I've said it before, and it goddamn well bears repeating: Michael Jackson is insane, yo! And if there's any hope that his kids (if they are his kids, the jury's still out) will turn out normal, then the American authorities best get to steppin'. The man grows even more grotesquely deformed (both physically and mentally) ever day.
And the part that I don't get is that he sees nothing wrong with his behaviour! Nothing! It's completely normal to him!
Hey! If he wants to have kiddies over for sleepovers and let them live a perfect and problem-free life in his wild kingdom of rides and candy and dreams and marshmallow fluff, then he'll do it, by gum. Who are you to tell him not to? Because he looooves the kids! Loooves them soooooo much! With whipped cream and cherries on top! And can't you just see that it's all for the children?
The thing is, life doesn't happen to be like that! You can't take problems away and just have everything magically perfect. The kids Michael Jackson invites to stay at his Neverland Ranch have problems. Like their parents are divorcing and/or they're famous child-stars who don't know how to deal with the crushing pressure of celebrity at such a young age. Or they're dying of cancer. Divorce is hard. Having cancer is hard. Being a child star must be hard too. But you can't wave your rhinestone studded glove and make those things go away with a round of soda pop and pixie stix and love songs to children.
In the end, those kids still have to deal with those things. So Michael Jackson isn't really helping them at all.
No. The only person Michael Jackson helps is Michael Jackson.
I'm anxiously awaiting this "History of Michael Jackson's face" interview that's supposed to take place tonight on ABC. I've heard he's a little...upset about it. Guess what? I don't buy that. Not for a second. The astute posters at FameTracker have voiced the opinion that he is far craftier than he appears to be and I would have to agree.
He's like a Bond villain. So hokey and unbelievably stupid that you expect him to exude a pompous "You'll never catch me!" attitude and then spill his evil plan to James Bond even though the super spy is sure to escape the sharks with laser beams on their heads and foil the whole plot to overthrow the world.
He's so far gone that he's probably rocking back and forth, tenting his formaldahyde-smelling fingers, arching his yak-hair eyebrows and whispering "There's no such thing as bad publicity, my pretties! Soon, you will all love and adore me once again!" in that high-pitched giggle which gives me the wiggins.
Everything in his life is designed to bring him publicity. Good, bad, bizzare, he doesn't care. To me, the elephant man bones thing screamed not "I am eccentric and lovably wacky," but "I am a freak. I identify with this man! DO YOU GET IT? A FREAK!" The hyperbaric chamber deal meant not "I have a breathing condition" but "I want to hermetically seal myself off from society and live a life of seclusion where I am the only one that matters."
Dangling his baby over a balcony meant not "Hey everybody! Look at my kid!" but "Hey everybody! Look at MY kid! He's mine and I'll do whatever I want with him!
He is a fame-whore of the highest order. He is the poster-child for celebrity gone wrong.
And the thing is, it's not news anymore. It's spectacle. I once heard an episode of This American Life on NPR that talked about fiascos and how something meant to be serious or funny can just unravel into spectacle right in front of your eyes.
In the episode, Jack Hitt and Ira Glass talked about a play (Coincidentally, it was Peter Pan) that got off to a bad start and went downhill from there, gaining speed until it swallowed the audience whole and smashed into the wall like one of those snowballs on Looney Tunes. (You know the ones. They have like, a leg sticking out here and a ski sticking out there? Those ones.) The audience couldn't quite believe what they were seeing.
That's how I feel about Michael Jackson. He's so crazy, so incredibly, undeniably bonkers, that you don't quite know what to make of him. He's like, fiasco cubed, man!
I certainly didn't mean to contribute to his general nut-balledness when I tacked a poster of him as he appeared on the Thriller album cover to my bedroom wall, but I guess I did. Or at least, that's what he wants me to believe.
Cause it's not his fault, don't ya know. He didn't want all that fame foisted on him. He didn't want children the world over to idolize him and buy red leather jackets with multitudes of pockets. Didn't want them to clumsily moonwalk across the dining room floor to the delight of their parents. But they did. And now, it's all. their. fault.
I don't care how impossibly famous you are. I don't care about how great your albums were. Or that you were abused as a child. Goddamn, man! You're a sicko! I know you gots a lot of fans who stick up for you, but you must have some idea that some people think what you're doing to your kids is dispicable! You must have some inkling, deep down, that perhaps, just perhaps, your detractors have a point.
So use your huge stores of cash to buy a passle of therapists and a rubber room! Figure out what the hell is wrong with you! And when your're done, by all means, come on out and be adored once again. We'll like you that much more if you admit that you have a problem and work at finding a solution.
Or maybe you're beyond that help. Maybe you can't admit to the level and complexity of your psychosis. Maybe I'm reasoning with a brick wall of crazy. Maybe you should just seal off the gates to Neverland, buy yourself some dolls and a hyperbaric chamber like you wanted to all those years ago and just live out your crazy life in seclusion. You can even make up your own language if you want, and I have no doubt that you will.
It would be sad if it weren't so bloody horrifying.
Michael Jackson has finally morphed into the zombie that he so prophetically pranced around as in the Thriller video. And kids should no longer be amused, but afraid. Years from now, they will tell their own children to eat their damn peas, or Michael Jackson will tell them a beddy bye story. And maybe a cautionary tale is all we can hope to get out of this man's strange, strange life.
I am reading: The Rebel Angels by Robertson Davies. First in the Cornish Trilogy. (Despite my best intentions, I haven't been able to get into the Corrections and have put it aside for now.
I am listening to: Marti Brom and the Barnshakers. Daddio.
I am watching: Living With Michael Jackson. I impatiently await NBC's Michael Jackson Unmasked which is supposed to air later this month.
