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Shia LaBeouf Does ‘GQ’ Magazine

It's Trent, Bitch! — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 20:38:58 +0000

Shia LaBeouf, star of the upcoming sequel film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (which is a terrible name, btw), is featured on the cover and in the pages of the new issue of GQ magazine modeling a few swanky suits. Here is our first look at Shia’s GQ coverphoto and some excerpts from his accompanying interview:

On the Wall Street trading floors where he went to learn the banking ropes: “I thought my life was pretty wild. I’m Richie Rich. I land in New York, secretly thinking I’m like the coolest guy in the world. I’ve been on the cover of GQ! But then I met these guys, and it’s humbling. It’s the most sex-drugs-and-rock-’n'-roll atmosphere that exists on the planet. I was hanging out with some wild human beings.”

On getting past the stereotypes of Wall Street traders: “It’s easy to villainize these guys with the big paychecks,” he says. “But they’re not all bad. I’m a pretty left-wing character, and I come from whatever collar is lower than blue. But meeting these guys really opened my mind a lot. I’ve never seen people with more drive and determination in my life.”

On his relationship with co-star and girlfriend Carey Mulligan: “I never really had anything in my life that was off-limits,” he says, visibly trying to control his natural inclination to share, to think out loud, to let his voice run free. “But with this, just out of respect, I just don’t want to fuck around. She’s an unbelievably thought-provoking actress, the most talented actress I’ve ever met in my life, by leaps and bounds. Neither one of us are fame whores. It works out. It’s not like we’re the premiere couple; we’re not the red-carpet king and queen.”

After the jump, check out a few photos from Shia’s GQ photospread and find out what Shia has to say about his much-publicized car accident, working with director Oliver Stone and Wall Street co-star Michael Douglas’s son who was arrested on drug charges …

On his widely-publicized car crash: “I’d be watching the news, and they’d play my car crash, and every once in a while Kim Kardashian’s sister would jump on TV and preach to me from the red carpet about how to live my fucking life. And I’m so upset, man. I’m so angry. Because this accident was not caused by me. I got hit. I had a green. This fucker ran a red light. And he flipped my truck, and he shoveled it on my hand. And my fingers are in the street… they’re off, they’re under the truck door, man. This is fake, dude,” he says, lifting his newly reconstructed hand. “This is hip bone and the skin that was left over…”

On working with Oliver Stone: “He is a doctor of human manipulation,” Shia says of Oliver Stone. He means it as a compliment. “One of the first things you do with Oliver,” Shia says, “is you start talking about your personal life. You give it all to him at the beginning, and then he has these strings with which he can fuck with you. He regurgitates this stuff at inopportune moments. He will just come up and whisper a phrase in your ear, sing a song, mention something about your dad, and—pow!—it puts you in a different world.”

On his co-star Michael Douglas, whose son was recently arrested for trafficking cocaine and crystal meth and faces a long prison term: “Michael Douglas was an open wound on the set,” Shia says. “That dude is in pain. He was emotional putty on the set. A struggling man. We filmed a struggling man.”…Stone and Douglas wrestled all the time on-set, says Shia. “That is their process. They fucking go at it like rams, all day long, every day. They know that they feed off each other in a way that they don’t get with anybody else, but they hated each other.”

Interesting insights from Shia on his new film … and parts of his life that he usually keeps private. This is actually an interview I’d like to read in full. Also, he kid looks good in a suit … that’s for sure. I might have to pick up this copy of GQ when it hits newsstands next week.

[Source]

Johnny Depp Does ‘GQ’ Magazine

It's Trent, Bitch! — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 20:21:19 +0000

GQ magazine is giving us a peek today at the cover of their upcoming new issue which will pay tribute to their list of The 25 Most Stylish Men in the World … and wouldn’t you know it but Johnny Depp has been chosen as the magazine’s Most Stylish coverstar:

Johnny Depp – At the Top of His Game

Barney’s Creative Director, Simon Doonan, Demystifies the Icon of Eccentric Cool
“Johnny Depp’s a unicorn—a really glamorous, one-of-a-kind eccentric. Usually guys try to fit in; they don’t want to get criticized. At any red-carpet event, there are going to be guys who look spiffy in their Prada or Armani tuxedos, but you wait for Johnny Depp, because he’s always going to look super-groovy and unconventional. He wears great man jewelry. He doesn’t shy away from color. He’s always peeking through his amazing hair. It doesn’t matter if Johnny Depp’s lying in a ditch—he’s always going to look incredible.”

