Michael Jackson -- unrecognizable motivations and constant ruination

My friend Bob Rossney has a wonderful piece about Michael Jackson's death, one that made me consider MJ's career in a new light.

The saddest thing about Jackson was not just that his fame ruined him, it's that it continued ruining him even after he was essentially finished as an artist. In the last decade of his life he was no longer a great singer or a talented composer or a brilliant choreographer; he was someone who had once been all those things and was now Michael Jackson. Here was a guy whose entire existence from early childhood had been wrapped up with what happened when he did things that made other people happy and excited. And that was unavailable to him. He still could make people happy and excited by showing up and having his picture taken, but that's all he had left.

Someone on the WELL used a word about Jackson's probable history as a child molester that made me stop and think: "unforgiveable." It strikes me that it never even occurred to me whether or not to forgive Michael Jackson. In my mind, he was so far away from normative that the question of forgiveness seems totally irrelevant. Not that his no longer really being human in any meaningful sense justified his actions, or mitigated the harm he did, but that it makes no more sense to judge the morality of his actions than it would to judge Henry Darger's. Their creepiness, sure. But this was a man (it's a mark of how profoundly damaged Michael Jackson was that it feels strange to call him "a man", just as it feels strange to recognize that when he died he was older than the President of the United States) who spent every day of his life embedded in a matrix of perverse incentives. The terrain of his personal landscape was unrecognizable. I can understand the choices that my cat makes more deeply than I could understand the ones Jackson made.

Some thoughts on Michael Jackson (via Making Light)

• [EH]

  I keep having the sense that Michael Jackson is a consequence of acute and chronic loss of privacy.

• [Takuan]

  “I try not to think of him as Michael Jackson anymore, but some random kid thrust into circumstances way beyond his control,”

  and that is how.

• [aTanguay]

  “The terrain of his personal landscape was unrecognizable. I can understand the choices that my cat makes more deeply than I could understand the ones Jackson made.”

  I think a testament as to how incredibly unrecognizable this guy’s world was compared to the average person is the fact that Lisa Marie Presley, who grew up in a bubble almost as his, had to abandon her goal to bring him into the shred of the ‘real world’ they she had carved out for herself.

• [Anonymous]

  INFO @ #6:

  Not calling you out here, but genuinely curious – can you elaborate on that statement at all?

• [jonathan_v]

  I take Michael Jackson at face value – a completely fucked up person.

  His parents were abusive, exploitative and domineering — how they were granted temporary custody of their grandchildren is a mystery to me.

  He grew up in the spotlight — that is to say he never grew up at all. Halloween Jack says “he was himself assuming the role of a preteen, pre-sexual boy”… I don’t think he was assuming that role, I think that’s what his personality really was.

  He never had a real childhood, he never grew up, he used his millions to create a ranch named “Neverland” , after the place in Peter Pan where children never grow up. The place is a mini amusement park, every child’s fantasy, because the only thing he could share with normal people were those childhood dreams… never understanding the dynamics a real family or a life grounded in reality.

  As for hiding his children’s faces ? News outlets cited the blog/tabloid TMZ reporting he was dead probably long before the eventuality was realized; every single thing he did became a news story for tabloids and TV. It wasn’t until this week though that most people knew what his children looked like. As odd and quirky as he was — there’s something poetic about the way he tried to save his own children from the limelight that ultimately destroyed his life.

• [pigiored]

  What do you need to conquer the world for, if you have lost your soul?

  As a kid his father would even whip him during the continuous training in the studios but, regardless how hard he would try, the son never got the desired love, doomed to feel for the rest of his life like a robot -which was the way Michael Jackson danced.

• [gothicgeek]

  thursday morning, has been that the press enjoy poking fun at…

  friday morning the king of pop….

  sad old world eh?

  :/

• [DWittSF]

  Was Michael a child molester?

  Two words: Jesus Juice.

  Look it up.

• [Anonymous]

  After I read Neuromancer and boned up on my 3Jane, I started thinking about the obscenely wealthy more and more. Perhaps some celebrities are so wealthy that they are no longer human. I think Michael could have been in the Tessier-Ashpool family. No clones yet though.

• [Anonymous]

  Was Michael Jackson actually convicted of anything? (Answer: No – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jackson#1993.E2.80.9394:_Sexual_abuse_accusations_and_first_marriage) Don’t feel bad, I didn’t know until I looked just now, either.

  After news of his death broke, I – like many, it turns out – sought out Corey Feldman’s blog, sure that he’d ‘come clean’ about Michael Jackson and finally reveal him as the person who molested him. (http://defamer.gawker.com/396930/corey-feldmans-molester-assistant-a-potent-reminder-to-always-check-references) – I guess I was wrong there, too.

  The opposite was true – Corey praises Michael Jackson instead, saying that it was not Michael who molested him, rather they had a falling out the day before 9/11/2001.

• [Anonymous]

  Michael Jackson may be the consequence of a creepy father. He used the media attention of his son’s demise to chat about his own business schemes.

• [Pyros]

  Michael Jackson’s death was tragic. I don’t think his life necessarily was, contrary to what most people seem to want to believe. Is it really so terrible to have limitless vocal, creative, dancing and compositional talent, to be adored by billions and to have untold riches? If so, I would happily settle for such a tragic life. I’m not saying that he wasn’t exposed to the usual disappointments or that he always had it easy (his father was rather odious, it has been said), or that fame didn’t come with certain burdens, but things could have been far worse for him than they were!

