage that? The video game machines are pretty big, aren’t they?”
“Oh, we travel with two cargo planes.”
“Have you written any songs with Elizabeth in mind?”
“Childhood.”
“Is that the one with the line, ‘Has anyone seen my childhood?’”
“Yes. It goes…”, and he liltingly recited “Before you judge me, try to…”, and then sang the rest.
“Didn’t I hear that playing on your merry-go-round at Neverland?”
Delightedly, he said, “Yes! Yes!”
He went on about childhood, how, like Elizabeth, as a child star he used to support his family.
“I was a child supporting my family. My father took the money. Some of the money was put aside for me, but a lot of the money was put back into the entire family. I was just working the whole time.”
“So you didn’t have a childhood, then – you lost it. If you had it to do again how would you change things?”
“Even though I missed out on a lot, I wouldn’t change anything.”
“I can hear your little kids in the background.” The gurgling had become insistent, like a plug-hole in a flood. “If they wanted to be performers and lead the life you led, what would you say?”
“They can do whatever they want to do. If they want to do that, it’s okay.”
“How will you raise them differently from the way you were raised?”
“With more fun. More love. Not so isolated.”
“Elizabeth says she finds it painful to look back on her life. Do you find it hard to do that?”
“No, not when it’s pertaining to an overview of your life rather than any particular moment.”
This oblique and somewhat bookish form of expression was a surprise to me – another Michael Jackson surprise. He had made me pause with “intoxicated” and “zenith of the universe”, too. I said: “I’m not too sure what you mean by ‘overview’.”
“Like childhood. I can look at that. The arc of my childhood.”
“But there’s some moment in childhood when you feel particularly vulnerable. Did you feel that? Elizabeth said that she felt she was owned by the studio.”
“Sometimes really late at night we’d have to go out – it might be three in the morning – to do a show. My father forced us. He would get us up. I was seven or eight. Some of these were clubs or private parties at people’s houses. We’d have to perform.” This was in Chicago, New York, Indiana, Philadelphia, he added – all over the country. “I’d be sleeping and I’d hear my father. ‘Get up! There’s a show!’ ”
“But when you were on stage, didn’t you get a kind of thrill?”
“Yes. I loved being on stage. I loved doing the shows.”
“What about the other side of the business – if someone came up after the show, did you feel awkward?”
“I didn’t like it. I’ve never liked people-contact. Even to this day, after a show, I hate it, meeting people. It makes me shy. I don’t know what to say.”
“But you did that Oprah interview, right?
“With Oprah it was tough. Because it was on TV – on TV, it’s out of my realm. I know that everyone is looking and judging. It’s so hard.”
“Is this a recent feeling – that you’re under scrutiny?”
“No,” he said firmly, “I have always felt that way.”
“Even when you were seven or eight?”
“I’m not happy doing it.”
“Which I suppose is why talking to Elizabeth over a period of two or three months on the phone would be the perfect way to get acquainted. Or doing what we’re doing right now.”
“Yes.”
At some point Michael’s use of the phrase “lost childhood” prompted me to quote the line from George William Russell, “In the lost boyhood of Judas / Christ was betrayed”, and I heard “Wow” at the other end of the line. He asked me to explain what that meant, and when I did, he urged me to elaborate. What sort of a childhood did Judas have? What had happened to him? Where had he lived? Who had he known?
I told him that Judas had red hair, that he was the treasurer of the Apostles, that he might have been Sicarii – a member of a radical Jewish group, that he might not have died by hanging himself but somehow exploded, all his guts flying.

Twenty more minutes of Biblical apocrypha with Michael Jackson, on the lost childhood of Judas, and then the whisper again.

“Wow.”