As much as I love me some Johnny Depp, I don’t usually think of him as particularly stylish. His look is one that is more hobo than chic and I’d be hard-pressed to consider any man who wears leather arm cuffs outside of 1976 on the cutting edge of stylishness. That being said, he does make a pretty coverboy and I do find it funny/entertaining that he is shirtless on the cover of a magazine that lauds his stylishness … so I guess I can’t really complain. I’m anxious to see who else made the list of GQ’s 25 Most Stylish Men in the World. I’m guessing David Beckham, Tom Ford and Neil Patrick Harris might make that list. Who do YOU think will make the cut?

[Source]

Rihanna Does ‘GQ’ Magazine

It's Trent, Bitch! — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:56:05 +0000

Rihanna is featured on the cover and in the pages of the new issue of GQ magazine and in her coverstory interview, Ri Ri talks about how far she’s come since she was assaulted by ex-boyfriend Chris Brown back in February of this year. She explains how she managed to get over the trauma of being physically attacked and expresses her hope that people who sympathize with her situation will be able to move past the incident like she has. Here is Rihanna’s racy GQ coverphoto and some excerpts from her coverstory interview:

She’s done “Good Morning America” and “20/20,” but Rihanna gives one of her most revealing interviews about Chris Brown yet in the upcoming January issue of GQ magazine. The Barbados-born beauty fields some difficult questions about her abusive ex, but admits talking about that ugly incident helps the healing process. “It’s relieving,” she told the mag, “because it was built up for so long, and all these thoughts and emotions have been running through my mind for the past eight months. And now it’s like I finally get to let go and move on.” Putting the Feb. 8 assault behind her is crucial in shifting the “Wait Your Turn” singer’s image from punching bag to reigning pop princess. “I wanted people to move on with me,” she continues, “’cause the last big thing they know about me is That Night. And I don’t want that to be what people define me as.” After the violent attack last spring when Brown brutally hit and bit the singer following a pre-Grammy party in Hollywood, Rihanna withdrew from the spotlight to nurse her wounds. She soon returned to the studio and poured her heart and hurt into her latest album “Rated R,” which takes on a distinctly darker, edgier tone than her previous Top 20-friendly song “Umbrella.” “Nobody [helped me]. Really just music. And working,” she explains, “‘Cause I didn’t really want to be around anybody, for them to stare at me and stuff, and feel sorry for me. “The physical pain comes and it goes,” she adds. “The bruises fade away. But the thing that stays with you is the emotional scars.” The 21-year-old singer hopes her new album will inspire other women suffering from domestic abuse to stand up for themselves and get out of harmful relationships – especially those victims who might be blaming themselves. “That’s part of the insight that I wanna give,” Rihanna says. “Stop blaming yourself for that outcome. There’s nothing you can do, ever, to excuse a man’s behavior like that.”

It is very clear that she is becoming more comfortable with talking about her ordeal, which is a very good thing. I hope she continues to talk about her incident for as long as she likes in order to spread her message far and wide. As you can see, Rihanna stripped down for this GQ interview … but she also stripped down, literally, for the accompanying photoshoot. After the jump, check out a few photos from Ri Ri’s GQ photospread and read a lot more from her GQ coverstory interview …

Now that you’re talking about everything, is it hard, or is it liberating?
Very liberating. It’s relieving. Because it was built up for so long, and all these thoughts and emotions have been running through my mind for the past eight months. And now it’s like I finally get to let go and move on.

Is it therapeutic to talk about it?
Um, I don’t like talking about it a lot. But every time I do, it’s better; it’s easier each time.

Because you said something about wanting to give some insight to young women.
Mm-hmm.

And that’s a brave thing. You could have said nothing.
Mm-hmm.

What made you decide that this was the right thing to do?
Because I wanted to move on. And I knew that was the only way I could have done it. And I wanted people to move on with me. ‘Cause the last big thing they know about me is That Night. And I don’t want that to be what people define me as.

Before I came here—I live across the street from a pretty tough public school in New York City. And I went to talk to the girls there.
Oh, wow.