  His status as a pop icon did begin to fade, but even in this there is nothing unusual or tragic. This is what happens to all performers whose appeal is rooted so firmly in a kind of terpsichordian physicality. It also happens to all professional athletes. Should we regard the waning of every single such physical career as tragic? That’s plainly absurd. To write him off as a sad, tragic case, is perhaps the most dehumanizing thing of all. All who grow old experience morbidity of some sort. This doesn’t make a person’s entire life tragic.

  I also don’t necessarily believe that he was nearly as strange as he is commonly supposed to be. That is, I really don’t have any direct evidence. What most people focus on is his professed love for children. In our modern day world of uber-cynicism we can scarcely believe that someone may simply have had a great fondness for children, and this is made all the more difficult to believe because the media portrayal of how Michael Jackson acted as an adult doesn’t comport to received notions of how an adult should behave. A man so incomplete and “damaged” certainly couldn’t be trusted around children. We buy the media-imposed wacko label, so we have our doubts about his innocence. Maybe our cynicism says more about our own wackiness, though.

  Having great riches is something that sets you apart, unavoidably, from most people, and if it makes you strange, it does so in a strange kind of way. At the very least, you will probably end up with things that most people don’t have, and these things will be a point of departure between you and “regular” people. How many of your neighbors, for example, have airplanes, mega-yachts, staff, or a Neverland Ranch?

  Because money provides one with the means to indulge perverse inclinations that might otherwise lie dormant as well as a sufficient amount of time to let them germinate, most rich people eventually begin to act strangely from the perspective of average people. It is not easy to have sympathy for the rich, but in a way they do deserve a certain amount of sympathy. Wealth relieves one of all the ordinary pressure one might otherwise experience in a given atmosphere. But just like in the actual atmosphere, the right balance of pressure is needed for normal functioning.

  The point is that I don’t believe that Michael Jackson was demented or highly abnormal. He was eccentric no doubt, but his eccentricities were within normal limits for someone in such unusual circumstances. A lot of so-called weird people are actually responding normally and quite predictably to a set of “weird” circumstances. Others in a similar situation would probably respond in a similar way. That is how my judgment of Michael Jackson is tempered, anyway. Not that I’m any paragon of virtue, but I would like to think that we may all have a bit of compassion and tolerance for others, be they wealthy or poor, who seem to act strangely.

  Lastly, I want to address Rossney’s “Some Thoughts on Some Thoughts on Michael Jackson”. I thought the initial, Some Thoughts on Michael Jackson, to be a little insensitive both to the dead man, and also to his wide fan base. This is a person we all grew up with, and people are genuinely saddened by his passing. If Michael’s stature diminished over the years, his death engenders a strong nostalgic impulse to remember him at his best just as it would be with anyone so cared about.

  He meant a lot to a lot of people, and his memory deserves a certain amount of respect. For many, he was a kind of childhood idol, so it might sting a little to see him characterized as a colossal deviant. In any case, I think the second piece struck the right tone much more so than the first piece.

  The only thing I would quibble with in the second essay is Rossney’s contention that a payoff of $20 million points to culpability. If you had $500 million, would you be willing to pay $20 million to get yourself off the hook for something that might result in even a 20% probability of you going to jail for 20 years? I would. In fact, if we are looking for evidence of Michael Jackson’s rational mind, I would submit this as exhibit A.

• [Anonymous]

  I blame Joe.

• [Anonymous]

  This year Jackson held a press conference, or something, anyway he spoke and a little bite of his spoken statement was on the radio. And I didn’t recognize his voice. It was the first and only time I ever heard Michael Jackson speak as if he were trying to sound like a grownup. He just sounded like a regular guy.

  So, what the fuck was he trying to do the previous 40 years of his life, is an interesting question.

• [Anonymous]

  Many still perceive/d Michael Jackson, amongst other things, as being weird…yet it was actually Michael who thought that it is many things in this world that are weird…He is right!!

  Michael Jackson was simply, *different (in some/certain ways and with a universal insight to which many of us will never be able to reach or bother trying to), but human nature usually has a habit of destroying things they do not comprehend, simply don’t agree with and see as not the same as them… different – even if it is beautiful. However, historically, humans have always destroyed beautiful things, what is new, hey!

  “Forgive”? It seems that, not only do many play judge and jury, but God, too!

  The only thing Michael Jackson may need to be forgiven for in a world such as this one is, for being too trusting, naïve, too painfully open and honest, humble, compassionate and kind!

  …”no longer really being human in any meaningful sense…”

  My God, what sad and pathetic words to use toward anyone – you wouldn’t even talk about a handicap baby who was born a complete vegetable in that way, but of course, it is okay because it is Michael Jackson.

  The man was more “human” AND Humane than all of those that I have witnessed who have readily judged him via the usual media – the lying vultures, the back-stabbers, and those members of public across many Internet boards, via articles, comments, videos – those who became their own, self-appointed judge and grand jury re: past accusations/trial – his life…yes, those who cruelly ridiculed him, judged him, slandered him, scorned him, poked fun at him, his image, his voice – anything that pertained to him – those, (and some for more personal/sinister reasons only they know – you know who you are), who have never and WILL never bother their ass to do some IN-DEPTH, UNBIASED RESEARCH of their own, instead preferring to latch onto ONE side of a TWO-sided story. Collectively it is THIS kind who have contributed to the slow demise of this gentle soul… it is THIS kind who needs to be forgiven, because it is THIS I perceive as, one of the biggest sins of mankind against an individual!!

