Jacko's Last Day

Well, we finally know how Michael Jackson spent his last day on this earth. I kind of thought that we knew the basics already, but apparently CBS News felt the need to re-hash it a little bit given as how Jacko has been dead for almost a year now. (Is that really possible? Has it really been a year? I would swear to you that it was only like a month ago that my cell phone was blowing up with texts telling me he had croaked it. A year? Really?) Here's what we know (knew).

"Early in the afternoon...Michael Jackson came down the stairs of his rented mansion" and "wanted to eat something light but sustaining." It had to be both. Light but sustaining. Not just one. Not just the other. Both. Light but sustaining. He ended up with his personal chef preparing him "...seared ahi tuna with an organic salad and a glass of carrot and orange juice." Hmm. That does light but sustaining. It also sounds like his last meal.

The article says that shortly before 7pm, he left the aforementioned rented mansion and he "...traveled downtown to the Staples Center, where Jackson and his team of musicians and dancers were in final rehearsals before heading to London". So, wait a minute. It's now seven o'clock at night and all the guy has done is have breakfast? It sure wasn't a very busy last day on earth. I had busier days than that when I was 5.

"Later that night, Jackson and his dancers performed "Thriller" on stage in full costume for the first time." Tell me something. Did Michael Jackson really need any sort of costume for that show? Couldn't he have looked like a creature that was undead and not necessarily human just as he was? I'm thinking that his makeup wouldn't have required a whole lot of extra work. I mean, maybe a little extra adhesive to make sure that his nose stayed affixed in the correct position, but other than that, probably not a lot of effort.

His rehearsal ended somewhere around midnight and one of his hired, Islamic goons drove him home. "Soon after Jackson arrived home, he started complaining of fatigue and that he needed sleep." Hmm. So, it's likely after midnight and he's complaining of fatigue and needing to sleep? Is that unusual? It sounds like me...at night. I get fatigued and I decide to go to bed because I need to sleep. It's not a unique occurrence! But what happened next will shock you! And kill him!

Around 1:30am that fateful day, the now infamous Dr. Conrad Murray gave Jacko 10 milligrams of Valium. Considering that Jacko usually wanted the equivalent of a horse tranquilizer to get to sleep, that did nothing. Thus, about half an hour later, Dr. Murray gave him 2 milligrams of lorazepam (it's the same drug family as Valium) through a saline drip. It's unclear as to why the Valium was in pill form and the lorazepam was administered through a drip. It's also unclear as to why Dr. Murray (or any doctor, for that matter) would have agreed to such an arrangement.

How would you like it if that was your job? You spend all of that time going through medical school just so that you can sit in a chair and watch Michael Jackson sleep? Yes, it sounds like an incredibly easy gig. It also sounds like an incredibly boring gig. And the way that we now know that everything turned out? He probably could have had Bubbles the chimp doing what he did.

Regardless as to the amount of drugs now coursing through his veins, Jacko was still awake around 3am, so this time Dr. Murray gave him 2 milligrams of another Valium relative, this one called midazolam. By 5am, all of this had done absolutely nothing, so it was back to the lorazepam for another 2 milligrams. And by 7:30am, it was back to the midazolam for another 2 milligrams of that.

At this point, he now has taken 10 milligrams of Valium, 4 milligrams of lorazepam and 4 milligrams of midazolam and the guy is still wide awake. By 10:40am, Jacko had been begging for the propofol or what he called, his "milk". Look, Jacko...it's almost eleven o'clock in the morning. You have several drugs making their way through your emaciated system. It's over. Stop trying. Just give it up and get up. You've been lying there all night. It's not like you're exhausted or anything. Yes, not sleeping sucks, but come on, man! Get over it. Get up and get yourself a light but sustaining breakfast and go about your day.

Why Dr. Murray ended up caving in is beyond me. I think by 10:40 in the morning, I would have said "Screw the propofol!" and just thwacked him over the head with a baseball bat or something. That would have knocked him out. And you'd probably only have to do it once. It wouldn't require multiple applications like that lorazepam and midazolam crap. One good "THONK!" and you're done. Or maybe suggest to him that he count sheep. Or count Macaulays. Something.

Unfortunately, I wasn't around to keep Jacko in line. Nor was I there to keep Dr. Murray in line. And Dr. Murray ended up giving him 25 mg of propofol through his drip. Now, usually propofol is used on people as they're being cut open by a surgeon. It's rarely used on reclusive pop stars, once married to Elvis Presley's daughter, who have a hard time nodding off.

What happens after that, in the end, is fairly clear. (He croaks it.) How it happens (the dying and all) isn't. Dr. Murray says that he gave him the propofol, stayed with him for 10 minutes, left for 2 minutes and came back to find him not breathing. Of course, he didn't end up calling 911 until about 12:27pm. That translates into about an hour an a half after all of the breathing stopped. He wasn't pronounced dead until 2:26pm, so that means that they were essentially trying to revive a corpse for about 2 to 2-1/2 hours. I know that it seems silly to state that it was clearly a waste of time, but I'm kind of thinking that they would have known that then as well. Wasn't he starting to get stiff by that point? You can pound on a guy's chest all you want, but once you notice that it's the equivalent of pounding on a 2x4, what say you call it a day, all right? Ok, then.

Sounds like a pretty sucky last day of life if you're asking me. I mean, at least Elvis had some stuff on his schedule before he died straining at stool in his own bathroom. He had a dental appointment at 2 in the morning. He played racquetball at midnight or something. He had lots of stuff going on. All Jacko did before 7pm was eat breakfast. A sad end to a rather sad life. I still can't believe it's been a year.