Just to say, “Hey, I’m going to meet Rihanna. What would you like to know?” And it was interesting, because a lot of them had been in your situation, and they wanted to know how you handled it. Are those the insights you’re talking about?
I guess definitely. I just knew I’d be good one day. I just knew it. So I just kept waiting for that day. Like, you know, even though it was tough the entire time, there were ups and downs, I just kept knowing: I’m gonna get over it one day. I’m gonna get over it.

Who helped you through it?
Nobody.

… [N]obody helped you through it. Really?
Nobody. Really just music. And working. ‘Cause I didn’t really want to be around anybody, for them to stare at me and stuff, and feel sorry for me. So I just—I stayed in the house a lot. Then I started to get cabin fever. I was like, I’m going crazy in here.

But what about all the friends you’ve met…you have a great relationship with Jay-Z. With Justin Timberlake. Were all these people supportive of you through the past eight months?
Absolutely.

But you still felt alone?
Me and Jay-Z, we have a very close relationship, so he was there helping me through it and giving me advice and guidance, and just words of support. Like, strength.

Were you in shock?
Initially. I would say the first…the first seventy-two hours after I realized, it hit. The entire thing was kind of a daze. I was confused. It was a little weird, but…but then, after, I was getting bored of being in the house and sittin’ around. I called Jay Brown—he’s my A&R—and I was like, “I want to get back to the studio. I want to get back.”

In one of the tracks on the album, you sing about thinking you might die…did you think you would die that night?
No…no. [long silence]

It must take a lot of strength to deal with all this. I mean, just the basic things. Like, how did you have the presence of mind to call 911?
I didn’t call 911. No. I know everybody thinks I did, but it was someone else…It was…

Rihanna looks at the Hovering Manager and then mutters something about having just spoken to Diane Sawyer about all this. But here’s the weird thing: You get the feeling that Rihanna still has a lot to say. Her eyes are wet when anything Chris Brown-related comes up. She has a tendency to stare off into the distance when she talks about It—but then she meets the glare of the manager. Maybe she does want to go there—and can’t. Or perhaps it is dawning on Rihanna that to really step out and be the kind of advocate she says she wants to be is another burden altogether.

When you say you want to give insight to young women—what was the biggest insight you got? What did you learn?
Um…really really really that love is blind. It took a lot of strength to pull out of that relationship. To finally just officially cut it off. It was like night and day. It was two different worlds. It was the world I lived for two years, and then having the strength to say, “I’m gonna step into my own world. Start over.”

What was harder, the physical pain or the emotional pain?
Definitely not the physical pain. The physical pain comes and it goes. The bruises fade away. But the thing that stays with you is the emotional scars.

You were in love.
Yeah.

And you were a kid.
Yeah.

Do you think you two will ever be friends?
Mmm. Maybe in like ten years, you know? But it’s not something that I’m depending on. I’m not depending on his friendship.

Right. How do you ever trust again?
I can trust. I mean, I don’t like to stereotype; I believe everybody’s an individual. You can’t judge someone based on someone else’s actions. There are people in the world who will love you and people in the world who will hurt you, and there are people in the world who will do both.

Do you think a man who does something like that can change?
Absolutely. Yeah. Some of them won’t change and some of them will—but you know, very few of them change.

You know, when I talked to those high school girls…and this illustrates how difficult a problem it is: Their first question was “What did she do to get hit?”
Mm-hmm.

And I thought, Oh God, how awful is it that they’d ask that question.
Mm-hmm. After everything happened, it was a wake-up call to me…I didn’t realize how much of an effect it had on young girls’ lives, and that’s part of the insight that I wanna give. Stop blaming yourself for that outcome. There’s nothing you can do, ever, to excuse a man’s behavior like that.

Did you blame yourself?
Initially? I mean…actually, no, I never blamed myself, but I wondered what, what did I do to provoke it?…

This is the breaking point. Hovering Manager chimes in with “You’ve exhausted it now.”

Okay. Well then. How did the cover shoot go? I heard the pictures are really hot.
[giggles] It’s very sexy, yeah. At one point [chairman, Island Def Jam Music Group] L.A. Reid came into the shoot, and he was like, “Rihanna, put some fucking clothes on!”

These are pretty. [She is wearing a couple of dozen bangle bracelets.]
Thank you.

They’re very Michelle Obama.
Yeah? I love her. She’s so fly.