  THAT is what I perceive as…”no longer really being human in any meaningful sense…”.

  When it comes to Michael Jackson, it is the aforementioned that leaves me in despair with certain aspects of human nature.

• [Tzctlp]

  Where is the evidence that MJ was a child molester?

  If you are going to keep posting these allegations you should back them with evidence.

  Enough of this nonsense, put up or shut up, the man was acquited once after a full trial, where the alleged victims happened to be the unfortunate children of money grabbers, now evidence is being made public that make it clear that MJ was victimized when the allegations first surfaced, which is why he decided to settle: they were out to get him. Certainly he acted stupidly, don’t do innocent things that look like bad things because we have lost our innocence, nowadays it would seem at times like if paedophilia was the most prevalent ill in modern society.

  The very least any person deserves is to be treated fairly, so if the man was never found guilty of any wrongdoing, anybody claiming the contrary should be expected to show his evidence or be condemend.

• [desiredusername]

  Regarding my post #45 (DESIREDUSERNAME). It was directed at post #41 (DWITTSF) not #33 (ANONYMOUS) and yet at the time I swear 41 was then 33 which is what I typed.

  In any case that is the correction.

  If I have to do it again, I doubt I will. I don’t think anybody is interested commenting on MJ’s vitiligo and my theory about broken life narratives.

• [gobo]

  More than anything, Michael was guilty of acute naivete. He gave off the impression of a child molester so well that it was very easy for his accusers to get away with what they did; both of his 13-year-old accusers were found to be lying, their parents exposed as manipulative extortionists during the trials. But only someone as naive as MJ would go on national TV to “clear his name” by holding hands with a young boy and telling the world that sleeping with boys is wonderful. We know what you meant, Michael; that doesn’t make it sound any better as a soundbite.

• [gobo]

  So even after Michael Jackson, his friends, his relatives, and the kids he shared a bed with all denied that any sort of inappropriate activity was going on… even after the kids who accused him admitted they were coached by their parents into inventing their stories… even after tapes of their parents plotting to take Michael’s money were found… people still fall back on old tabloid rumors to form their opinions of the man? That’s really sad.

• [Jenonymous]

  Why do I think MJ was a child molester? The settlements. If he was innocent, he woulda spent the $$ getting lawyers to tell exploitative parents to go f**k themselves, not paying it out to them as hush money.

  Saturday Night Live did a GREAT skit about this after the first trial/payout. Basically, they had a fat, unattractive, white, blue-collar 40-something going on about how much he loved kids, and why he had a huge free playground in his yard, and gave away candy, and loved to sleep naked with little boys. The “ick” factor was palpable, and it was pretty much a commentary that any other individual doing what Jackson did–as in any other carbon based life form on the planet EXCEPT Michael Jackson–they would have been in Club Fed in solitary a long time ago.

  Jackson was just hiding in plain sight. All the rest of his behaviors, down to grooming his vics, is textbook molester.

• [Anonymous]

  Well GOBO, he didn’t actually say “sleeping with boys are wonderful”. Whenever he talks about children in general, (both genders) many replace that word with “boys”, when they quote him. What Michael Jackson said on a few occasions is that he thinks it’s a wonderful act of love to offer your bed to someone that visits your home. Meaning in the hospitable sense, to let someone sleep over if they want to sleepover – instead of kicking them out at the end of the day.

  And what child wouldn’t want sleep over and spend the next day with Michael too, if he is as fun as many children have said he is?? Plus, if you’re a fan and a child with less manners, you’d beg Michael to let you sleep over, so you could spend as much time with him as possible the next day. Michael had a hard time saying no, even to pushy kids. I work with children, and I know how pushy they can get if they like you and want to stay with you. Michael would refer to offering a bed to sleep over as a very kind and loving act, and IT IS, especially if some of these children come from broken homes. But it’s just TOO kind sometimes

  It’s probably not very appropriate because of the misunderstandings it can cause. IF SOME OF YOU WOULD JUST STOP LOOKING AT IT FROM THE CHLD-MOLESTING ANGLE THAT THE MEDIA AND THE TABLOIDS WERE TRYING TO MAKE US DO. Michael was extraordinarily kind and generous especially towards children – that was his greatest FAULT. YES it’s not normal to offer a bed to kids that have their own home to go back to. But Michael was not normal. He was a superstar – Kids wanted to be around him and stay as long as they could.

  I agree that he was a little too kind and naive at times – Which is exactly why people took advantage of him, and why he freely told the world that he offers children sleepovers at his place. He never saw anything bad in that. He was trying to point out his innocense in that act. In most cases he wasn’t even sleeping in the same bed or in the same room. In that documentary for example, they both said that Michael was sleeping on the floor and the boy on the bed. With his closest friends, fx. Macauly Culkin, he would sometimes share the same bed. But you have to imagine that we’re talking about HUGE beds. And these children have all said that nothing ever happened. To him these sleepovers were like slumberparties with fun and games (childlike fun and games – not the kind of games that goes through a pervert’s mind!) In his interview with Oprah he said he missed out on things like slumberparties etc. as a child.

