ibtimes.com

To say that Dr. Conrad Murray had a bad day in court yesterday is probably something of an understatement. In addition to veiwing graphic pictures of Michael Jackson's autopsy, jurors in the involuntary manslaughter trial of the King of Pop's former physician heard damaging testimony from L.A. County Medical Examiner Christopher Rogers, who told the court he found Jackson to be healthier than most 50-year-old men, and not directly responsible for the overdose that killed him.

The pathologist went on to call the basis of the doctor's defense -- that the patient had self-administered the fatal dose of Propofol while Murray was in the bathroom -- highly implausible due to the fact that Jackson was already too heavily sedated to perform the act unassisted, and even had he been able to self-administer, the drug would have taken longer to circulate through his system than the two minute period the physician admits to being out of the room.

Rocks Off learned enough from the Casey Anthony trial to know that juries can be unpredictable, but between the EMT testimony, the audio tapes, the character-assaulting parade of mistresses, and the Murray's questionable behavior immediately following Jackson's death, well, suffice to say things do not look promising for the Houston-based cardiologist.

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Saturday, Michael Jackson will have been dead for two years. Already. The King of Pop succumbed to a drug addiction on June 25, 2009, helped along by a crooked Houston doctor, a team of enablers, and public that had grown largely indifferent to the man (but not his music) by two summers ago. Jackson was only 50 years old, and even thinking of someone of his caliber being "old" was daunting after he passed. He just was, existing outside the realm of age.

All legal problems aside, and there are too many to compartmentalize, sheesh, the man was a legend through and through. The day he died there was such a swell of love and sadness over his death, that in a perfect world it could have all turned some spiritual tide and brought him back. But we live in world where sadly, heroes die, and all we are left with are the memories, that we keep forever.

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One year ago tomorrow, one of the strangest, most volatile lives in American pop-culture history came to an end. Michael Jackson left this mortal coil on June 25, 2009, and in his wake we were left to not only deal with all of our conflicted and cherished memories of him, but also the public war of words surrounding his untimely death.

Rocks Off remembers tooling around on Twitter and seeing the first missive from TMZ saying that Jackson was being rushed to the hospital in grave condition. At first it seemed like just another wacked-out chapter in his life. We had already been smarting over the death of Farrah Fawcett that morning.

For the next hour, we watched as rumors swirled between news outlets, with conflicting reports getting retracted left and right. The head members of Rocks Off began assembling YouTube footage while half-expecting the very worst but hoping he would pull through.

It was sometime in the mid-afternoon, while we were spinning "Ben," that CNN reported Jackson was dead. Instantly we remembered every single point in our lives where his music was present and every person who was there. We did mist up a little; it was like a superhero dying. In those two hours, he officially became our generation's Elvis Presley, felled by his own excess and the enablers surrounding him.

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TMZ.com

​It already looked bad for Houston physician Dr. Conrad Murray, whom just about everyone with a pulse expects to face criminal charges stemming from his client Michael Jackson's June 25 death and is already the subject of a manslaughter probe by the LAPD. Now things look even worse, because the Associated Press is reporting that the Los Angeles County Coroner's office has ruled Jackson's death a homicide. The report has not been officially released, but the official told the AP the coroner found the anesthetic propofal and two powerful sedatives in Jackson's system.

According to a search warrant affidavit that police used to raid Murray's Houston office and storage facility last month, the doctor has already admitted to police that he gave Jackson several drugs, including propofal, the day the pop star died. Rocks Off says he'll be arrested within 24 hours, but just to be on the safe side, we'll take the under.

​Saturday Rocks Off and a friend attended Keeping the Music Alive, a free concert at Miller Outdoor Theatre. The show was a tribute in honor of the late Michael Jackson, the later Bernie Mac, the even later Gerald Levert, the later still Luther Vandross, and the even yet later still Barry White - not to mention Marvin Gaye, the latest (and greatest) of them all.

A revolving cast of singers assumed the roles of the deceased soulsters while a tight backing band - guitar, bass, two back-up singers, keyboards, a drummer, percussionist and Kyle Turner's volcanic sax - provided the music all night. The performances were exceedingly well-paced, if the music wasn't always.

