Transcript of the tribute to Jess Garcia 10/24/2021

(0:22 - 0:55)

After, um, the one that Taj and I did, and we stayed on afterwards, and it was cut off, I was telling, like, before I had told Mark and Chris who I had wanted to bring on with me, I was like, well, this guy is, like, around your age range. And when I gave them the email address, Taj's, which is at AOL.com, I was like, see, look, your age, AOL.com. And then Chris was like, get off my lawn. They're so funny, I love them.

(0:56 - 1:10)

Hey everybody, welcome to a special edition of Knocked Conscious. Um, it's Mark. Um, that clip that you just heard, that was Jess Garcia.

(1:10 - 1:47)

Um, Jess Garcia passed away, uh, about, probably by the time I release this, maybe a couple of weeks. Um, and what I'd like to do to start this is read the GoFundMe, uh, page, because it explains a little bit about what happened. And I have a couple of people who left some personal messages for her, and they wanted to share that with everyone who knew Jess, or knew of Jess, or whom Jess touched their lives, like myself.

(1:48 - 2:02)

So, um, what I'm going to do now, I'll read the GoFundMe page in its entirety. And, uh, if you get a chance to donate, please do. Um, Jess was very important in a lot of people's lives.

(2:02 - 2:12)

Uh, she certainly touched people in certain ways. Um, and we'll all share a little bit about everyone's story here. But I do want to read this first.

(2:13 - 2:30)

And we will certainly, uh, proceed from there. Uh, like I said, I do have a couple of audio clips of people who knew Jess, who wanted to leave personal messages. And I also have a couple messages that were written, and those people had asked me to read it for them.

(2:30 - 2:45)

Um, for whatever reason, you know, which I'm happy to do. So, um, this is from Shanie O'Kane of, I'm assuming at MJ Innocent. Um, and Annika, I believe, it was signed by as well.

(2:45 - 3:02)

So, Shanie, Annika, and the wider MJI team. Um, this is a GoFundMe in memory of Jess Garcia. I think you can go on GoFundMe.com. And then I think it's slash in hyphen memory hyphen of hyphen, Jess hyphen Garcia.

(3:04 - 3:27)

Um, you never truly know what's around the corner. The team at MJ Innocent are shocked and overcome with grief after learning of the very sudden loss of our beloved comrade, Jess Garcia, who sadly passed away yesterday, 11th October, 2021. She was an incredible human being who was completely robbed of a promising future.

(3:28 - 3:55)

The injustice of a life taken long before her time fills us with utter devastation. We know that there will be many amongst us that each share their own special relationship with Jess, and you are no doubt hurting and processing all of that, trying to comprehend this tragic news. Activist, devoted force of nature, tireless, hardworking, kind, intelligent, driven, funny, and determined.

(3:56 - 4:20)

These are just some of the words that come to mind when we think of who Jess was. She had such strength of character and a true belief in standing up for her convictions. Her dedicated and fearless support of Michael's innocence made her a well-known and admired figure in the MJ community, and Jess was one of the key players who helped ensure the international success of Danny Wu's Square One.

(4:20 - 4:25)

And that's the Square One documentary on Amazon. Well, it was on Amazon. I don't think they have them anymore.

(4:26 - 4:58)

This included her steadfast and persistent approaches in its global marketing, securing its place as a number one documentary on Amazon Prime. Jess was quite simply phenomenal and unwavering in her quest to promote it, connecting the team with popular podcasts and interviews, allowing the film to be seen by a much broader audience. We were in constant awe of her talent and the things that she was able to achieve remotely that further added to the overall critical acclaim of Square One.

(4:59 - 5:18)

The news of her passing has filled us with an overwhelming sadness. We all miss too many things about Jess, but most of all we will miss the personal connection we had with her. She was the queen of sending voice memos, and we would jokingly remind her that she didn't need to send us an entire podcast in one message.

(5:18 - 5:46)

Jess would also often call late at night to excitedly tell us people she had met who had foolishly believed the lies leveled at Michael. She would engage him, and often by the end of the discussion, Jess inevitably managed to convince him of the truth via her level-headedness and in-depth, encyclopedic knowledge of the facts. Also, her unwavering determination.