  He was just reliving his childhood. That’s WHY he was the easiest target for child molestation charges. When asked later if he still thinks it’s a good idea to share your bed with children, he respended “Of course, why not. But if you’re a pedophile, if you’re Jack the Ripper, if you’re a murderer, THEN it’s NOT a good idea.” That’s the thing, because he knows he’s NOT a pedophile he doesn’t see anything wrong in sharing a bed with his kiddie friends and talking about it afterwards. It’s not a good idea from the world’s point of view, because THEY don’t know if he’s a pedophile, and they’re mind automatically goes to the worst that these acts can represent.

• [thequickbrownfox]

  I said before that MJ was eclipsed by the British New Wave by about 1985.

  In terms of the production of pop music, or indeed the condition of pop music, he was purely a matter of reference.

• [joannaw]

  as lame as this sounds, i almost feel this was his fate. i keep thinking about how tragic his life was, and that’s what makes me sad. i haven’t been thinking about all of the allegations and whether or not he was a child molester. instead, i just keep thinking about his rad music and the huge impact he had on the world. no one can take that away. it makes me very sad to see any human being as disturbed as he was.

• [Cheqyr]

  it makes no more sense to judge the morality of his actions than it would to judge Henry Darger’s

  Sorry, but I don’t understand the correlation here. Darger was a recluse, very religious, and very poor, whose art was not discovered until he was dying. Jackson was the exact opposite.

  Darger never did anything amoral or wildly inappropriate that I’ve heard of. Yes, he was a lonely, damaged person who glorified the innocence of childhood, but there are many of those all around us.

• [desiredusername]

  @33 I looked it up. It’s all here. It’s not that compelling of a sound bite.

  MJ’s death has create a giant worldwide game of “psychoanalyze Jacko”. Is there a betting pool in Vegas on this? My money is on his experiencing the onset of vitiligo at the height of his career as causing him to flip out about his already incomplete identity. His face was already changing, not just from vitiligo which may have sparked a body dismorphic disorder.

  Now if a person yearns strongly enough to be the “normal” person they were at a certain age then that can lead them to conclude, “if I can’t be the normal well adjusted person I was when I was a tween, let me at least associate with a tween that is normal”. You see that behavior in all kinds of lifestyles, from people that at every birthday are 25 to people that practice infantilism. In the case of someone that was molested, that way of thinking may lead them to conclude that they need to have sex with the symbolic object of their better history, a person who appears to be the same age the survivor was, before the life changing event. However I think for MJ, his suffering a disfiguring disease at the height of absurd and almost unparalleled popularity is sufficient reason for his interest in associating with younger people.

• [Christiana Ellis]

  Without wanting to say I’m glad he’s dead, (because I’m not), in some ways it seems like a relief, perhaps even for him.

  He’d become so strange that it was sometimes difficult even to enjoy his early work without it being tainted by some new headline.

  To use a cheesy metaphor, it’s almost like that amazing talent has now been freed of the “earthly baggage”, and maybe the man himself is at least at peace.

• [mdh]

  Why do I think MJ was a child molester? The settlements.

  You’re easily swayed.

  You believe it because you want to.

  I remain unconvinced either way, because that’s what the evidence says.

• [Anonymous]

  MJ was an artist. His ability to creatively change music and dance are most likely directly related to his ability to transcend the social norms that you all seem to need to judge him by. Force all artists to be the conformist, Gap-wearing 9-5ers that you want them to be and you will probably kill art as well.

• [Rob Beschizza]

  “his no longer really being human”

  This predicate is just a fantasy. It’s precisely why there’s so much bullshit on the subject.

• [Anonymous]

  Let’s introduce a fact into this discussion.

  Michael Jackson is dead.

• [Anonymous]

  In his later years, he DID provide an interesting proof that one could arrive in the uncanny valley from the OTHER direction.

• [aTanguay]

  “The terrain of his personal landscape was unrecognizable. I can understand the choices that my cat makes more deeply than I could understand the ones Jackson made.”

  I think a testament as to how incredibly unrecognizable this guy’s world was compared to the average person is the fact that Lisa Marie Presley, who grew up in a bubble almost as his, had to abandon her goal to bring him into the shred of the ‘real world’ they she had carved out for herself.

• [Grozbat]

  Where’s the so-called “insight” in this article?

• [mdh]

  What we call weird may have been a man pursuing goals he set himself very young – like the cogniscent rejection of growing up.

  And what you see as “cogniscent rejection” some have suggested as ‘developmental disorder’.

  I asked the crowd here about Aspergers in regard to MJ the other day, because a ‘cogniscent rejection’ of growing up is one way that syndrome presents itself to others. A brilliant childlike quirkiness is another. Just Saying.

• [J France]

  Hmm, I think at worst Michael Jackson lost touch with a line of appropriateness with kids. Sexual abuse? He was found not guilty. And settlement is pure logic, you don’t have to work too close to civil litigation to know that settlements aren’t a good indicator of guilt.

  At least that’s what you see it some child abuse cases – the abused doesn’t become abuser, but doesn’t know boundaries.

