October 28, 2010

Let me say a couple of words about Dave Dave as another of Michael Jackson’s young friends. I know all that BS which is circulating in the Internet about him being “Michael in disguise” (a lie which is unfortunately promoted by the MJfiles blog) and don’t want anyone to buy it – it is enough to look at Dave’s disfigured hands to realize the absurdity of all those stories.

Dave Dave is a real person who lives in Utah and this is his real story:



The boy used to be called David Rothenberg but he changed his name to free himself from his father’s name and criminality, as he put it, after his father had committed an abominable crime – he doused him with kerosene when the boy was asleep, set him on fire and burned 90 per cent of his six-year-old body. This was in 1983.

Michael befriended Dave and though he didn’t pay for his surgeries as his mother had an insurance which covered all medical bills, he offered the boy enormous emotional support for the next 30 years. Dave Dave went to Michael’s funeral and spoke of their friendship there.

This is what Dave remembers of Michael Jackson:

“He heard about me and contacted me. He wanted to meet me. I was about 7 years old at the time (so Michael should have been 16 then). He befriended me. He took me into his life. He opened up his arms to me and accepted me as a very good friend of his. And throughout the years he never let me go. Michael was like a father to me”.

“I turned around and there was Michael. At that moment we embraced and that embrace never ended throughout our whole entire friendship.”

“I believe what people fail to realize is that Michael was a human being. Throughout the years he was kind of stigmatized by the media”.

He has been my friend throughout everything that I’ve been through. And he’s my only friend that I can say that’s been there for me always. He’s really had an impact on my life – not because he is a celebrity. Becuase he’s been through a kind of the same thing as I’ve been through.

“He was a great person. He never hurt a soul and I’m happy to have been his friend all these years. Michael offered a lot of emotional support for me. Michael was there for me whenever I needed to talk to him. He opened up Neverland to me as a means to get away. Metaphorically he was always like a father that I never had”.

At the funeral Brian Oxman sat next to Dave and spoke of Dave’s eulogy as moving The Sun News

In the video below Dave Dave is saying:

It was quite an amazing experience. There was a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and there was Michael. Our relationship started with a hug. A hug that never ended throughout the years.

Michael Jackson was like a father figure for me. He gave me a lot of advice, he showed me a lot of things about the world. He really was a source of emotional support for me.

I believe I lost a Person in my life but at the same time I gained a lot of knowledge.



As a postscript to this story I need to say one thing.

The disfigured face of the burned man is quite a sight even now and one would involuntarily shy away from a picture like that. It becomes easier when you get used to it but you will probably agree with me that the initial impression is still that of a shock.

Since Michael was a human being it must have been the same for him too and I’m completely awestruck by the fact that he could embrace the poor child with such genuine affection and not a quiver of pain, displeasure or any alien feeling on his face, other than love.

On the other hand I can well imagine the horrifying impression such a friendship progressing into adulthood must have made on the people around Michael – let us say, the staff at Neverland, his team of assistants or even his wife, Lisa Marie Presley.

In the days when people are taught day and night the goal of being beautiful and glamorous by all those fashion magazines, it must have looked like an ugly joke to Michael’s surrounding that he would choose as friends disfigured children like Dave (or bald-headed boys like Gavin Arvizo), invite them to Neverland, associate with them closely and never refuse them a call for the next 30 years or so.

What I am trying to say is actually what Michael told Shmuley Boteach about his marriages (in those tapes). He said that he always gave his time to someone else and this is what very few women would put up with.

Imagine that this “someone else” is always a sick somebody, a handicapped child or an old teacher of Michael suffering from complete loss of memory who doesn’t even recognize Michael when she sees him, and you will understand how big an impression of fatigue, boredom and misunderstanding this lifestyle will produce on ordinary people – like Michael’s publicity man Bob Jones, for example, or even his wife Lisa Marie Presley who is keen on sitcoms, a wild and glamorous way of life and who is ten years his younger…..

Well, Princess Diana was not the ordinary kind of woman and was well above the average and Michael did speak of her with elation as an ideal kind of a woman for himself, but having a kindred soul like that for a spouse is a very rare luck - an extremely rare luck, I would say.

And if one day we discuss Lisa Marie Presley and her interview I wouldn’t want you to overlook this point.

Louise
October 30, 2010 7:36 pm

Thank you Helena for your last two posts. I add here links to 2 videos that show one more time what a great humanitarian Michael was.