(5:46 - 6:00)

She would smash square pegs in round holes. That was the beauty that was Jess. On one occasion, she even ended up giving away one of her most beloved MJ shirts to a newly convinced fan.

(6:00 - 6:20)

That new fan proceeded to wear it throughout the duration of their time together that day, and she was thrilled. What a marvel. She never faltered in her pursuit of defending Michael, not simply because she was a fan, but more importantly because she felt it was right and just, even if this required personal sacrifices.

(6:20 - 6:31)

We will forever be inspired by her courageousness. Jess had a sharp and cracking sense of humor. Her beloved dog was named Melania.

(6:32 - 6:38)

Very true. Melania Trump, I believe, after her. After, yes, that Melania.

(6:38 - 6:58)

She loved rock concerts and Halloween. She was a staunch activist who vigorously supported movements from hashtag Black Lives Matter to being an outspoken ally for the LGBTQIA plus community. Shying away from social justice issues was not in her nature, and we loved and respected her for it.

(6:59 - 7:34)

We understand that Jess was suffering from a condition with her liver, which was not diagnosed, and quite suddenly and unexpectedly, her kidney also started to fail after a visit to the doctors over the weekend. The situation worsened, and in the very early hours of Sunday morning, Jess' situation became critical and experienced bleeding in her lungs, along with kidney and organ failure. Though she fought valiantly, she sadly lost her fight at 2.06 a.m. on Monday, the 11th of October, 2021.

(7:35 - 7:53)

We take some comfort in knowing that she passed peacefully without pain surrounded by her parents and brothers. A memorial will be held for Jess in a few weeks in San Antonio, Texas, and we will provide further information in due course. I don't know if this will be released before or after that, just so you know.

(7:53 - 8:23)

Jess' brother, Lucas, has assured us that her family are aware that she was a valued member of a worldwide network and community who are so grateful for all that she did and was loved and adored by all who knew her. Lucas has asked for us to forward anything that might be valuable to them, such as photos, sentiments from Jess, voice notes, etc. Please private message the MGI team, and we will provide the contact details.

(8:24 - 8:51)

MGI has set up a GoFundMe to raise money so that we can organize a fitting tribute to Jess. Any donations towards this are gratefully received. We are liaising with her family to determine what the most fitting tribute will be, and will provide an update as soon as we can.

(8:52 - 9:06)

Born to amuse, to inspire, to delight, and here one day, gone one night, Jess, you are forever in our hearts and will be so dearly missed. It almost doesn't seem real. You are truly gone too soon.

(9:07 - 9:18)

Shanie, Annika, and the wider MGI team. So there's the GoFundMe. What I'd like to do next is have a personal message.

(9:19 - 9:31)

I kind of put these in order, I hope, in some way. The next message is going to be from Bettina. I'll provide the Twitter handles here if anyone wants to reach out to these people individually.

(9:34 - 10:03)

Basically, Bettina, it's at Moon's Legacy. That's at M-O-O-N-S-L-E-G-A-C-Y, Bettina W.E. Here's her message. I knew Jess from our common advocacy for MJ, and I'm really grateful for that, because without that, I would never have gotten a chance to meet her, as we're literally from two different continents.

(10:06 - 10:22)

Jess was unstoppable when it came to finding the truth. She would dig up stuff that nobody even knew existed. But Jess was also awesome when it came to connecting to people.

(10:23 - 11:14)

I didn't even know how much. I just now, after her death, found out how many people around the world, myself included, considered her a friend, and how many people considered her somebody who left a huge impact on their lives, always for the better. It still feels surreal.

It still feels wrong that Jess is just gone. She still had so many years in front of her that we just taken from her. All I can say is that I loved her as a friend, and I will always miss her.

(11:14 - 11:24)

Thank you, Bettina, for sharing your message for Jess. She's definitely in our thoughts and hearts right now. Here's a personal message from Camilla on Twitter.

