The latest Michael Jackson interview.

The most "honest" song he's ever written is called "Childhood", and it's the theme from Free Willy 2. I'm not touching that.

MICHAEL JACKSON: Totally false. Before I would hurt a child, I would slit my wrists.

http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/images/2003/12/28/image590405x.jpg

JACKSON ACCUSER: There was one night, I asked him if I could stay in the bedroom. And he let me stay in the bedroom. And I was like, Michael, you can sleep on the bed. And he was like, no, no you sleep in the bed. And then he finally said, ‘Okay, if you love me, you’ll sleep on the bed.’ I was like, ‘Oh, man.’ And so I finally slept on the bed.

It's totally chilling until you remember that that night, Jackson slept on the floor.

I was struck by how much make-up he wears these days, I mean he looks like a freakin drag queen: lip stick, false eye lashes, heavy eye liner. He had the same amount of make-up when he posed for this mug shot after he turned himself in. It's my understanding that before suspects have their mug shot taken they have to wash off all make-up. The rumor going around now is that that make-up is actually TATTOOED ONTO HIS FACE! That's right: permanent red lips, eye liner, etc. Anyone know anything about this?

It's the kiddies who are the sickos.

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Anyway, it's good to see MJ dangling his kids over the balcony. Usually he just tosses them off.

http://www.mtv3.fi/mn_kuvat/37722/41888.jpg

http://thesmokinggun.com/graphics/art3/jackochargeinside.jpg

Children are different. Michael Jackson is different. We have two basic modes when we encounter something different. We either admire it, see it as exotic, sexually fetishize it, or we try to make it conform, force it to be like us. (Sometimes we do both at the same time.) When we encounter difference in children or exotic foreign cultures, we know that it is convergent: these people may be different, but they're becoming more like us. Children will become adults, foreigners will lose their unique customs and become more western. Michael Jackson, on the other hand, seems to be becoming less like us. He is getting more different over time. And this is just not acceptible. He must be destroyed.

We cannot co-exist with difference, because we are not pluralists. We're pretty primitive. Basically, when we see something different, we want to fuck it or kill it. We've been fucking Michael Jackson for thirty years, and now it's time to kill him.

After this many plastic operations, his two options are either to wear a lot of makeup or to look like a monster.

I do understand his choice...

However I certainly don't believe that every possible variation from our definition of "normal" is potentially "valid".

I'm not at all sure which side of this "validity" divide Michael Jackson falls on - but I do believe that his wealth and status has not only allowed him to create his own little world in which he has been able to indulge in behaviour that wouldn't generally be considered "normal" but has simultaneously forced him to live in his own little world and to indulge in behaviour that wouldn't generally be considered "normal".

I think this makes it doubly difficult for us to judge him in any valid way.

If he was an ordinary person with an ordinary job living in an ordinary house in an ordinary street surrounded by ordinary people, I very much doubt that he would have been able to continue for very long to behave in a manner as far from what our society considers to be "normal".

At the same time however, if he was an ordinary person with an ordinary job living in an ordinary house in an ordinary street surrounded by ordinary people, I can't help but wonder whether his behaviour would ever have strayed as far as it has from what our society considers to be "normal".

He is, and we all know that. People give him shit because he won't admit any error. When backed into a corner, he'll get more and more nonsensical instead of just admitting his errors in reasoning. It gets ridiculous, and since this is all kinda permanent record, it's easy to remember the time he's been ridiculous. So that's where that comes from.

That aside: Momus, you're right about our demonization of difference. Of course you are. But our demonization of Michael Jackson, I think, stems from a slightly different place. Because with him, it's not just a difference issue, it's a class issue. Stewart OTM. As much as Michael himself would like to cast the debate into terms of race, it's really about rich and poor. Michael is a very extreme example of what rich people can get away with, and that, more than anything, is why the general population hates him.

Still... blaming everything on "society." I guess that makes me Michael Jackson. (I do think he's innocent. It seems all too plausible that the kid's parents saw flashing money signs over their kid's digitally obscured face when he appeared over and over again on that Brit doc earlier this year, giggling "Cash-in time!")

I'm by NO MEANS saying that I think Michael should kill himself. I'm on the guy's side. And I totally agree with Lynskey upthread re: "why does everything have to be so goddamned dark?"

(I was and still am listening to the soundtrack for Irreversible as I typed this, so maybe that accounts for painting the picture a tad more dramatic than necessary.)