Online since June 1997!

Michael Joseph Jackson

23-Mar-02 -- Michael Jackson’s looks are bizarre, but I shan’t even address my skepticism of how many surgeries he’s had.  I think it’s very Clintonian of him to say he’s had “nothing” done to his face as he is defining “face” as a small part of his cheeks the way William Jefferson Clinton said a blow job is not sex.  MJ's chin, nose, eyes, upper cheeks, forehead, eyebrows and just about every other part of his SKULL have been modified surgically, perhaps as one reporter speculated, to avoid looking so much like his abusive father.

I am a stickler for honesty, as much of a Clinton fan as I was.  I was willing to forgive Clinton his blow-job lie, but MJ has acted bizarrely enough that he has lost a lot of credibility by denying how much surgery he has had.  I’ve defended him for years because of his choice treatment for vitiligo, a disease I happened to know a lot about because one of my best high school friends had it.  Albert is Mexican and so the dark skin on his hands had these white spots.  Albert used to tell me that this disease had no known cause, but that it was unstoppable and it usually starts in the hands or eye area.  It did not hurt anything, but it could become embarrassing depending on how and where it spread, if it spread at all.  The eye area can usually be dealt with easily with makeup but makeup rubs off of fingers too easily.  Remember the ONE glove as a “fashion statement” that MJ HAD to have even as his scalp was burned and he was being transported to the hospital?  It was not for the novelty of the trademark glove, I surmise, but rather for the embarrassment of the aberrant skin pattern where the missing pigment.

I’ve been flip-flopping on my opinion of this MJ sexuality debacle though.  While I am very apprehensive not to believe children who say they have been abused, I know there are always two sides to every story and some opportunistic parents who might have observed MJ’s bizarre behavior probably saw dollar signs.  There are many, sometimes contradictory facts that I’ve seen and I’ve observed in the recent flurry of television reports, trying to be careful not to allow the clever editing of these “documentaries” during February Sweeps deceive me.  I notice that part of the footage that Bashir (the original British reporter which MJ accuses of tricking him with the interview) did not use was MJ admitting that he had sex with the mother of his first two children.  Bashir also did not mention that MJ had known this woman for 22 years.  While MJ is part white (indeed, he pointed out his father’s blue eyes), his masked and covered children do appear to be platinum blond and extremely fair skinned, including the third child “Blanket” who MJ says was mothered by a black woman he did not know, but which he also concedes could have very well been light-skinned.

Some of the damning evidence against MJ is that he reportedly has an “alarm” sensor outside of his bedroom (which has a bed, not a metabolic chamber) to alert him when people are coming.  Now mind you, this alarm is NOT on his home, but just his bedroom, where he brazenly invites BOYS (not little girls notice) to spend the night.   Michael does NOT say that he does not have sex with boys, but he does say that he would never “harm” kids because he is “not Jack the Ripper” who as we know was a violent murderer, and has nothing to do with pedophilia, which is what the accusation is.  It’s almost as if MJ can hire the lawyers he needs to protect his proclivities and doesn’t want to dissuade potential boys who he could have sex with from thinking that they aren’t going to get any "action" if he outright says he does not have sex with them.

Like many things in the law, having just an intent (mens rea), but no criminal act is not enough to convict (or even charge someone of a crime in a perfect world).  For example, laws which “forbid” one to be addicted to a substance like a narcotic are unconstitutional as they are penalizing one for a status, which of course can be beyond one’s control if one has the proclivity for addictions which is not comparable to sexual attraction to minors who are by definition incapable of having legal consent.  Being in POSSESSION or for SELLING drugs is what most laws that pass muster actually intend to put a stop to.  Hence, if MJ, who appears to be asexual in many areas because of his “lack” of a normal childhood has thoughts of pedophilia, these purported  feelings would explain some of the borderline material that he had in his home when the allegations were brought in 1993.  He still would not have done anything egregious or criminal if he did not act upon those amoral thoughts.  On the other hand, Bashir also did not show MJ's valid point that anything he even browses in a store becomes fodder for the tabloids.  I cannot imagine the scrutiny he is under.

His pornographer friend with the many aliases is also some cause for alarm because he may be MJ’s conduit to material evidencing a sexuality that is questionable at best and shameful.  While the cropped video footage I saw of his friend’s movies in the news did not seem to have children portrayed, many in the gay porn industry do use younger men as models as for some reason shaved, skinny androgynous boys are en vogue.  It is repugnant to many of my gay friends and I who are much more interested in masculine men, but our “share” of the gay market – porn and otherwise – is quite small.