(11:25 - 11:35)

Her handle is at CamillaMR2. She was unable to record her message, but she had asked that I read what she had written, and I'm happy to do so now. Thank you for submitting this, Camilla.

(11:35 - 11:44)

Jess Garcia was the most amazing, kind-hearted, beautiful soul. I'm blessed to have known her on a personal level. She was like a sister to me.

(11:44 - 11:51)

She was rare. Don't see this beauty often. You got to see Jimmy Dore before you were gone.

(11:51 - 11:56)

And beware of boars. Love you with all my heart. Heart emoji.

(11:56 - 12:28)

Thank you again, Camilla. The next message is a personal message from Lena, and Lena's handle at Twitter is at Lena times 2. That's L-E-N-A-T-I-M-E-S, the number 2. At Lena times 2. Lena, thank you for recording your message, and here's her message. I apologize in advance for any audio challenges, but a lot of people send me messages through different formats, and getting the conversions and trying to get it all cobbled together is a little bit of a challenge for me.

(12:28 - 12:48)

I'm not the most technical, but I hope that everyone gets to hear all the messages. Once again, this is Lena, Lena times 2. Thank you so much for your message, and here it is. Jess was such an invaluable part of not only the Michael Jackson community, but so many other causes that she felt passionate about.

(12:48 - 12:59)

Her will and complete determination to get things done was just amazing, and we will all miss her. Thank you again, Lena, for sharing your message. We really appreciate it.

(12:59 - 13:08)

The next message that we have is from a gentleman named Giorgio. He was able to record as well. Once again, I do apologize about any audio issues.

(13:09 - 13:26)

I hope it's clear enough. It's probably easiest with headphones or earphones versus playing it on a computer or something, but here's Giorgio's message. Thank you again to everyone who did reach out to me to try to put something together to record something.

(13:26 - 13:36)

People have sent so many personal messages, and I'm so grateful for those, and I'm happy to read those other ones off as well. But once again, here's Giorgio. Still surreal to me that she's gone.

(13:37 - 13:46)

Jess was one of a kind. Though we haven't met, we still have that special connection together we had through online. It feels like we've known each other for years.

(13:47 - 13:57)

She would make me laugh, emotional or expired, depends on the conversation we had. We talked almost every day. She made an impact on my life as she did to others.

(13:57 - 14:06)

She would take the time to help everyone. I'll miss her kindness, her honesty, and her sense of humor. She was like my international sister to me.

(14:07 - 14:12)

I'll miss you forever, Jess. Thank you so much for what you did. Appreciate it.

(14:12 - 14:19)

Thank you, Giorgio. I really appreciate it. This message is from Encore at Tux Crazy on Twitter.

(14:19 - 14:32)

Encore, I hope it's Encore or Anker. I hope I'm pronouncing it properly, but thank you for your submission. Once again, Encore was unable to record it, so he asked that I just read it as well, and I'm going to do so now.

(14:33 - 14:43)

Jess was an extremely caring person. She was like a protective big sister to me. We talked about so many different topics, be it politics, Michael Jackson, or religion.

(14:43 - 14:56)

She was unguarded and always herself no matter who she talked to. I love that about her, and I aspire to be more like that. Her death was a huge shock for me and for many others in the MJ fan community.

(14:56 - 15:11)

I'm amazed how she had the energy to cultivate meaningful relationships and friendships with so many of us. She touched many lives, including mine, and I will always miss her. Thank you for that submission, Encore.

(15:12 - 15:32)

This next message is from someone whom you might all know. In case people don't know the background between how Jess and I met, I'm happy to share a little bit of the story. In my early podcasting days, I am not a social media person.

(15:32 - 15:49)

I don't have a Twitter presence or a Facebook presence or anything. When I was starting out, I would send messages or go on Twitter or whatever. Anyone who followed me, I would personally thank them for doing so and ask them what about it.

(15:49 - 16:06)

Why would someone follow me or what was it? It was interesting because what happened was, it's really late at night. Well, late is relative, right? Especially in Jess's world. I think it was about midnight.

(16:06 - 16:18)

I'm a little more of a night owl than a morning person, but not a Jess night owl. All of a sudden, at hate, the Jess started following you. I'm like, okay.

