Brett Pulley (Financial Expert): There is no doubt that Michael Jackson is one of the kings of the big spenders. I mean, an extremely 17)lavish lifestyle.
Taking into account absolutely everything he shelled out last year, Jacko spent on average, wait for it... more than $100,000 a day, 69,000 quid! That's a Barret starter home every twenty-four hours. But now he just can't afford it, so Jacko's been borrowing big time.
Roger Friedman (Fox News): His biggest investments are in his song catalogues and in 18)Neverland, real estate and music, which on the face of it would seem very good investments, but unfortunately he uses them constantly to borrow against. His debts are threatening to suffocate him.
Jackson was forced to settle some debts with Sony, by selling the company half the 19)lucrative Beatles catalogue. Albeit at four times what he paid for it, but his debts, especially with Sony, still run to a quarter of a billion bucks, 172 million pounds. That's a hell of a lot of 20)I.O.U's!
He's simply spending more than his earning. With one of his main forms of incomes, record sales, on the slide. Remember, Thriller sold more than 50 million copies, then there was Bad that did 25 million. Good. Dangerous did 26 million. Then we're down to History which did 15 million; quite good for most artists but for Michael Jackson, sorry, not good enough! Then there was Blood on the Dance Floor down, to the lower numbers, 4 million and finally Invicible a measly 2 million.
He's earned over half a billion dollars, but what's left after tax and all that excessive spending? Well, take those monster debts from his lucrative investments to discover our exclusive 21)liquid assets total. Today the King Of Pop is worth a disappointing third of a billion dollars, just 225 million pounds. He is hardly on the 22)breadline, but it's not much for thirty years at the top of the pop world!
算算迈克尔·杰克逊的身家
小杰是怎么赚来巨额财富的呢？这个很简单：
他的鼻形千变万化，你喜不喜欢都好，迈克尔·杰克逊对好歌好生意的嗅觉灵敏，这是压根无庸置疑的。音乐为小杰带来每一分钱进帐。不过他是在事业发展到与哥伦比亚广播公司（CBS）签约出新唱片后，巨额红利才开始滚滚而来，但是老板还需要被进一步说服。
沃尔特·耶尼科夫(CBS前总裁)：如果你还记得的话，当年迈克尔唱红的一首歌是关于一只名字叫本的死耗子。我曾经说过：“我才不会拨几百万美元给这群小孩子唱一只死耗子的主打歌。”我拿不定主意做还是不做。不管怎么说后来还是出了唱片。刚开始的时候，杰克逊兄弟组合的第一、二张专辑销售并不理想。
但到了1979年，《Off The Wall》推出后让顾虑烟消云散。小杰在CBS出的第一张个人专辑卖出1500万张，令人刮目相看，并唱红了其中四首歌。