  Cross that with his… well, whatever he was, and he was an easy target for money grabbing bastards. What happened to him, from all angles, was perverse and cruel. The media one of the worst perpetrators.

  And it goes on still, but at least it’s good to see a lot of positive reflection on ‘The King of Pop’ not the ‘Wacko’.

• [Takuan]

  it’s only developmental disorder if poor people do it.

• [ablestmage]

  I take Michael Jackson at face value – a completely fucked up person.

  Your estimation of face value smells more of plastic than your purported adversary was ever beset with. There’s no way in the sharts of all China that you can even really know yourself, much less who or what a completely seperate person. You yourself wield the power of “impression” and can shape it with reason, augmenting it with reliable evidence — rather than the overt speculation you appear to thrive upon.

• [Takuan]

  @48 I don’t mind eccentric to the the point of lunacy artists. It’s the posers that get up my nose.

• [Bob Rossney]

  I started to respond to the comments here, and then things just got out of hand. In the event you’re interested in my response, you can find it at http://www.koaxkoaxkoax.com.

• [WalterBillington]

  JM Barrie, anyone?

  Calling MJ a paedophile because of the way he made you feel when you saw his image is ridiculous – no less silly than children fearing someone with a hunchback because they look like a monster.

  There is an accurate point though that in real life, MJ’s appearance and apparent countenance may have made him indistinguishable from those ghosties in the public’s collective mind. Helped ably along by the committed media, who boosted sales dramatically on the back of “whacko jacko” hyperbole.

  He was never found guilty. There was never adequate evidence. Illigitemately labelling him as a child abuser makes each person who does so vulnerable to the following charge: if you have ever delighted in making a child experience joy, exhiliration, enthusiasm, by spinning them round or throwing them up in the air, or riding on your knees, or splashing around in a pool, then you’re likely a paedophile. Because you got off on physical play with a kid. It made you feel good.

  So, shall we start again?

  If this man was a paedophile, he did a good job of concealing it in all his conversations. He simply had no boundaries, or care about the trammelled restrictions of modern-day society.

  There’s much more complexity and subtlety here than the average joe (BB reader) can sense. What we call weird may have been a man pursuing goals he set himself very young – like the cogniscent rejection of growing up.

  If hard evidence comes out, fine, call him a monster. But what is it he really did to make everyone want to have this view? He made it into salacious headlines, and exhibited a vulnerability to media that made his public persona open to attack, on any front.

  If you were all so shocked by the initial accusations back in 1993, where’s the history of your campaign to shut Neverland down, or have him stop receiving kids?

• [WalterBillington]

  @15 I’m interested in the lack of boundaries concept you raise – where’s it from? Cheers, Walter

• [Bob Rossney]

  (Oh, and I also didn’t intend to suggest that Henry Darger was a child molester. I don’t think it’s really meaningful to judge the morality of what was, in essence, a person recording his private thoughts. In general I tend to fall on the side of judging the ethics of acts, not thoughts. It was just on my mind because of this.)

• [Lydia9]

  @ Cheqyr

  I actually find the Darger comparison pretty apt.. Both Darger and Jackson had childhood experiences that left them with an inability to deal with emotional issues, (very different ones, yes, but their inability to move on from them is what I see as relevant) they both exhibited regressive behavior, they were both enormously talented artists, and they both seemed to be driven by a desire to isolate themselves from the (frightening) world at large by retreating into a fantasy world where children and childhood are idealized to an extent that strikes most people as perverse… I don’t think the suggestion was that Darger and Jackson (I’d put J.M. Barrie on that list as well) were totally alike in terms of the lives they led and their day-to-day problems, but they definitely seemed to share some of the same fears and obsessions, and dealt with them in ways that are hard for people to really understand.

• [forgeweld]

  “…no longer really being human…”

  Really? You make that pronouncement from such a distance, through reportage on his life? Fck ff.

• [Lorette C. Luzajic]

  Not human in any meaningful sense? How many times did the poor man have to wail, “I’m only human, I cut, I bleed.” Does mental illness or fame or eccentricity make him anyone less human? The man was not a monster. He was, in fact, a saint whether you thought about “forgiving” him or not. Michael Jackson did more charity work than he did entertainment work. Hardly human- more than human. His financial problems were caused largely by his generosity. He routinely built hospitals, supplied children with organ transplants, gave to AIDS research, reached out to tsunami victims, spent half his life on the cancer wards. He was noted, matter of fact, in Guinness Book of Records as celebrity supporting the most charities. He didn’t brag much about it, only here and there. Throngs of sick and orphaned children arrived every day at Neverland, which MJ paid for so underprivileged kids could have a Disneyworld, too. Indeed, many proceeds of concerts and entire TOURS went to people in need.

  Forgive? You’ve got to be kidding me.

  Of course, even all of the above might change if you really did believe he molested children. But at the very least read the wikipedia entry on the trial, or better yet, some real research. The brilliant famous Canadian lawyer Eddie Greenspan went on record saying the accusations were so weak that the trials were a joke. Transcripts exist which show police coaching Jason on what he should say, telling him Michael had raped kids and they needed him to come up with something to help put the man away.

  Maybe more should have been made of the fact that accuser Gavin was dying when MJ came to visit him in the hospital. And then set to work fast to procure organs for the patient. His family couldn’t afford to keep him alive, so he moved into Neverland where MJ paid for his medical treatment.