(16:19 - 16:44)

I look on her website or on her Twitter page or on her profile, and I see that she's an advocate for sexual abuse and Michael Jackson and all this other stuff. When I watched Leaving Neverland, I was pretty compelled with the feelings that there was something going on. That beside the point, she follows me, and I immediately messaged her.

(16:44 - 16:49)

I said, hey, thank you so much for following me. I looked at your profile. I saw that you work.

(16:53 - 17:17)

This is one of your passion projects is to justice, fairness, innocence for those who are innocent, things like that. I just thanked her, and I saw that. With the children, my co-host Chris and I, we did an episode about the atrocities of the Catholic Church.

(17:18 - 17:34)

I immediately mentioned that podcast to her because it dealt with Chris's best friend growing up. The church did really bad things, and they did worse things by trying to cover it up. Then they did worse things by paying off the person.

(17:35 - 17:46)

It's just one of those things where it's very challenging for me as well. I reached out to her, and I said, hey, we just did this episode or we did this episode. It sounds like something in your wheelhouse.

(17:47 - 18:18)

To which she replied, hey, have you seen Square One? It's funny because I did see Square One on Amazon when it was up. I remember after watching Leaving Neverland, if you listen to the episode with Jess and Taj and myself, you would know that initially after watching Leaving Neverland, I was pretty disgusted. When I saw Square One, I remember sitting on the sofa with my girlfriend, looking over.

(18:18 - 18:29)

Hey, do you want to watch this? Because I thought it was going to be another pylon job. I thought it was going to be more of the same. I was done at that point.

(18:31 - 18:37)

She looked at me and said, yeah, I'm not interested. Honestly, I did not know the context of Square One. I didn't know how it worked.

(18:38 - 18:46)

Thanks to Jess reaching out to me, I reached out to her saying, thank you, check out our podcast. She goes, hey, you should check out Square One. I go, you know what? That's real nice.

(18:46 - 18:53)

She's like, I'll trade a podcast for a documentary and everything. It was pretty cool. That's how we initially met.

(18:54 - 19:12)

I watched Square One and was extremely compelled. For me to change my mind, it takes real evidence or real information or something compelling. In this case, it was it.

(19:12 - 19:25)

I see Jess's name in the credits and I'm like, well, you're in the credits and all that. That's how we started. What's hilarious is somehow I'm an absolute nobody.

(19:25 - 19:42)

Here we are a month after, maybe a month and a half after we meet. She gets on a podcast with my co-host Chris, myself, and Taj Jackson, Michael's nephew. Wow.

(19:42 - 19:48)

For me, it wasn't an expectation. I had no idea. If you listen to the beginning of this clip, it was kind of the funny thing.

(19:48 - 19:53)

She did not tell us who it was. Honestly, I didn't care. I cared about her story.

(19:53 - 20:15)

I just wanted her to share her story. When it was him, I was like, wow, this speaks to how powerful, first of all, Jess is and how influential even to be able to talk with Taj and have him come on and have that conversation. It was like two hours and 47 minutes and we even cut some stuff out.

(20:15 - 20:27)

It probably was closer to three hours without a problem. We looked down and boom, three hours later, we're like, whoa. We did release that, but this next message is from Taj himself.

(20:28 - 20:39)

Taj, thank you so much for taking your time to send a message. Obviously, all of us are grateful. Jess is obviously over the moon right now.

(20:41 - 20:48)

It's still weighing heavy, but here we are. Taj, thank you so much for your message. And here it is.

(20:48 - 21:09)

Hey, this is Taj Jackson, and I wanted to read some of the thoughts I wrote down for Jess Garcia. Over the past couple of years, I've had the pleasure to chat and text with Jess, and I can't express how supportive and dedicated she was in helping me. Not only did she want to solidify my uncle's innocence like I did, she made it her mission.

(21:10 - 21:27)

When I heard of Jess's passing, I was in complete shock, like someone had punched me in the stomach. An indispensable and vital member of our MJ Army had fallen. I will always be grateful for Jess for how hard she fought for my uncle.