保罗·肯巴西尼(音乐专家)：他成长了，他成功了。我是说，从《Off The Wall》的畅销，令人真的看到迈克尔·杰克逊长大了，他超越了“杰克逊五兄弟” 时期的青涩。
猜中小杰的下一次成功是什么了吗？没有奖品给哦！《Thriller》成为那十年中最畅销的专辑。
沃尔特·耶尼科夫：太难以置信了，这样的事是前无古人。单在美国，我们一周就能卖出一百万张唱片。如果每张赚五美元的话，你一星期就赚到五百万美元，一个月赚回两千万，再说我们在全球赚到的还更多，因为钱一直源源不断地从各地涌来。有时候遇到这样的情况，我们最好放手别管。
《Thriller》卖到五千多万张，从没有哪张专辑打破过这个纪录。杰克逊摘取了“流行天王”的桂冠。
沃尔特·耶尼科夫：我认为他并没有想过要卖出具体多少张。但他想成为全球巨星，想比任何人赚的钱更多，想比任何人拿的版税更多。
塞斯·里格斯(唱声教练)：迈克尔在一首歌中唱的高C部分，比许多歌剧演唱者在整出歌剧中唱出的还要多。有时他用嗓方式非常古怪。他急声尖叫，他的喊声，有时候他就这样高喊“噢”。这些古怪唱腔竟然成了他的代表风格。他也在不断探索新风格。
《Thriller》大获成功，一张专辑里唱红了七首歌曲，在Motown公司的25周年庆典上这成功达到巅峰。小杰的漫步月球舞步风靡一时。《Thriller》的成功是空前的。这张专辑给小杰赚了1.27亿美元，也就是差不多8800万英镑，然后他转而进攻另一新领域--音乐电视。
保罗·肯巴西尼：MTV那时刚出现，特别是美国人正好对这类音乐电视趋之若骛，迈克尔奠定下音乐电视之王的地位，靠的是地利、天时和天才。
文森特·帕特森(舞蹈指导)：我和迈克尔合作过多次，我把那段日子成为全盛时期。工作每每十万火急，尤其是我当时同时身兼舞蹈指导和导演，而你知道，全世界有半数人会看到这个作品。我和迈克尔合作的那几年中，有意思的是我们在每个音乐电视片中都做创新。比如我在《Smooth Criminal》中，首创让他与拍挡双双起舞，很多人是第一次从MTV上看到这种手法，还有一些让舞者作人体倾斜的效果等等。在制作《Black and White》的时候，我加进世界各地的舞者，让迈克尔学跳各国民族舞蹈。迈克尔是非常乐于尝试各种舞蹈风格的。他是有音乐电视以来最好的男舞蹈演员，是音乐电视史历来最好的舞者，也许永远都是。
布莱特·普利(理财专家)：无疑迈克尔·杰克逊也是消费天王。我认为他的生活方式是极尽奢华的。
将他去年的所有花费算在一起的话，小杰平均消费了，且慢……他每天消费了10多万美元，即6.9万英镑！时时刻刻都在花费。可这样的花法小杰现在也承受不住了，他靠借债度日。
罗杰·弗里德曼(福克斯新闻人)：他的最大投资是披头士的歌曲版权和住房，房产和音乐从表面上看似乎是相当不错的投资，可不幸的是，他经常用这两者来抵押借钱。现在他是债台高筑，逼得他连喘息的余地都没有。
为了清还所欠索尼公司的部分债务，杰克逊被迫把赢利的一半披头士歌曲版权转卖给索尼。尽管卖价是他买入价的四倍之多，可他的欠债，尤其是欠索尼的债款依然高达2.5亿美元，即1.72亿英镑。真是债务满天飞啊！
如今他是入不敷出。作为他主要收入来源之一的唱片销量也在往下滑。要记得，《Thriller》曾劲卖了5000多万张，《Bad》卖了2500多万张。很好。《Dangerous》卖了2600多万张，然后《History》跌到1500万张。许多艺术家来能做到这已经算不错了，但对于迈克尔·杰克逊来说，抱歉，还不够好！接下来的《Blood on the Dance Floor》是400万，更少了。最后一张《Invincible》只得可怜的200万。
他赚到手的有5亿多美元，在除去纳税和一切花销后还剩多少呢？唔，用他的投资收益减去高额债款，然后我们算出了独家的迈克尔身家总数：流行天王今日所剩只有10亿美元的三分之一，即2.25亿英镑，相当令人失望。虽然他还用不着靠救济维生，但以雄霸了流行乐坛三十年来看，这点身家实在算不上多！
注释:
1) Jacko是Jackson的昵称
2) hit the jackpot 大获成功，发大财
3) baseline n. 起点，基础
4) mega n. 百万
5) buck n. (口语)美元
6) solo a. 单独的
7) in terms of 在……方面
8) decade n. 十年，文中特指20世纪80年代。
9) crown n. 王冠
10) royalty n. 版税
11) yelp n. 叫喊
12) stratospheric a. 最高部分的
13) spin off 派生出的副产品
14) diet a. 日常大量接触到的东西
15) heyday n. 全盛期
16) snippet n. 片断
17) lavish a. 奢侈的
18) Neverland是杰克逊在洛杉矶附近的家，取名自童话《彼得·潘》中的梦幻岛。
19) lucrative a. 有利的
20) I.O.U即I owe you
21) liquid assets 流动资产
22) breadline n. 等待分配救济食物的队伍
★★《2003年05月号-第40期-Disc01-06》★★
Next Time That You Think You're Having a Bad Day...