  Even Martin Bashir, whose documentary started the whole hell by implying that MJ was a dangerous pedophile, went on air last week to say Michael was the world’s greatest entertainer. And that, by the way, even though he started the downward spiral with his witchhunt, he hadn’t, after all, seen anything at Neverland.

  Oops.

  Just a few thoughts.

• [EeyoreX]

  I, personally, kept hoping for the big plot-twist to be uncovered in the third act. Like, where it would turn out that Neverland was actually a movie set put there for the benefit of the journos, and where the secret reason that his children were forced to wear weird masks in public was because they were all stand-ins while the real Jackson family was off leading a semi-normal life somewhere else.

  I think it’s in human nature to put everything that happens into a narrative. Even more so when it comes to Michael jackson. We desperatly want it to be a coherent story rather than a random series of pointless occurrances.

  I also think this is what drives those people who still try to rationalize that multimillion dollar settlement. Guilty or innocent, it was still a total character suicide to pay up rather than go to court, and you wouldn’t have to be a professional brand manager to figure that one out.

• [kisters]

  How sad he couldnt get real help in due time.
  Of course, when those supposed to care for you arent exactly capable, it gets kinda messy.

  “You hear the door slam and realize theres nowhere left to run
  You feel the cold hand and wonder if youll ever see the sun” Thriller

• [Pyros]

  The comments here are interesting because they reveal the strange and perhaps contradictory space that MJ occupies in the public mind. Who did not grow up with Michael? Who did not marvel at his effortless talent? Who, at least in their dreams, did not sleep with Michael? How many dressed like him, imitated his moves, longed for his grace, and devoutly wished for even an ounce of his talent? Because of this intimacy, like a wayward family member, he cannot become fully disowned or reviled even if we give some credibility in our minds to his later, alleged and wholly unproven sins. The media machine, like Rossney, owing to facile exigencies, will trot out, and try to impose the old familiar disdainful monster template on a man we all knew to be all too human. The life of Michael Jackson stands as a monument to art. The piece about Michael Jackson by Rossney stands as a very small and pitiable monument to cruelty. What will they say about you, Rossney, when you are dead, if they say anything at all?

• [Anonymous]

  I’m surprised that so many people are so clueless about the legal cases MJ faced regarding his involvement with kids. He was never convicted, and problems seemed to suddenly vanish as soon as the accusers received their settlements. Vampires are real, they’re just not poncy Edwardian neck-biters anymore.

• [Takuan]

  you don’t all actually believe he’s really dead?

• [jenjen]

  My personal non-expert opinion about what ruined MJ (don’t we all have one) is that he never had anyone in his life he could really trust. Or at least, he didn’t think he did. Everyone wanted something, a piece of him or something for themselves. Nobody was just plain looking out for him. I think that’s why he gravitated to children and to celebrity survivors like Liz Taylor. Some of todays little popstars (Britney? Lindsay? Miley?) better be paying attention because this could be their future.

• [kisters]

  neg takuan, he lives in hunders of songs and a couple nightmares.

• [Tdawwg]

  It’s not about belief: his death is a fact.

• [Takuan]

  yes…yess… the corn will be good this year….

• [mdh]

  it’s only developmental disorder if poor people do it.

  well played, sir.

• [WalterBillington]

  OK so there are spontaneous MJ tribute concerts happening within earshot. I’d forgotten something – until he came along, no-one really enjoyed dancing anymore. And then they did again. We used to be a pack of 6 or so, learning every move, along with popping and break.

  That’s my youth.

• [Anonymous]

  Who did not marvel at his effortless talent? Who, at least in their dreams, did not sleep with Michael?

  Me, that would be me, I did not do those things.

• [mermaid]

  Lost all interest when the author treated the accusations as guilt.

  What happened to Michael Jackson’s children, they didn’t go to his family did they?

• [Jenonymous]

  MDH,

  No, it’s not just the settlements, it’s the fact that his behaviors match those of a textbook child molester also. Or did you skip that part of my post?

  Like I said, if any other adult male of his age expressed such a fondness for kids, created a 24/7 playground for them, and then publicly espoused a love of sleeping naked with little boys, they would have been pilloried long ago.

• [mdh]

  What I find most hillarious is how many of our great-grandparents were “bundled”.

  Sharing your bed with a guest, yes, even children, went out of fashion when the suburban-nuclear family rose…. all of 60 years ago. HA HA.

• [ill lich]

  There is often talk of how child stars end up damaged or dead (“Different Strokes’” Dano Plato overdosing in a trailer park might be the best example), versus the few who succeed (Ron Howard).

  Where does Michael Jackson fit in that spectrum?

  It was painfully obvious to me (and I’m sure to most people) that by the mid-90′s he was weirdly damaged goods, success or not. Even if we ignore some of the manufactured hype (probably manufactured by MJ himself) like the hyperbaric chamber and the elephant man skeleton and his pet chimp “bubbles”, all of which smell like pure publicity stunts, there is still the creepier stuff: the dangerous number of face lifts, the accusations of molestation, and the amusement-park-compound he lived in (called “Neverland” like from Peter Pan).

  I keep thinking of Humbert Humbert’s desperate and parasitic attempt to get back a lost childhood.

