Very nice arcticle Rob, I hope people will have dignity enough to keep improper jokes for themselves.

Very nice article, but. MJ's getting to rest in peace does *not* mean he gets a post-mortem pardon for hurting kids. That's only human nature, and it's not the bad side of it, either. True, the jokes don't serve justice per se or lend dignity to his victims, but they're all we've got to combat the bathos that would insulate memory from truth. Let the death-by-hard-attack zingers roll.

I'd like to remind everyone he was ACQUITTED!!!
(So, no, Dennis, lets not let any hard-attack zingers roll. Not at all.) Show due respect for one of music's all-time greatest performers. You can still put on Thriller at any party with any crowd and it will get everyone dancing, without exception.

Josh, if anything, I showed undue respect, via my reserved tone vis-a-vis a known pedophile whose celebrity and riches, in this life, uniquely afforded him the ability to procure GET OUT OF JAIL FREE cards more than once.

You call that cold? Perhaps it is -- not at all like MJ's hand or perhaps other member when he touched the parts-other-than-hearts of the young dudes with whom he shared his netherland.

MJ hurt children.

Do you still not get it?

Dennis you are a scumbag and apparently must have been present since the was found NOT GUILTY. I guess you are just so much smarter than everyone who actually saw the evidence.

Acquitted or not, to condemn the man as some sort of monster, born intact rather than created, shows a lack of imagination. I say imagination since it's incredibly easy (to say nothing about self-congratulating) to view the man as black in a purely blank-and-white world. It takes a bit more depth of thought to consider that the man likely endured more pain than any of us could ever know, and his "victims" were tragic products of an even greater tragedy. It's very soothing and reassuring to create a bad guy when the story provides nothing but victims, since it lets us think we know right from wrong. There isn't any right in this story.

The world is a better place as one more pedophile is gone.

Thanks, Steve. You've boosted many of our's self-esteem by reminding us we're not as much of a simpleton as you are. Hope you don't sprain your brain tying your shoes.

Thanks for the honest confusion in your commentary. It is something that a lot of us feel. I grew up with Michael, singing and dancing with him as part of the Jackson 5. One cannot imagine the pressure put upon him from an early age to perform and drag his whole family with hiim. There was no childhood, just a sad genius that came out for a long moment and the warped and waned and became almost macabre. His passing is a sad one for all of us who have danced with him. Sad and reflective for what could have been but ended up as a strange freak show. I hope we don't forget the human being that was there and struggled so hard to be heard.

Thanks for the honest confusion in your commentary. It is something that a lot of us feel. I grew up with Michael, singing and dancing with him as part of the Jackson 5. One cannot imagine the pressure put upon him from an early age to perform and drag his whole family with hiim. There was no childhood, just a sad genius that came out for a long moment and the warped and waned and became almost macabre. His passing is a sad one for all of us who have danced with him. Sad and reflective for what could have been but ended up as a strange freak show. I hope we don't forget the human being that was there and struggled so hard to be heard.

Everyone gets reverential whenever there is such a shared international grieving event, shows how much we all crave that sense of community.

But put simply, without all the easy bake attempts at gravitas for a person who was a tired joke just this morning, this is just the old art vs. artist debate. Can people separate the two? Should they?
I don't pretend to know who he was personally, or what he did at night with the little boys in his bed. The early music (prefer Off the Wall and The Jackson 5 stuff myself) speaks for itself.

Dennis,
Those arrogant, fucking, self-congratulatory straight bastards who use the word "pedophile" nowadays the same way they did with "sex perverts" and "sexual pyschopaths" 50-some years ago (meaning ALL gay men and lesbians, no matter how "straight-acting" they happened to be, how "nice," how "well-behaved," or how consensual and adult-age their same-sex partner happened to be). At thirteen, I knew damned well what I wanted, MEN, and, if I'd have lived in a larger city instead of a dorky, backwoods North Dakotan town of 100 homophobic, "God-fearing," church-going inhabitants, would have found it. If anybody has forced their sexuality on everyone else, then it's you cursed, fuckin' hets and the straight-run and -financed media that shove your conservative, restrictive, boring-as-hell, phony-assed lifestyle down all our throats. Just google "compulsory heterosexuality," the "heterosexual matrix," the "heterosexual dictatorship," "heteronormativity," "heterosexism," etc.

Hey Hutch, just get out of your NAMBLA meeting?