(21:28 - 21:46)

Just know I will equally fight to make sure people remember the dedication and love Jess had for Michael Jackson. I'm so proud that Jess was part of our team, and I look forward to seeing her name in the end credits of our future docuseries. Thank you, Jess.

(21:47 - 22:10)

Thank you again, Taj, for sending that message. The last message I'd like to share is from Tony of AtMJNewsDigest, and I believe it's now AtMJND, or it's still AtMJNewsDigest on Twitter. I think his headline is MJND now, but it's now AtMJNewsDigest on Twitter.

(22:10 - 22:42)

Tony, once again, Jess connected people, and for me personally, I cannot speak to the Michael Jackson thing because the Michael Jackson stuff is new to me. However, I can speak to people, and Jess had this ability to connect us, and it went as important as the Michael Jackson stuff is. She fought for innocence of many people.

(22:43 - 22:57)

I understand she worked with the Innocence Project, and obviously she got to meet Jimmy Dore. That was great. And all those other things, but the thing that I will remember most about Jess is just getting a message about something.

(22:58 - 23:02)

She's like, oh, you got to check this out. Oh, you got to check this out. Oh, you got to check this out.

(23:04 - 23:23)

If it wasn't for her, Tony and I would never have met. Tony and I have since done mental health podcasts and podcasts about suicide. So we've talked about some pretty heavy things, and without Jess connecting us, we would never have been able to have those really raw conversations.

(23:24 - 23:33)

So Tony, once again, thank you for sharing your message, and here it is. Hi, Mark and Chris. It's Tony from MJ News Digest.

(23:34 - 23:52)

Thank you so much for creating this space for us to share and talk about Jess Garcia. Obviously, Jess brought us together. Jess loved, absolutely loved your podcast, and she loved you and Chris, but you know that already.

(23:53 - 24:26)

I've written and I've said quite a lot about Jess over the last couple of days, but something I haven't shared is something that's quite relevant to the Not Conscious podcast. Mine and Jess's relationship wasn't just about Michael Jackson, wasn't just about Leonardo DiCaprio or fit men. Jess also helped me to confront my own childhood sexual abuse, and through sharing hers and others' experiences of abuse with me, Jess helped me unlock that last key to my own recovery.

(24:26 - 26:25)

I have to admit, for a while, I wasn't impressed with her, and she knew that, but I was really grateful, and I did acknowledge her efforts in helping me, and we smoothed that all over. But I so wish that Jess was here now, and I also wish that we had all told her how much we loved and appreciated her while she was here. Thank you, Tony.

So that's it for all the messages, guys. Jess will be missed. It's hard to lose someone that, you know, fights for others.

There need to be more out there. But I would like to share, lastly, before we call this a day, I do want to share an email that Tony and I had kind of gone back and forth on. The reason I do this is because, well, it's just important.

I mean, it speaks, once again, to how we are. So let me pull this up, and I hope that I can read it. So Tony sends me his message, and here's my email to him.

Beautiful message. Thank you. I'm reading a few people's messages per their requests.

I will start with a message from Jess about Chris, which I did, and then move down the line of all the people. I wanted Tony's to be the last one because Tony and I have a personal connection now, so it's just one of those things where he had a breadth. He spoke of Jess' breadth of care for all, and her amazingness in general, you know, her ability to fight.

(26:30 - 27:20)

So my last part of this email is, as shitty as this is, we are connected because of her. I choose to be grateful, brother. So in the interest of being grateful, I'd like to end the podcast with a clip from Jess.

Many of you know it, and it is her rock-solid Trump impression. I'm just going to leave it at that. That'll be the end.

I'm not going to have closing music or anything. I'm just going to leave it with Jess' Trump impression because it's so great. Thank you again to everyone who left their messages.

Thank you for all the kindness that everyone shared with each other about this. Heartbreaking. Too soon.

(27:23 - 27:37)

And I hope everyone gets some value out of this podcast because it's for Jess. So thank you everyone again. And here's the president herself.

(27:37 - 27:41)

Here's the greatest, most factual documentary that's ever existed.