We missed the first hour (and thus all of the tribute to the Mac-Man) and came in on Scott Gertner attempting with little success to approximate Barry White's elephantine basso rumble on "Practice What You Preach." A raucous family on the next blanket over wasn't impressed. "That fool messed up the words," said a young man clutching a Bud Light. "He needs to sing it right."

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Well, this is a strange and incongruous turn of events. Normally when a celebrity gets pumped full of pills by a dubious "personal physician" and croaks, there are no repercussions and everyone's free to split up the dead guy's loot like Christmas came early. Not this time, however: Fox News reported today that Dr. Conrad Murray, believed to be currently holed up in his Houston home, will be charged with manslaughter in the death of Michael Jackson.

In response, Dr. Murray, who could be charged as early as next week, came forward with detailed records of all the drugs he gave Jackson and promised to cooperate in every way and to accept responsibility for his actions. Just kidding. He put on his victim hat and cried like a bitch. Invoked God a whole bunch, too. Classy!

Since it seems like Murray and a few of his buddies (including Jackson's dermatologist... it's about time) are going to be serving a little hard time, we went out and found some songs they probably don't want to hear right now. Feel free to post these as responses to any future YouTube videos he releases that don't have the comments disabled. We're all about the broadening of horizons here.

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Welcome back to Turning the Screw, Rocks Off's weekly rap post. It probably won't rhyme, at least most of the time. E-mail tips to introducingliston@gmail.com. Thanks, homies.

Single of the Week: Paul Wall feat. Baby Bash, "Lemon Drop."

Wire To Wire

This weekend, 19-year-old Albert Walker "A-Walk" Mondane, one of the suspects being sought in the Trae Day shootings, turned himself in to authorities. Patooey. (That's us spitting on the floor.)

Remember that guy that was supposed to have been a linchpin in the Tupac murder? According to him, he's totally the victim of a conspiracy.

C-Murder sentenced to life. Yipes.

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Welcome back to Turning the Screw, Rocks Off's weekly rap post. It probably won't rhyme, at least most of the time. E-mail tips to introducingliston@gmail.com. Thanks, homies.

Single of the Week: "#1 Dame in the Game," Surreall

Wire To Wire

Kid Cudi continues his rapid ascension to stardom, scores gig acting on an HBO sitcom. Saw him in concert this weekend. That's a bad boy fa sure. And Bun B cosigned Asher's performance, which makes Asher good in our book.

And the award for the best example of life imitating art goes to Drake, who tore up his ACL at a recent concert. In case you're totally just not with it, he played a wheelchair-bound character on that Degrassi TV show.

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TMZ.com

Guilty?

Hold your nose and tune into Fox News right now, and you may see some familiar territory. TMZ and just about every other news outlet on the planet are rapt as federal agents rifle through the Acres Homes offices of Dr. Conrad Murray, the local physician who is all caught up in the controversy surrounding Michael Jackson's death last month. The cloud of suspicion surrounding Murray is about as thick as the July humidity, causing his attorney, Edward Chertoff, to release the following statement:

"The coroner wants to clear up the cause of death; we share that goal. Based on Dr. Murray's minute-by-minute and item-by-item description of Michael Jackson's last days, he should not be a target of criminal charges."

Be that as it may, Rocks Off has the feeling that if someone's gonna swing for this, Murray is about the ideal scapegoat.

Courtesy of Stephen "Rube" Sager

Live Nation has outdone itself on its latest "No Service Fee" Wednesday. All day, $29.99 buys a lawn ticket - one lawn ticket, mind you - parking, all those pesky fees, a hot dog and a soda for any participating show at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion. Once they figure out how to make beer a part of this (stupid TABC), it's really going to go through the roof.

Speaking of, Rocks Off still has a four-pack of lawn tickets up for grabs in our ZZ Top/Steven Tyler lookalike contest. We've only got a couple of entries so far, and as you can see from the photo above, the field is pretty much wide open. Email those pictures to chris.gray@houstonpress.com or hprocksoff@gmail.com.

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