Michael Jackson: Art, not the artist

Keep in mind, Rod, that most of the great love songs were written about same-sex longings.

Michael Graham was kicking the crap out of Jackson and his fans yesterday. I was almost tempted to call in and confront him about the adoration for Richard Nixon when he died. Nixon killed many children in his bombings of Cambodia which allowed Pol Pot to gain power. He and Kissinger's scuttling the Vietnam war agreements by the Johnson Administration so they could get elected and continue the war for 5 more years is an act of terrorism. Overthrowing the Allende regime in Chile and putting Pinochet in place also haunts his legacy. Let's not forget about Watergate either. Yet there were the conservatives out in full dress celebrating the person Richard Nixon.

Given the choice between having Michael Jackson or Richard Nixon babysit children...I would leave my kids home alone.

My dislike of Michael Jackson and his music notwithstanding, people who seek to impose their ethics on art are the sort of people who subsist upon prunes and pickle juice and they are justly ridiculed.

"Woody Allen, who continues to attract A-list talent, critical praise and audiences for his films despite being roundly criticized for romancing and marrying his stepdaughter."

Sorry to go off topic, but I hate to see this despicable lie kept alive.

Woody Allen was never married to Mia Farrow, and in fact they even maintained separate residences.

Socrates exhibits classic left-liberal-libertarian confusion.

On the one hand, families with unmarried parents are just the same as families with married ones are.

On the other hand, if your parents aren't married -- and if your Dad is not your biological Dad -- then it's perfectly alright for your Dad to boink you and for you to boink your Dad.

Bill Butler exhibits classic right-wing fibbing.

He attributes opinions to me that are nowhere to be found in my comment.

I heard an interview everal yrs ago with one of the many attorneys who populated MJ's life - he thought Jackson's constant plastic surgeries were a function of not wanting to look anything like his father -

It is true that at some point we become adults and make choices of our own - so that spending a lifetime blaming one's parents gets foolish - but some children are so damaged that as adults they lack the ability to make those better choices. Jackson may have been such a soul.

I do think it is a bit uncomfortable to focus so much on this while things that frankly have more impact on our lives are going on.

I wonder how much this media mania over Jackson was just cover for so thei could ignore that abominable cap-and-trade tax bill until it could get shoved through at the last minute and the House could go on recess.

Socrates,

I'm not a "right-winger" or a "fibber."

But, anyway, how's this, then:

If your parents are unmarried and maintain separate residences, and if your Dad is not your biological Dad, then it's not only a-ok to for you to boink your Dad and for your Dad to boink you, but also "despicable" for anyone else to disagree -- and it makes them "right-wingers" and/or "fibbers" if they do.

Bill Butler,

I didn't express any opinion about Mr. Allen, parents, marriage, boinking, etc.

The quote was that Woody Allen had married his stepdaughter. Soon-Yi was never Mr. Allen's stepdaughter - that is an indisputable fact.

The quote is a lie. That was my point.

I think the lie is despicable, but, feel free to disagree with that if you like (since it is something I've actually said.)

Socrates,

Why would it be "despicable" to say that Woody Allen was Soon-Yi's stepfather -- i.e. her adopted mother's legal husband -- unless the fact that (legally) he was "not" somehow mitigates his boinking of her -- at least by your particular lights?

The relationship between father and son (and mother) is critical for a young man. While Jackson did make his own choices I do think a large part of the blame for the way he turned out does lie with the father. I mean, that's why family values are supported, right? Because of how important these relationships are. It's just that Michael Jackson had more money than most to act out his inner torment and lack of a genuine childhood.

"It is true that at some point we become adults and make choices of our own - so that spending a lifetime blaming one's parents gets foolish - but some children are so damaged that as adults they lack the ability to make those better choices."

YES. Add fame and fortune to the recipe and I guess it's actually amazing he made it as long as he did.

The MJ coverage everywhere these past few days has, a little to my surprise, made me sad. Not because I've been listening to CD's revolving in my van or because I've ever been a particular fan, but because it reminds me of what a freak show he became. I grew up when he was big, and I remember the boy next door who delighted the neighborhood at annual block parties with his stylish impression, glove and all. So it's part of a childhood memory of a man who really wasn't a bad lookin' guy and, to many, was pretty darn cool. So they'd show clips of the Thriller video or the like, and then the more recent interviews with a wax-like face, so completely distorted that, had one not witnessed his transformation over the years, one probably wouldn't know who the ghoulish figure was. And you know that what he became came from something, some place, truly awful, and it reminds you there are others like him out there we know nothing about, and it's terribly sad.

Michael Jackson came from a time when black and white tastes in pop music, came together, when there was much love and joy in black pop music (as there still is in gospel). With MJ all this came together perhaps for the last time before blacks self-segregated in the rap ghetto and white rock music became pimply angst again with grunge before being replaced with boy-bands and other teenybopper acts. And he was arguably one of the best dancers ever.

High-church libertarian curmudgeon

Churchmouse,

Tens of millions of people think Obama is "bigger than" Jesus -- and they don't mean that hyperbolically the way John Lennon did about the Beatles, nor are they uneasy about Obama's cult of personality, the way that Lennon and the other Beatles were about their own.