当你觉得自己倒霉时，看看这……
1. The average cost of 1)rehabilitating one seal after the (Exxon) Valdez oil 2)spill in Alaska was $80,000. At a special ceremony, two of the most expensively-saved animals were released back into the wild 3)amid cheers and 4)applause from 5)onlookers. A minute later a 6)killer whale ate them both.
阿拉斯加瓦尔迪兹发生过石油泄漏后，救援每只海豹的平均花费高达八万美元。在一个特别仪式上，有两只花巨款拯救回来的海豹在旁观者的欢呼与掌声中被放回大自然。但一分钟后，它们双双被一头杀人鲸吞进肚中。
2. In 1992, Frank Perkins of Los Angeles made an attempt on the world flagpole-sitting record. Suffering from the flu, he came down eight hours short of the 400-day record; his 7)sponsor had 8)gone bust, his girlfriend had left him and his phone and electricity had been 9)cut off.
1992年，洛杉矶的弗兰克·柏金斯决心打破坐旗杆的世界记录。由于染上感冒，他在还差8小时就破400天纪录时下来；随后发现他的赞助人已经破产，女朋友早拂袖而去，而且他的电话和电都被停了。
3. A woman came home to find her husband in the kitchen, shaking 10)frantically with what looked like a wire running from his waist towards the electric 11)kettle. Intending to 12)jolt him away from the 13)deadly 14)current, she 15)whacked him with a 16)handy 17)plank of wood by the back door, breaking his arm in two places. Until that moment, he had been happily listening to his walkman.
一名妇女回到家中，看到丈夫在厨房里疯狂乱晃着身体，似乎腰间有根电线直连电热壶。为了救他于危难之中，她就近从后门边上抄起一块厚木板照他劈去，把他的胳膊劈成两段。其实此前他一直快乐地听着随身听。
4.Two animal rights protesters were protesting the cruelty of sending pigs to a 18)slaughterhouse in Bonn. Suddenly the pigs, all two thousand of them, escaped through a broken fence and 19)stampeded, 20)trampling the two hapless protesters to death.
波恩的两名动物权利保护者正在抗议送猪到屠宰场是残忍行径时，两千头猪突然从破篱笆中受惊跑出，踩死了这两名倒霉的保护者。
5. Iraqi terrorist, Khay Rahnajet, didn't pay enough postage on a letter bomb. It came back with "return to sender" stamped on it. Forgetting it was the bomb, he opened it and was blown to bits.
伊拉克一名叫凯·拉纳加的恐怖主义分子在寄邮件炸弹时没有付足邮资。邮件被盖上“退返寄信人”的印戳退回。而他忘了那是炸弹，于是开信，被炸成碎片。
注释：
1) rehabilitate v. 使身体康复
2) spill n. 溢出
3) amid prep. 在……中
4) applause n. 鼓掌声
5) onlooker n. 旁观人
6) killer whale 老虎鲸，杀人鲸
7) sponsor n. 赞助人
8) go bust 破产
9) cut off 切断，使停止
10) frantically adv. 疯狂似地
11) kettle n. 壶，罐
12) jolt v. 震摇
13) deadly a. 致命的
14) current n. 电流
15) whack v. 重击
16) handy a. 手边的，就近的
17) plank n. 板条，厚板
18) slaughterhouse n. 屠宰场
19) stampede v. 惊跑
20) trample v. 践踏
★★《2003年05月号-第40期-Disc01-07》★★
J.R.R. Tolkien and A Legend He Created
Tolkien's grand themes would play out in the world of Middle Earth. It was a world created in his head but 1)imbued with his two greatest loves -- languages and 2)mythology -- loves that were 3)ignited by his mother.
Tolkien Expert: She knew French and German and Latin. She encouraged him to enjoy language; not only to study language, but to enjoy language. She got him to thinking about language.
4)Linguistics would be Tolkien's constant 5)obsession. As a child, he spent days locked away in his room creating languages.
