TIAI August 21
Redirected to: <!-- m -->http://thestrippodcast.blogspot.com/200 ... keout.html<!-- m -->
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19, 2009
ABCNews' Baffling MJ Stakeout
See this?
For the past 28 days and counting, ABC News has had a journalist parked outside the home of Dr. Conrad Murray, the personal physician to Michael Jackson who was with Jackson's home when he died and is now the center of a probe into whether the death was a manslaughter. Dr. Murray, through his lawyer, has acknowledged he administered the powerful anesthetic propofol, a troubling and baffling notion.
Murray lives in the posh Red Rock Country Club in a $1.6 million home on which he hasn't paid the mortgage since December. The complex has two Arnold Palmer-signature golf courses, and Dr. Murray's home sits along the 18th hole of one. The homes are within a gated area, although there's even gated-with-in-gated for the even more exclusive folks. Murray's only in that first tier of exclusivity.
To give those of you outside Vegas some context of where this all is, here's a Google Map that shows the country club and its distance from the Bellagio:
Anyhow, back to the point. The media is in tough straits these days. You can hear about it on, well, the news. And yet the brain trust of ABC News has decided that it's a good investment -- that it's that important -- to have a 24-hour watch over this house, occupied by Dr. Murray, his wife and his four kids.
It's not just that ABC News could use the money it costs -- I'm estimating we're talking at least $15,000 a month -- to stake out Dr. Murray's home nonstop indefinitely to do meaningful journalism about the economy, health care, foreign affairs, whatever.
ABC is the only legit news agency doing this. (It appears there is one paparazzo stationed up a hill in a public area of the complex.) John Getter, the ABC producer who I visited with, befriended someone who lives in the gated community and is now on a resident's "list," which means he or his people can enter the complex and then sit there staring for hours at a time. He says he's gotten a sense of the rhythm of the Murray household but he won't shoot Murray's wife or children and Murray himself almost never comes out. Getter is Tweeting his stakeout at @Getjohn, where he's repeatedly referred to Murray as under "self-imposed house arrest." One recent Tweet: "A couple friends have mooned, sped at us in cars, taunted to attempt 2 intimidate."
Here's Getter in his car:
Getter is committed to the gig, although he did need to swap cars with his wife because hers was more comfortable and he does a lot of sitting around in the car. And he was first on the scene, obviously, when the DEA and LAPD raided Murray's house last month. But Getter told me he doesn't actually expect Murray to be arrested here; if it happens, he figures, the cops will call his lawyer and arrange a less humiliating private surrender.
So what's the point? ABC wants to video of Murray, which they haven't really gotten in all this time. They hope maybe he'll talk to them, say something, but yesterday instead Murray put out a public statement via YouTube.
The neighborhood is interesting, though. As has been reported, Elvis' doctor Elias Ghanem once lived here. What's more, Murray's home faces an empty lot and up the slope a bit is the late Ghanem's house. I don't recall which it was, but here's a pic:
Also, Harrah's veep Jan Jones lives up the block from Murray and one of the Tibertis, the family whose elders built several famous casinos back in the day, is a next-door neighbor. Oh, and not far away is Dr. Dipak Desai, who is under investigation as well because his endoscopy clinic's reuse of needles was at the center of a major Hepatitis C outbreak and panic last year.
I toured the complex just to get a feel for it. Some fabulous homes. Check it out:
The whole stakeout thing is so strange to me. Las Vegas is not a city, generally, where the media camp out on people's lawns for extended periods of time. That's New York and L.A., where it's generally a lot easier to do and where the intensity of competition among tabloid media is at its heights. I do hope ABC News decides it's worth it, but I can't imagine how they can justify that kind of cost over something that is, in the grand scheme of things, so insignificant.
Comments
WOW...
Yes in fact Elvis' doctor lived just across the "road" just like Elvis lived just across the road from the house where MJ "Died" another coincidence <!-- s:shock: -->:shock:<!-- s:shock: --> Dont think so <!-- s;) -->;)<!-- s;) -->
Its all going to plan JMO
Love you more Michael
<!-- s:D -->:D<!-- s:D -->
Seriously, what is going on?! <!-- s:shock: -->:shock:<!-- s:shock: -->
I may have had one too many glasses of wine last night so I can't say my headache is soley down to this but it sure aint helping! <!-- s:D -->:D<!-- s:D -->
no no no coincidences IMO...
"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."Haha and now you are going to look for a seven on a map again? <!-- s
BTW lets rewind a little
<!-- m -->http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5195322n<!-- m -->
I am trying to understand the implications from this redirect. Thank you for any imput. God bless....L.O.V.E.
This is one interesting redirect........
Blessings!
Supposedly he is in very bad economic situation, no money for their children. <!-- s8-) -->8-)<!-- s8-) -->
Las Vegas, The Entertainment Capital of the World.
The greatest show on earth.....
It's all a big illusion.
[youtube:tqexbhnp]
Bright light city gonna set my soul
Gonna set my soul on fire
Got a whole lot of money that's ready to burn
So get those stakes up higher
There's a thousand pretty women waitin' out there
And they're all livin' devil may care
And i'm just the devil with love to spare
Viva las vegas viva las vegas
How i wish that there were more
Than the twenty-four hours in the day
'cause even if there were forty more
I wouldn't sleep a minute away
Oh there's black jack and poker and the roulette wheel
A fortune won and lost on every deal
All you need's a strong heart and a nerve of steel
Viva las vegas viva las vegas
Viva las vegas with you neon flashin'
And your one arm bandits crashin'
All those hopes down the drain
Viva las vegas turnin' day into nighttime
Turnin' night into daytime
If you see it once you'll never be the same again
I'm gonna keep on the run i'm gonna have me some fun
If it costs me my very last dime
If i wind up broke up well
I'll always remember that i had a swingin' time
I'm gonna give it everything i've got
Lady luck please let the dice stay hot
Let me shoot a seven with every shot
Viva las vegas viva las vegas viva las vegas
Viva viva las vegas
As long as you dont draw the deathcard <!-- s
( sings ace of spades)
check out the ace of spades card from the movie apocalypse now.
<!-- m -->http://www.newtsgames.com/world-of-card ... story.html<!-- m -->
Same lightingbolt as on elvis TCB logo?
"Soon after Desai's arrival in 1980 he became tight with Dr. Elias Ghanem, Goldsmith said. Ghanem was a Lebanese immigrant whose career had taken off in Las Vegas a decade earlier when he treated Elvis Presley.
Ghanem, who died in 2001, also treated Liberace and Michael Jackson, earning the moniker "physician to the stars." (<!-- m -->http://www.lvrj.com/news/23786294.html<!-- m -->).