Obama can't break up, but it would do us all a lot of good if he would exaggerate his injuries in a motorcycle crash and go away for awhile until till things calm down, instead of running for President again in 2012.

I think if he doesn't he stand a reasonable chance of getting shot -- not by a political foe but by a disappointed fan.

Rod: About Mel Gibson. First of all, please check the facts. If we have to twist a point to make a point, to paint a certain picture of a person, not only do we not have a point, we are also spreading prejudice. Mel Gibson did not make a sexist remark. That remark was WRONGLY attributed to him. The officer arresting Mel Gibson made that remark to a female college who was staring at Mel Gibson when he was arrested. If Mel Gibson is wrong in attributing that remark to the officer, the officer would surely not stand for it - especially as it is widely interpreted as sexism instead of as a lighthearted joke.
As for the anti-semitic remark. Although you are not doing this in this article, some people falsely present Mel Gibson's drunken rant as proof that he is a bigot. That itself is a prejudiced, wrongful vision. In fact, one has to believe that people are never unfair, or that drunk people are never unfair, to consider such an incident proof that a person is a bigot. And that level of naivety about the human condition would dismiss one as a fair judge to begin with.
Some people portray it as an unlikely scenario that a person would be inclined to take cheap shots under the circumstances Mel Gibson was in at the time, but it is actually a very LIKELY one. Who could honestly claim that they wouldn't feel threatened and bullied if ever arrested, it is just an instinctive reaction to having our freedom taken away (whether the reason is just or not). And when are we most likely as human beings to be tempted to take a cheap shot? When we feel attacked and bullied ourselves. We are more so in danger of going that way when our defenses are down - FOR INSTANCE because of alcohol intoxication. And even though it is true that it indeed makes it easier to speak certain truths when our defenses are down, it is also true that it makes it easier to go the exact OPPOSITE way, to succumb to taking a cheap shot instead of letting our usual sense of fairness guide our way.
This drunken incident was a once in a lifetime event that should not be misrepresented as the opposite, a characteristic trait, and yet it often wrongfully is. And if everyone who at one point in their life had made a nasty remark to another person, who had put them down, would be considered an indecent human being, most of us would not be able to consider ourselves decent, caring, empathic people with a good heart anymore. Including those most heavily attacking Mel Gibson.
Also, Mel Gibson misbehaved the way he did that night once and apologized for it more than once, saying that what he had said was unrealistic and wrong, replacing it for a fair statement, these people on the other hand go on and on and show no remorse at all.
More and more people - fans and non-fans alike - are increasingly alarmed by the amount of hatred coming Mel Gibson's way. The time that they are willing to take these types of continual attacks seriously is over, it looks too much like bigotry and unconstrained hatred itself. Whether Mel Gibson is a bigot or not remains to be seen, one thing is clear however, many of those attacking and condemning him are at least themselves infected with the disease they accuse him of having: A vicious, hateful attitude with no respect for facts and no intention or ability to balance and examine their own negative emotions and attitudes and take responsibility for them. And it casts doubt on their OWN character and motives - it makes one doubt whether THEY can be trusted.

As Michael Jackson's sudden death unfolds I must agree that his downfall was his own doing. I'm a fan, like the millions who saw the first moonwalk.

Of course I am affected by "Jackson was a ghoulish figure who, if he did not sexually molest children, at least had an extremely unsavory attitude towards them; who certainly molested and mutilated his face out of self-loathing; who fathered children apparently for the sake of collecting playmates; who was a spendthrift loon; and who, if ABC News' reporting is correct, was blotto on heavy doses of painkillers most of the time for many years. Remember when he dangled his baby over the balcony in Germany? Imagine that he was out of his mind on Oxycontin when he did that." I became somewhat less interested in him because he was getting nuts but his dance would lure me back.

The greatest worry I have is: Did Michael Jackson con the world and Me and get away with it. Was Neverland a Disneyland for the greatest pedophile in history? I consider myself a good judge of character, so am I wrong? Is my belief that Michael Jackson was a gentle soul and extorted by those around him, wrong? Will I ever know the truth or will his fame outshine his flaws?

I think that 'Michael Jackson' started inhabiting his body during Thriller when the fame, and the disconnect from the rest of society would have had its strongest impact on him.

Before this stage he had been developing his craft, and had already started to explore a main theme of his work and life which I would say is Metamorphosis. This theme is apparent in many of his films, in particular Thriller, and the obsession is apparent in his own physical transformation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB0o0WCnt-I

One could look at his determination to remain a boy as a resistance to his own inevitable morphing into a man, and its interesting that at the onset of his own manhood he starts first to deny it, and then to twist it surgically so that we and he never see him as a man, because by the time he gets there he's disfigured it - in more ways than one. God, an obsession with our own ability to transform and control our own image...so Millennium.

To separate the art from the artist is a mistake, I think we can only begin to understand his legacy by studying both, and isn't it interesting that both through his art and through his life that we learn more about ourselves than him, and isn't that what true artists always leave us with whether they're creating or destroying?

Logo MJ!!