Tolkien Expert: While a lot of children invent languages of their own, nonsense languages, Tolkien took this to the max. He took it very seriously and invented his own language which he called Nafereen.
Years later, his self-described "mad hobby" would find its way into The Lord of the Rings.
"When he saw Strider, he 6)dismounted and ran to meet him, calling out, 'Ai na vedui Dúnadan! Mae govannen'. His speech and clear ringing voice left no doubt in their hearts the rider was of the Elven folk." (The Fellowship of the Ring, page 204)
As Tolkien 7)scribbled out chapter after chapter of Rings in his barely legible handwriting, his real life experiences began to influence his writing. His days in the English countryside, the lessons of his Catholic upbringing, and especially his horrific time spent in battle during World War I would also find its way onto the pages of his new novel.
Christopher Lee ("Sarumen"): And there's a scene where you see Hobbits - they go through the dead 8)marshes and they see all the dead faces staring up at them through the water, as a result of these terrible battles, that was actually based on Tolkien's own experiences in World War I when he saw these 9)appalling massacres of soldiers, which took place in battlefields.
"I saw them. 10)Grim faces and evil, and noble faces and sad. Many faces proud and fair, and 11)weeds in their silver hair. But all foul, all rotting, all dead." (The Two Towers, page 614)
In 1940, Tolkien's publisher, Allen and Unwin, eagerly awaited the new Hobbit book. However, Tolkien's pursuit of perfection slowed the process.
Tolkien Expert: He was a 12)perfectionist, so that he would write, push to one side, rewrite, push to one side, rewrite, but it was as if he always had to start from the beginning again every time.
Tolkien was writing not a book, but a history of Middle Earth that was rich with detail.
Elijah Wood ("Frodo"): These books were written with such depth and 13)density and sort of attention to detail, that they almost seem like history. Like you can read them and almost believe they really happened.
Sure, even the smallest detail was scrutinized. He created maps, charts and an 14)appendix the size of most books. In Tolkien's mind, he wasn't just creating a fantasy world, but an ancient mythology for England. It is this eye for detail that separated Tolkien's work from that of other fantasy writers and forever changed the 15)genre.
Tolkien Expert: He gave fairy tale a kind of geography and a map, and a history, and a 16)chronology, and a whole world in which to exist and the worlds were connected up with each other.
His 17)dedication to detail, 18)workload at Oxford, and occasional lack of interest, caused the writing process to 19)drag on. Tolkien began to doubt whether he would ever finish. Encouragement would come from a 20)fellow member of the Oxford community, C.S. Lewis, a writer who would carve his own 21)niche in the world of fantasy writing with works like, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. Over a 22)pint at the local pub, Tolkien began to share chapters of his new book with Lewis, who became 23)enthralled with the work.
Tolkien Expert: Tolkien would never have finished The Lord of the Rings without Lewis' continuous encouragement. And Tolkien really needed somebody like that.
In 1949, twelve years after he had started, J.R.R.Tolkien sat on his attic bed. Using two fingers, he typed out a complete draft of Rings. The book contained dozens of characters, 62 chapters, and lots of pages. Rings was over 1,000 pages so the editors wanted to break it up into three volumes.
Tolkien Expert: They had to talk him into publishing it as a 24)trilogy. He saw it as a single book, The Lord of the Rings.
The first volume of The Lord of the Rings, 25)entitled, The Fellowship of the Ring, was published in August of 1954. The final two volumes would be released over the next 14 months. To the author's dismay, many 26)interpreted the book as an 27)allegory for World War II.
Tolkien Expert: He discouraged any sort of 28)allegorical reading where, as a one-for-one 29)correspondence between what's in the book and what's in the world, so that Tom Bonneville's neutral territory is not Switzerland and Mordor is not Nazi Germany.
Rings proved to be a steady seller over the next decade. The income from book sales even allowed for Tolkien to take an early retirement from Oxford. The author 30)settled in, planning to spend a quiet retirement writing. Then, in the midst of the 31)turbulent 60's, Rings was released in 32)paperback in the United States. Instantly, the book became a "must read" for 33)disillusioned college students across the country.