Rihanna’s interview can be read in full HERE at GQ’s website. She goes on to talk about her tattoos, her music and more. I can understand why her manager would be wary of her talking about her assault at such length for a magazine interview but I find it wholly irritating and counterproductive for anyone to curtail her need to share. I understand she was talking to a reporter but if she feels the need to let it out, she needs know that she can do so without getting shunned by someone else (ie. her manager). But, Rihanna did share in this GQ interview, she has been sharing in other interviews and I fully commend and support her in every way. The photos, wow … yeah, they are really hot. It seems to me that Rihanna is really trying to exert her strength and control by baring as much of herself as she can … I’m not sure if that’s really the way to go, nor am I sure that this is the way to empower oneself but, again, I support her need to bare as much as she needs to in order to move on. Great interview, crazy hot pics … this is an issue of GQ that needs to be purchased when it hits newsstands this week.

[Source, Source]

Joseph Gordon-Levitt Does ‘GQ’ Magazine

It's Trent, Bitch! — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:17:17 +0000

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who recently hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live, is featured in the pages of the new issue of GQ magazine in a segment wherein he models stylish outfits that are fairly inexpensive. The gist of the article piece is that because money is tight all over, men have resorted to shopping at thriftier clothiers … but they can still look good doing so:

Remember 2006? When you dropped $300 at the club for a $30 bottle of vodka? When you weren’t really hip-hop if you weren’t cruising on a yacht, making it rain? When designers were casually declaring that America was over, that it was all about Dubai (or Moscow or Shanghai)? When that was something worth aspiring to? Now cut to 2009. While scaling back on restaurants and vacations can feel like a sacrifice, you might’ve noticed that clothes shopping on a budget feels more like an opportunity. Walk by the display windows of Club Monaco and you’ll spot mannequins fully styled in cuffed jeans and cover-ready bow ties. Or if you happened to be in SoHo on one particular morning this past October, you would have noticed a line of shoppers snaking down Broadway. They weren’t queuing up for concert tickets or Robert Pattinson but for a chance to get into the gently priced Japanese clothing emporium Uniqlo, where +J, a collection designed by Jil Sander, was about to hit shelves. Low-priced retailers are now selling everything the pulled-together guy needs, and they’re doing it in a way that doesn’t feel cheap. As Patrick Robinson, Gap’s executive vice president of design since 2007, says, “I went through each category—from tees to leather jackets to khakis—and created a product that looks, feels, and acts like something that costs ten times more. I’m hearing from people who used to wear $200 or $300 jeans that our $59 pair fits better.” Whether it’s a chunky knit from FCUK or a skinny tie from the superhyped British import Topman, the clothes you can afford right now are the clothes you actually want to wear … And consider that Swedish fast-fashion behemoth H&M is on track to post double-digit sales growth for 2009—this in a year when flat is the new up. It’s probably naive to say that the way we shop is undergoing a fundamental or permanent change; like all things, consumer habits run in cycles. But the new crop of budget-minded retailers offers refreshing proof that when the going gets tough, the tough get stylish.

True style does not come from a high end fashion label … it comes from the ability to pick and choose articles of clothing that work well with one another and look good on, no matter what size or shape you are. JGL looks absolutely killer in these outfits and you would never guess that they come from “budget” designers. To be honest, JGL would look stunning in rags if he wore them … some people have “it” and some people don’t. Joseph Gordon-Levitt deffo has “it”.

[Source]

Celebs Celebrate ‘GQ’s Men Of The Year For 2009

It's Trent, Bitch! — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:05:45 +0000

Last week we got our first look at the various coverphotos for GQ magazine’s special multicover edition of their Man of the Year issue and last night, at the Chateau Marmont, GQ hosted a party to celebrate those men. Here are a few pics from the red carpet arrivals … which, strangely enough, included male pin-up model Levi Johnston and True Blood hottie Alexander Skarsgård who dished a bit about the upcoming third season of TB:

Skarsgard, 33, who plays brooding vampire Eric Northman on the HBO hit series True Blood, will begin shooting season three along with the rest of the cast later this month. The actor told RadarOnline.com that fans can expect a lot more from Eric this time around. “There’s a lot of nudity,” he said. “As far as Eric goes, there’s going to be a lot violence and a lot of sex — with women and men! So it should be interesting.” At 6-foot-four, Alexander’s model good looks are just as striking in person as they are on the small screen. Last season, he had to get up close and personal with True Blood co-star Anna Paquin — who in real life is engaged to co-star Stephen Moyer. But Skarsgard says there’s no tension on set. “No. I mean, I can’t wait to get back to my L.A. family,” he said referring to the True Blood cast. “I love Stephen, we’re friends and I love Anna. They’re great together. I actually think it makes things easier that way.” So there were absolutely no sparks flying between Skarsgard and Paquin during last season’s steamy love scenes? “Not at all,” he said. “Anna and I are completely platonic, and Stephen knows that.”

