As I've mentioned before, Michael Jackson is probably the only the celebrity that I've ever actually felt sorry for. As long as I've been writing, I've stayed away from the obvious jokes about him and I was one of his most steadfast defenders during the 2005 travesty of justice that passed for a molestation trial.Why did I sympathize with him so much? Look at his face. Do you think that he did that to himself for fun? Are any of you willing to actually maim yourselves that way? That's the visage of a man with some pretty profound mental illnesses.
On one hand, Michael was raised with the world kissing his ass. On the other, his father would kick the shit out of him if he so much as missed a fucking dance step before he was out of grade school. People like Jennifer Lopez and Mariah Carey are renowned for their cuntishness, and both of them were in well into their twenties when they got famous. And there's absolutely no indication that they had their talent actually beaten into them.
Keith Richards used to start interviews by saying "Look, you're basically talking to a crazy person. I've been able to do whatever I want since I was 19 years old, so don't look at me for a normal perspective on life." Michael Jackson was 11 when he became a star, and his fame dwarfed even that of the Rolling Stones at their height.
Think about it, his childhood was like Auschwitz and he was rewarded beyond anyone's imagination for the experience. Honestly, I'm amazed that he wasn't a whole lot crazier. Think Phil Spector crazy as a good place to start. The rest of the former Jackson 5 isn't much better off, enthused as they are with the Nation of Islam and wife beating. And LaToya turned out well, didn't she?
Whenever you see a celebrity that overwhelmingly odd, taking a good look at the parents can be instructive. There is no Brian Wilson without Murray, and I think we know everything we need to about Mr. and Mrs. Lohan for one lifetime.
For years now, whenever I looked at what Michael did to his face, I saw his father, Joe, somewhere behind the makeup and surgical scarring. If you've read even the most cursory account of the Jackson family, you know that Joe Jackson is monstrous in ways that would even impress Idi Amin. Christ, Joe's youngest son wasn't dead 24 hours before he was on TV talking about his fucking record company as Jesse Jackson gave him a media reach around. That Michael cut dear old dad out of his will tells me that he wasn't half as nuts as previously thought.
Now it appears that Papa Joe has his cancerous gaze set on a new pair of meal tickets - his grandchildren.
Joe Jackson wants to teach his grandkids the ABCs of showbiz.Is there anyone out there who thinks that this can possibly end well?
The notoriously hard-driving stage dad said he sees star power in
Michael Jackson's two youngest children.
"I keep watching Paris. She maybe wants to do something," Joe
Jackson, 80, said on Friday in an interview with "Good Morning
America."
"And Blanket, he can really dance."
I don't like writing about kids, so I was reluctant to address the memorial service freakshow in LA this week. But shoving that little girl in front of the microphone to talk about her dead daddy- knowing full well that the entire goddamned world was watching - was actually pornographic. If the Jacksons were even halfway decent people, they wouldn't have let those kids within 10 miles of the fucking Staples Center.
This might be a unique perspective, but I don't see using kids to make you cry as being all that different than using them to make you cum. Either way, they're being exploited in ways that they can't hope to understand. The sad little spectacle in Los Angeles this week was every bit as obscene as it was heartbreaking. In large part, it was heartbreaking precisely because it was so obscene. Who in their right mind makes a media star out of a grieving 11 year old girl?
It might have been weapons-grade weird for Michael to trot his kids out wearing headscarves and Spiderman masks, but it was pretty obvious that he wanted to keep them as anonymous as possible. But the body was barely cold before those poor fucking kids were hurled onto worldwide live television. Could it be that MJ was the sane one in that goddamn family?
Not only do Paris and Prince Michael II have to deal with the loss of the only dad they've ever had, they get to hear the goddamn liberal media speculate about the bizarre circumstances of their births, and wondering which set of vampires they're going to spend the next decade living with, they have their very own global Showtime at the Apollo, too.
Shit, Paris is 11 years old and she's getting all the joy that comes with hearing that the police are keeping Daddy's fucking brain. Try really hard to remember when you were 11 and think about how you'd react to that. Now imagine every asshole media organization in the world wanting details because inquiring minds like the rest of us need to know.
On top of all of that, they now have their twisted bastard of a grandfather setting them up for auditions, knowing just how well that that worked out for their father.
That old motherfucker has to be stopped soon. He's already destroyed one generation of Jacksons and now he's got his eye on the next one. If stopping him takes dropping him from a helicopter into a pack of rabid wolverines, then that's what it takes. We can't rely on a malignant tumor to fix him, since most cancers are probably too disgusted with Joe Jackson to have anything to do with him.
Jesus, can't we all at least be decent enough to leave those kids alone? Don't feed the depraved fantasies of Joe Jackson, and for Christ's sake, don't rely on the media to do the right thing. I know that Paris, Prince and Blanket are adorable, but if you want to do right by them, change the channel when you see them on the TV machine. If there are no ratings in them, the fucking cameras might go away and they just might not wind up like their father.
Look, if the surviving brothers want to milk the memory their dead baby brother on a tour of every Holiday Inn in the galaxy, that's fine. If LaToya wants to give us guided tours of her colon, I'm there. I've never been shy about declaring my love of a media freakshow. If adults are willing to whore themselves out for my perverse enjoyment, that's one thing. But children don't get an informed vote in that petty little process.
I'm pretty sure that none of you would be on board if Joe Jackson put those kids in hardcore porn. I only ask that you not fall into the trap of letting them be exploited on polite society's equivilent, Oprah or American Idol.
Can we all agree on that?
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