Tolkien Expert: First of all as an anti-war book, this was the era when 34)resistance to the Vietnam War was growing, especially on college campuses.
Tolkien Expert: The readers were primarily those who had been dropping away from mainstream society. And they happened to meet Tolkien in the woods of Middle Earth.
By 1968, the book had sold over three million copies and made an 35)unwanted 36)cult hero out of its quiet and reserved author.
Tolkien Expert: Tolkien was quite horrified by many aspects of the "37)hippie" adoption of, I mean, "drug culture" ? Tolkien just wouldn't know anything about that!
Over the next several years, The Lord of the Rings would reach all corners of the globe. It would be translated into over 25 languages, 38)dissected in college classrooms, and sung about in pop songs. Generation after generation would connect with the book's themes and see them through the 39)prism of their time.
《魔戒》之父托尔金其人其事
托尔金的大作描写了一个中土世界。他凭想象创建出这个世界，其中蕴含了他受母亲激发出的两大爱好--语言与神话。
托尔金专家：托尔金的母亲会说法语、德语和拉丁语。她鼓励他去体会语言带来的乐趣；不仅要学习语言，还要体会当中乐趣。她让他揣摩语言的精妙。
托尔金一生醉心于语言学。还是个孩子的时候，他就长时间闭门不出，在房间里创造语言。
托尔金专家：当许多孩子只是咿呀乱语，自说自话时，托尔金则尽情地发挥。他认认真真地创造自己的语言，将它称为“纳法林”语。
多年以后，他更把这个自称是“疯狂的爱好”融入《魔戒》一书中。
“他一看到大步，就翻下马来迎着大步跑上去，一边大声喊着“Ai na vedui Dúnadan! Mae govannen（精灵语）。”他的话语和那金铃般的嗓音使他们确信无疑，来者是精灵族。”（《魔戒再现》第204页）
托尔金用难辨的笔迹一章接一章地写着《魔戒》，与此同时，生活经历也影响到了他的写作。他在英国郊区的生活，他的天主教背景，尤其是一战中的可怕经历，这些在他的新小说中都能找到蛛丝马迹。
克里斯托弗·李（萨拉曼扮演者）：在一个场景中能见到霍比特人--他们经过死亡沼泽，看见许多死人的脸透过水面盯着他们，那是可怕的战争所造成的。这个情景就是托尔金根据自己在一战时期的经历写成的，他亲眼目睹过战场上骇人听闻的士兵大屠杀。
“我看到他们。严峻的邪恶的脸，高贵的和悲伤的脸。许多面孔骄傲而姣好，银发上缠着水草。可是全脏兮兮的，全腐烂了，全死气沉沉。”（《双塔骑兵》第614页）
1940年，托尔金的出版人艾伦、安伟急不可待地等他出霍比特人的新书。可是，托尔金精益求精的态度使出书进度放慢下来。
托尔金专家：他是个完美主义者，所以他写完了就搁到一旁，重写后又搁到一旁，然后再重写，每次他都几乎是推翻了重写。
托尔金写的不是书，而是一部中土世界的历史，巨细无遗。
伊立加·伍德（“弗拉多”扮演者）：这些书的内容深刻而且丰富，细节很多，很接近史书。你读了以后仿佛就会相信那里面写的是真实发生过的事情。
描写的确无微不至。托尔金画了地图、图表，附录长如书的内容。托尔金不认为他是在创造神话世界，而是英国的古代神话学。对细节的另眼相看使托尔金从芸芸神话作家中脱颖而出，对奇幻文学写作产生了永久的影响。
托尔金专家：他给神话故事界定出发生的地点，有地图，有历史，有编年表，在那个世界中所有一切都彼此紧密相连。
他对细节的一丝不苟，在牛津大学的工作，以及偶尔的意兴阑珊，这些让写作进展得很慢。托尔金开始怀疑起自己是否能够完成写作。牛津大学的一位同事给了他鼓励，那人叫C.S.刘易斯，也是奇幻文学作家，写有流芳后世的《雄师、女巫和衣橱》。有一次托尔金和他在当地酒吧喝酒后，把新书拿给刘易斯看，刘易斯一读便给迷住了。