  I don’t know whether MJ was guilty of molestation or not. I personally think everything about him points to it being likely, but then again it could have been overprotective parents who saw an opportunity to exploit the creepier aspects of MJ’s image.

• [Anonymous]

  @56 “No, it’s not just the settlements, it’s the fact that his behaviors match those of a textbook child molester also. Or did you skip that part of my post?”

  Are you a psychologist? Because the psychologist employed by the prosecution foubd that MJ did NOT fit the description or psychological profile of a pedofile or child molester (And he was hired by the “victim’s” lawyer.

• [gobo]

  @43, you’re playing right into the mid-90s hysterical tabloid fodder instead of just looking at the facts. Over one hundred witnesses spoke in his defense when he was accused of molestation; dozens of kids who’d spent months with Michael came to his defense. Not one child had been abused. None. The only kids who said they were abused were his accusers — and they admitted they were coached by their parents.

  Michael Jackson liked to be around kids, liked to have sleepovers, liked to talk to kids on their level. He says it made him feel human to be accepted. And even after he’s dead, people like you dismiss the actual facts and condemn him.

  Seems like some people like to have a face for evil acts, whether it fits or not.

• [WalterBillington]

  btw 1984 Pepsi commercial hair-fire really was the turning point.

  And AEG are saying potential digital concert … that might break a lot of new ground, and be massively cool.

• [Anonymous]

  I find it amazing that so many can excuse Michael’s behavior with young boys (and, no, I’m not talking about allegations of child molestation, as they are just allegations). If any other man in the USA was caught holding hands with and saying how he thought it was ok to share a bed with young boys, we would be out for his head. But Michael Jackson was Michael Jackson. He had this aura about him. He continued to play the “poor me, damaged by my childhood” game for so long that people would have felt sorry for him even if he were a mass murderer. t

• [pffft]

  i’m not so sad that Michael Jackson the human being is dead. (i’m not happy he’s dead either, i’m ambivalent — although I i’m sad for his kids and his family).

  and i’m not sad that his talent has left the world. his talent’s ability to make me happy has been long gone.

  but i do feel a passing and nostalgic sadness at the death of MJ because it reminds me of a time from my own childhood, long gone, where his music was a core part of the soundtrack of my life. and his passing just reminds me that that time is gone, never to return.

  he was and is an icon. a tragic, flawed, possibly criminal and in ways very immoral person. a victim and a perpetrator alike.

  but FOR ME, mostly he represents his music, which, like other great music from back then (and hey, you may not think it’s great music, but I do) seems to live a life of its own in some corner of my memories of childhood and adolescence.

• [tumblingwall]

  It is to dangerous to even begin thinking about another human being as less human. This keeps us from looking into the causes so the terrible actions a person has committed will not be prevented in the future, and allows us to do just as horrendous things to the dehumanized.

• [mdh]

  jenonymous – I guess I was raised with different textbooks. I feel for you.

• [ill lich]

  I’m not really any sadder about Michael Jackson’s death than I already was about his life.

  I feel the same way, I’ve felt sorry for MJ since at least the mid-90′s, when it became painfully obvious that he was turning into something beyond the little boy that sang “ABC” or the young adult of “Billie Jean”; way beyond music and dance he was becoming some weird living icon of how fame destroys a person.

  Think of him growing up: from at least the age of 10 he was on the road, and under the thumb of a notoriously strict (or abusive) father. And when the hit records came it only got worse: more tour dates, TV appearances, a Saturday morning cartoon, solo albums, and the money money money and everyone wanting a piece of it. How do you grow up in that atmosphere and come out “normal”?

  I try not to think of him as Michael Jackson anymore, but some random kid thrust into circumstances way beyond his control, at a time when he was most vulnerable. I’m willing to bet that if an angel/devil/djinn had come to him in a dream and offered to take away all the fame and money in exchange for allowing him to start over as a boy with a normal family life, he’d have taken that offer without any thought.

  How else could it have ended?

• [Takuan]

  in about a year, the sightings will start trickling in.

• [BuzzBuzz]

  I can’t believe all the people who think Jacko is a molester, all he ever did was sleep with children, he was not convicted… next you will try to tell me OJ is a murderer after he was found innocent by a jury of 12. You white people are so funny! Jacko is to molestor: like OJ is to murder.

• [Anonymous]

  Good article.

  It’s funny how celebrities want all the attention in the world from us, being noticed and all that … and yet usually PANIC when we, the ordinary people, put these mortals under severe scrutiny or question their erratic behaviour. That simply doesn’t match. So yes, every celebrity who sees themselves as being some kind of “role model” must also accept that people will judge them by their works and also their reputation. It is that simple.

  The real issue about Mike’s “frightening evolution” is not vitiligo, but perhaps the Demons In His Head. His problems were mainly psychologically based. His vitiligo could well have been caused/worsened by bleaching. That’s pretty sick, ending up being mocked as a zombie …

  One writer said it all:

  “It’s no rumour that white America f*cked him up, but turning your back on your own race is unforgiveable.”

• [joanna]

  Pyros, your eloquence elevates me above the fierce disgust I’m starting to feel about many people’s reaction to MJ’s life and death. Bt thn gn, hv t gr wth frgwld: fck ff, Rssny.

  FCK FF.

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    Unless you want me molesting you, keep it civil, please.