Erratum: That's "sexual psychopaths" for all you tight-assed homo- and sexophobes out there afraid (or jealous?) someone might be enjoying themselves with someone of the same sex. Teenagers have a RIGHT to their sexuality, to happiness, too, just like any adult. Forcing children "for their own good" into a heterosexual mold has not, and is never going to work, and, in addition, perpetuates unnecessary suffering. In fact, the average age of consent in Europe for both straight AND gay sex is 14. America lags far behind other democratic nations by holding on to its primitive (religion-based?) sex laws. "Sodomy" laws, "sodomy" itself being a Bible-based term, was declared unconstitutional in the U.S. only six years ago! (In France - in 1791!) Martin Luther King's (gay) mentor and the man who organized the 1963 March on Washington, Bayard Rustin, made a point in 1986 (a year before his death) when he said: "Indeed, if you want to know whether today people believe in democracy, if you want to know whether they are true democrats, if you want to know whether they are human rights activists, the question to ask is, 'What about gay people?' Because that is now the litmus paper by which this democracy is to be judged."

Although it's none of frickin' business, I'm 53 and my life partner of the past 24 years is going on 67. Yet another stupid-assed bigot conflating adult homosexuality with pederasty (although the overwhelming majority of pederasts are self-identified straight men, usually, the father or a male relative, and the victim of rape is usually a little girl, a daughter or niece. Still, teenagers should be (and are, in Europe) able to choose with whom they wish to associate and/or have sex without any interference by the state, church, and other institutions. Hollywood (the State, and the Church, all act like pimps when it comes to advocating, preaching, praising, propagandizing, celebrating and, generally, shoving your undesired, unwelcome heterosexual lifestyle down everyone's throats). Get over yourselves, and get out of our lives, and your fucked-up compulsory sexuality out of our laws.

What do Michael Jackson and cavier have in common?

They both cum on small white crackers

MJ was another generation's Elvis, with all of the contradictions, ugliness, hyperbole, and ultimate tragedy that is implicit in being a mega-icon. His fame, which he undoubtedly pursued, consumed him and left a truly dysfunctional human being, worthy of all our empathy. To see this as the death of a pop icon misses the point. It was the death of a man who was left alone to face his demons, when all we cared to remember were times long past.

I find the hateful remarks about him painful to read, and tells me just what has actually occurred to the collective human condition. Those that write them are nothing better than parasitic voyeurs, and their lack of compassion is contemptuous.

Hopefully the old queen Hutch1955's occupation is NOT in the child care field.

We lost a true original and a great talent yesterday.

I thought this was about MICHAEL JACKSON,not all of you people!!!!! He was an artist like we will never see again PERIOD !! I don't think,but i wasn't there,which some of you seem to think you were,that he ever hurt a child. He was so alone and children were the olny people that ever treated him like a regular person and didn't really get it, that he was MICHAEL JACKSON! Your comments about him are sad and sick. He was killed by US, his so called fans,just like we KILLED Elvis. We gave them on piece, they could never be themselves anywhere or at anytime. We expected and expected and expected, they had to PREFORM all the time. They were up on this pedstal that we put them on but they were never allowed down to just be people. Some of you should have to live like that,THEN I'll listen to what you have to say, until then - - -YOU NEED TO SHUT YOUR MOUTHS AND IF YOU CAN'T SAY ANYTHING NICE DON'T SAY ANYTHING AT ALL!!!!!!!!!
No, I'm not famous,far from it,but I have lived long enough to know that"we"(all of us)are not very nice people and I hurt for what could have been, in this mans life. I hurt for his children and I pray that they will be taken care of and not have to be subjected to the grandfather that was so very hurtful to their father. Compassion and understanding words that I think a lot of you should look up.

Elvis - didn't he "date" Priscilla when she was 14 before he married her?
Anybody ever read "I'm With the Band" or "Hammer of the Gods: Led Zep story"?
Bill Wyman hooked up with who again?
What do you think we'd find backstage at most rap / rock concerts still...today?

Let's get ready to throw out most recordings we own if we're going to go there.

And as many pointed out - MJ was not convicted.

But to another point - it seems we get squemish when talking about sexually precocious young boys vs. sexually precocious young girls and who they idolize.

O.J. was acquitted too, Josh.

By the way where are these kid's parents? if MJ's 'reputation' is already known why do they still allow their children to associate with him? This reeks of opportunism.

By the way where are these kid's parents? if MJ's 'reputation' is already known why do they still allow their children to associate with him? This reeks of opportunism.

Even in death people still have bad things to say. Cant we accept and move on he lived his life not pleasing to most of us, but it was his life and his journey now it's over let him go and rest in peace.

Hutch1955 ..Greco-Roman wrestling coach of year 2009

The world was recently saddened by the sudden loss of pop icon Michael Jackson. In memoriam of this legendary and one-of-a-kind performer, Ztarlet Star Registry has dedicated an actual star in his memory - as a symbol of the bright light that Jackson brought to the music industry and his millions of loyal fans across the globe.

http://digg.com/celebrity/Michael_Jackson_Immortalized_with_Dedication_of_Star

Digg this!

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