“A lot of nudity” — yeah, that is *just* what I was hopin’ to hear ;) I love Skarsgård and I’m always glad to see him out and about at these types of events … he seems like such a nice, approachable guy. As far as the other guests, well, it looks like GQ took grain pains to ensure that their event was a classy affair (Levi Johnston’s attendance notwithstanding). I’m all for celebrating Men of any Year no matter the occasion … especially hotties like these :)

[Photo credit: Wireimage; Source]

Chris Pine, Tom Brady, Clint Eastwood, Bradley Cooper & Barack Obama Do ‘GQ’ Magazine

It's Trent, Bitch! — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:52:43 +0000

Chris Pine, GQ magazine’s pic for Breakout of the Year, is featured on the cover of the new issue of GQ magazine …

… as is Tom Brady (Comeback of the Year), Clint Eastwood (Badass of the Year), Bradley Cooper/Zach Galifiankis/Andy Bernard (Funnymen of the Year) and President Barack Obama (Leader of the Year). That’s right folks … GQ is ready to announce their men of the year. After the jump, check out the alternate covers of the new issue of GQ which features all of these winning men …

All of these coverphotos are really fantastic (even the super gnarly one of Clint Eastwood) but my fave is deffo the one of Chris Fine (who, you may recall, was already featured in GQ magazine back in May). I’m not sure if any of y’all are interested in collecting all of these magazine covers for your taping up on your wall but you do have a lot to choose from. Happy hunting!!

[Source]

Hangin’ With NPH At LV For ‘GQ’

It's Trent, Bitch! — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:26:17 +0000

Last night David and I were invited to the Louis Vuitton store on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, CA to attend a GQ magazine party celebrating LA Men of Style. The store was shut down and converted into a party space for invited quests to mix, mingle, drink and do a bit of afterhours shopping. The whole place was all done up in bright colorful lights:

There were a few celebs in attendance last night, including party host Neil Patrick Harris … who I finally got to meet last night :) After the jump, check out my pic with NPH and find out who else was at the shindig last night …

Now, I’ve been a huge Neil Patrick Harris fan for years so I was thrilled to finally get to meet him last night. While he played host, folks like Kellen Lutz, Gilles Marini and others (um, Ron Moss from The Bold and the Beautiful lookin’ like he walked in off the street from 1987) were in attendance to party … and shop. David and I also ran into new friends Emma and Josh who we first met at Alyson and Alexis’s Hallowe’en party on Saturday night. Here are a couple of fun Polaroids with NPH and our new friends Emma and Josh:

NPH was really cool and David and I got to chat with his boyfriend David Burtka as well. It was a really fun night … mostly because we got to spend more time with Emma and Josh. Unfortch, I was too bizzy socializing to do any shopping (boo!) but David and I did have a great time nonetheless :)

Tonight, David and I will be attending the LA premiere of the new film Dare which stars Emmy Rossum and Zach Gilford. Dare was written by our friend David Brind so we are really excited to see the movie. Should be another fun night in Hollywood :)

Taylor Lautner Does ‘GQ’ Magazine

It's Trent, Bitch! — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:19:50 +0000

Taylor Lautner, the hottie, hunky, heartthrob of The Twilight Saga movie franchise, is featured in the pages of the new issue of GQ magazine. Mr. Lautner has been chosen to model a series of fitted dress shirts … like this one:

Chances are you never saw Twilight, because chances are you’re not a 15-year-old girl (or her mom). But here’s the thing about the blockbuster and its sequel, New Moon—and for that matter, all the yet-to-come films in the teen-vampire series: They feature Taylor Lautner, a 17-year-old kid who is one of the luckiest actors in Hollywood. Two years ago, he was an unknown with credits in flicks like Cheaper by the Dozen 2. But then he landed a small part in Twilight, a movie based on a book he’d never heard of. He had four scenes, a few lines in each, and looked like a scrawny kid in a big movie. Then something happened that Lautner didn’t see coming. He nearly lost his job. The studio didn’t believe he had the stones (or the bulk) to play a convincing boy-turned-werewolf-turned-romantic-lead in the sequel. “They needed to understand he had that aggression,” says director Chris Weitz (who, by the way, made a film you did see, About a Boy). So Lautner hit the gym, hard, eating every two hours, packing on thirty pounds. “I tried to stay focused on the things I could control,” he says. Well done. Lautner kept his job, and the film’s entire marketing campaign was built around his new abs. “When a man transforms into a wolf,” Lautner clarifies, “all of his clothes get shredded. When he comes back to human form, he’s wearing ripped jeans, and that’s about it. It’s the way it was written. The great thing about this series is we stay true to the books.” Ah, to be 17.

HMMM … isn’t it cute that Taylor’s Twilight character, Jacob Black, has prolly never worn a fitted dress shirt in his entire fictional life and, yet, Taylor was chosen to model these shirts for a major men’s fashion magazine. I wonder why that is. Oh yes, prolly because the young guy is überhawt. After the jump, check out 8 more photos of Taylor in the new issue of GQ — including one photo where he is showing off what he’s got going on under these shirts …

I think these photos are really great mainly because Taylor injects so much personality into his facial expressions (the fact that he showed some skin doesn’t hurt either). I really don’t like the expressionless, pouty photos … the ones where he looks like he’s having fun are the best photos, I think. It’s a great shoot, yes? What do y’all think?

[Source]

Ryan Kwanten Does ‘GQ’ Magazine

It's Trent, Bitch! — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 20:57:35 +0000

True Blood hottie Ryan Kwanten is featured inside the new issue of GQ magazine, the one with Michael Jackson on the cover, modeling some pieces from various Fall/Winter 09/10 collections and lookin’ YUM all the while. Here is a photo from Ryan’s GQ photospread and the blurby little accompanying interview piece:

In season one of HBO’s True Blood, actor Ryan Kwanten had sex by a Dumpster, suffered a drug-induced perma-erection, was accused of murdering four women, and got swept up by a religious cult. Oh, and he was naked (at least partially) in eleven of twelve episodes. “I led the way in the sexual-shenanigans department in the first season,” says the 32-year-old Australian native, who first made a name for himself playing a lifeguard on an Aussie soap. Kwanten may play a dim womanizer on-screen, but offscreen he’s smart enough to suffer the indignities of his nude scenes with a smile. While other TV networks are struggling to keep the lights on, True Blood’s viewership has doubled, easing HBO out of its post-Sopranos slump and assuring Kwanten that he’ll remain taken care of through the global meltdown. Besides, Kwanten says, “This season, Anna Paquin is far more naked than I am.”

‘Tis true, Anna Paquin may be more nekkid overall but, to be honest, I don’t really pay much attetion … for obvs reasons. Ryan has that hot/dumb look that tends to suck people in immediately. He seems to get more interesting the less clothing that he’s wearing. After the jump, check out all the photos from Ryan’s GQ photospread — yes, he’s shirtless in at least one of the photos …

HMMM … well look at that … he even looks good with clothes on. To be honest, I’d prefer less clothing but I’ll take all the Ryan Kwanten I can get ;)

[Source]

Michael Jackson Does ‘GQ’ Magazine

It's Trent, Bitch! — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 19:57:08 +0000

GQ magazine has put a younger Michael Jackson on the cover of their new issue in tribute to the days, as they put it, when he was cool. Here is MJ on the cover of GQ along with a portion of the coverstory article titled Back in the Day:

Begin not with the miniseries childhood of father Joseph’s endless practice sessions but with the later and, it seems, just as formative Motown childhood, from, say, 11 to 14—years spent, when not on the road, most often alone, behind security walls, with private tutors and secret sketchbooks. A dreamy child, he collects exotic animals. He likes rainbows and reading. He starts collecting exotic animals now. His eldest brothers were at one time children who dreamed of child stardom. Michael never knows this sensation. By the time he achieves something like self-awareness, he is a child star. The child star dreams of being an artist. Alone, he puts on classical records, because he finds they soothe his mind. He also likes the old southern stuff his uncle Luther sings. His uncle looks back at him and thinks he seems sad for his age. This is in California, so poor, brown Gary, with its poisonous air you could smell from leagues away—a decade’s exposure to which may already have damaged his immune system in fateful ways—is the past. He thinks about things and sometimes talks them over with his friends Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross when they are hanging out. He listens to albums and compares. The albums he and his brothers make have a few nice tunes, to sell records, then a lot of consciously second-rate numbers, to satisfy the format. Whereas Tchaikovsky and people like that, they didn’t handle slack material. But you have to write your own songs. Michael has always made melodies in his head, little riffs and beats, but that isn’t the same. The way Motown deals with the Jackson 5, finished songs are delivered to the group, from songwriting teams in various cities. The brothers are brought in to sing and add accents. Michael wants access to the “anatomy” of the music. That’s the word he uses repeatedly. Anatomy. What’s inside its structure that makes it move? When he’s 17, he asks Stevie Wonder to let him spy while Songs in the Key of Life gets made. There’s Michael, self-consciously shy and deferential, flattening himself mothlike against the Motown studio wall. Somehow Stevie’s blindness becomes moving in this context. No doubt he is for long stretches unaware of Michael’s presence. Never asks him to play a shaker or anything. Never mentions Michael. But Michael hears him.

After the jump, read the rest of this excerpt …

His art will later depend on his ability to stay in touch with that childlike inner instrument, keeping near enough to himself to hear his own melodic promptings. If you’ve listened to toddlers making up songs, the things they invent are often bafflingly catchy and ingenious. They compose to biorhythms somehow. The vocal from Michael’s earlier, Off the Wall-era demo of the eventual Thriller hit “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” sounds like nothing so much as playful schoolyard taunting. He will always be at his worst when making what he thinks of as “big” music, which he invariably associates with military imagery. 1979, the year of Off the Wall and his first nose job, marks an obscure crisis. Around the start of that year, they offer him the gay lead in the film version of A Chorus Line, but he declines the role, explaining, “I’m excited about it, but if I do it, people will link me with the part. Because of my voice, some people already think I’m that way—homo—though I’m actually not at all.” … On the Internet, you can see a picture of him near the end of his life, juxtaposed with a digital projection of what he would have looked like at the same age without the surgeries and makeup and wigs. A smiling middle-aged black guy, handsome in an everyday way. We are meant, of course, to feel a connection with this lost neverbeing, and pity for the strange, self-mutilated creature beside him. I can’t be alone, however, in feeling just the opposite, that there’s something metaphysically revolting about the mock-up. It’s an abomination. Michael chose his true face. What is, is natural. His physical body is arguably, even inarguably, the single greatest piece of postmodern American sculpture. It must be carefully preserved. It’s fascinating to read the interviews he gave to Ebony and Jet over the past thirty years … He spoke differently to black people, was more at ease. The language and grain of detail are different. Not that the scenario was any more journalistically pure. The John H. Johnson publishing family, which puts out Jet and Ebony, had Michael’s back, faithfully repairing and maintaining his complicated relations with the community, assuring readers that, in the presence of Michael, “you quickly look past the enigmatic icon’s light, almost translucent skin and realize that this African-American legend is more than just skin deep.” At times, especially when the “homo” issue came up, the straining required could turn comical, as in Ebony in 1982, talking about his obsessive male fans:

Michael: “They come after us every way they can, and the guys are just as bad as the girls. Guys jump up on the stage and usually go for me and Randy.”

Ebony: “But that means nothing except that they admire you, doesn’t it?”

Even so, to hear Michael laid-back and talking unpretentiously about art, the thing he most loved—that is a new Michael, a person utterly absent from, for example, Martin Bashir’s infamous documentary, in which Michael admitted sharing his bedroom with children. It’s only after reading Jet and Ebony that one can understand how otherwise straightforward-seeming people of all races have stayed good friends with Michael Jackson these many years. He is charming; his mind is alive.

Of the tribute articles written about Michael Jackson and his life, this article from GQ is the most surprising for me. I had no idea he was offered the lead role in A Chorus Line back in the day. To read the way MJ worked to create his music in this context is so enlightening … I really think the author of this piece, John Jeremiah Sullivan, really hits the nail squarely on the head. The full online version of the article can be read HERE and, of course, the print version in the issue when it hits newsstands this week. MJ fans and detractors alike should read this article, I think everyone will learn something new about the late King of Pop.

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