• [Marsha Keeffer]

  Lost him in the bubble of money, celebrity and unreality a long, long time ago…very good piece, thanks for posting.

• [buddy66]

  MDH,

  A few years ago my teen granddaughter was making some point about movie comedies and she mentioned ”Those two gay guys,” meaning Laurel and Hardy. I asked her how she concluded the Stan and Ollie characters were gay. ”Well,” she said, ”it’s obvious” — they always sleep together.”

• [Takuan]

  yeesh, whatever. The only kid issue here is why the parents that left their kids alone with him aren’t doing time? Guilty or not on Jackson’s part, there is no question the parents were guilty of reckless endangerment. Any jury would convict them.

• [Anonymous]

  “probable history as a child molester” ?
  why keep heaping on hear-say condemnations? the boy, now man, who first made the accusations has now said that he lied and he feels terrible and he lied at the insistence of his father.
  i feel slanderers like the author of the quote are the ‘unforgivable’ ones.

• [mdh]

  I still can’t get over the paucity of evidence of his being guilty of being anything other than talented and very poorly adjusted.

• [Takuan]

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjG-AE6tuqo

• [Takuan]

  hey I hear there’s already public discussion on a major blog that he’s still alive and the whole thing was a set-up to get out from under the press and image problems and to de-tox and get back to making music.

• [mdh]

  Any?

• [Halloween Jack]

  Let’s just clarify something here.

  The reason that Jackson was twice brought to court on accusations that he molested pre-teen boys–once in civil court, which he settled for somewhere around $20-25 million (and which, despite his extreme aversion to going to trial, was probably the worst thing he could have done) and once in criminal court, which he was acquitted on, but which by most accounts emotionally destroyed him–was his insistence on striking up friendships with pre-teen boys, sometimes on a very fleeting acquaintanceship with their parents, and sharing beds with them, something that I rarely did as a kid, with one of my brothers, and only then because I was on a family trip and my folks wanted to save on motel rooms. Above and beyond the whole question of Jackson’s gender expression, that’s no longer considered appropriate behavior for an unrelated adult male, regardless of their role in the child’s life (minister, Scout leader, etc.), and Jackson’s only response to people pointing out this mere fact was to insist, again and again and again, that he was himself assuming the role of a preteen, pre-sexual boy, and how dare you accuse him of any other motivation. And he kept doing it, well after he’d shelled out twenty-five cool megs to the family that, according to the descriptions that I’ve read of the case, probably would have lost if it had gone to trial.

  Which, of course, is not to let off the hook those people who took advantage of him. But, even if he hadn’t had to pay out money for settlements or lawyer’s fees, he would have run through his fortune the same way that he ran through the good will that people were willing to extend him for his musical or philanthropic accomplishments. In the end, this is someone who was perfectly willing to burn up every last credit that he earned, and then some.

• [Takuan]

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64o6s8PmnoE

• [Zippy Gonzales]

  He’s not wrong about the cat analogy. Even stoned artist wallabies know their limits.

• [The Envoy]

  It is not about his personal life in the end. It is about his music and how he revolutionized music cinematography. He was a big impact on many people’s lives (and mine) with his music up to HIStory.

• [IamInnocent]

  …his no longer really being human…

  Mr Rossney, is your favorite pastime trying to bite yourself in the ass? Well, good luck with that. It would be a suiting sentence for trying to rob someone, anyone, of their very humanity.

  M. Jackson was just a human being with some highly specialized talents and many flaws of which his buying into his own myth was the most damageable.

  Please Mr Rossney, do yourself a favor and stop believing in your own prose: literature is not reality.

• [wolfiesma]

  It’s so weird how Farah Faucett died the same day. So many people grew up with her poster on the wall. My own pubescent period coincided with Thriller and so it was that I actually had a poster of him on the wall! (I remember seeing the Off the Wall poster at my parents’ office building and it made quite an impression.) There was an element of infatuation there, I’ll admit it. Infatuation with coolness, at least. Not that coolness is the beginning and end of the meaning of life or anything, but it is something.:)

  Now, whether he was guilty of child molestation or not, I do not know. But I don’t think it is any of my business one way or the other. I mean, Hester Prynne was guilty beyond a shadow of the doubt, but the public branding was a little much. At least I think that was what we were supposed to learn from that… :)

• [Uncle_Max]

  I completely agree with Halloween Jack. I don’t think he was a pedophile because he looked weird, but because he shared a bed with pre-teen children. Even after being accused of molesting children. When that interview was done with him with the documentary filmmaker, I remember him saying “the whole thing is very charming.”

  Yeah, and O.J. is still looking for the real killers.

• [Anonymous]

  As a near-schizophrenic, I find the analysis (from people in general) interesting, but the judgement disturbing.

  All evidence seems to indicate he was a child arrested in development, retreating more into himself all the time. I think I can understand that, and I also think it reduces the chance of him actually molesting a child to zero.

  He couldn’t please anyone, from his perspective: not his father, or the media. Only his fans, some of the time. And then that too was gone.

  And so he tried to escape his own skin, literally, through all that surgery.

  I hope that he found some happiness in the last few years with his own kids, and I hope that the greater extremes of his oddity have not been too hard on them.

  Captcha poetry: suffering farewell

• [info]

  Fame didn’t ruin Michael (or his siblings). You should ask some kids in the neighborhood in Gary IN that knew the family.