Just say no to legal drugs. They will kill you even better than the illegal ones.

Prescription drugs lead to early deaths. We are not talking antibiotics or insulin, we are talking whacky drugs for your head which are ever so popular and legal.

Murder by prescription.

No jail time for that.

Is this Salon's euphemism for pedophila?

"From death photos to celebrity sound-bites, the three-ring circus of mourning Michael Jackson has just begun."

And Salon is right there in lock step joining the circus!

I do hate to interrupt your misty-eyed memories of that first time you found out you couldn't moonwalk, that summer after 4th grade in Cleveland, etc, etc, but there's tiny unknown little cover band called Neda and the Protesters, and the projectile celebrity worship is drowning them out.

So I sort of want to call for a moratorium on mention of He Who Was Weirder Than Greek Gods. Except that the bad jokes are already flying: Did you hear Elton John's going to re-tool his tribute song? Yeah, he's calling it "Candle In My Pocket (Reach In There, Billy)".

Yes, yes, we're all going to hell.

First he "beat it" then he bit it.

It is interesting the number of parallels to other famous recluses. The one that springs to my mind first is "mad" king Ludwig II of Bavaria, the monarch who dreamt of Wagnerian romances and chivalry, building his dream castles in the Alps and on Lake Chiemsee. Also a recluse, he too seemed unable to handle his celebrity status and withdrew more and more from running the state until his cabinet had him declared mentally unfit to rule.

This cycle will repeat as long as there are wunderkinds who get thrust into the limelight. Many will peak too soon, others will try to regain something they feel they lost.

And so is the BBC. I don't think they could exceed the coverage they're giving to the death of this has-been pop star if the Pope, Queen and Barack Obama has died together while engaged in three-way sex.

You can bet Ahmanijedad is surely thanking Allah for Vicodin right now. The Twitterheads have moved on to something much more important.

Me? In 1982 the Texas band I worked for shared a Hollywood recording studio with The Jacksons. It was at a very happy time of his life and career: post -Off The Wall and pre-Thriller, before the deformed African features, the creepy stories and the lawsuits... back when Michael was simply a brilliant musician and One Very Cool Dude. He was not only extremely kind to us star-struck neophytes but to our amazement he eventually agreed to sing uncredited backup on a reggae-style track on our record!

A few days later he told me that he had really loved "that reggae stuff" and asked if I would give him a list of what I thought were the 50 best reggae LP's ever recorded. The next afternoon his PA came in dragging four huge yellow-and-red Tower Records bags-MJ had sent him out with orders to purchase every single one on my list. He took over the studio owner's office, had a turntable and speakers installed and spent the next week between mix sessions totally absorbed in new songs and "riddims" he had never heard before.

I will never forget how he shouted, beamed radiantly and clapped like a little kid with genuine joy when he put on Ruddy Thomas' debut LP on the Joe Gibbs label and heard -for the first time - Thomas' smoking-hot, dancehall cover version of "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough."

That was the man that I much prefer to remember. Can you blame me?

R.I.P.

Let's face it, creatively, artistically, he hasn't done anything in nearly 20 years. Just about everything he did post Thriller was fueled by a self created freak showvsensationalism. Every new recording or appearance was accompaniied by some puffed up self-indulgent hysteria. Even when he ran into his various legal problems he took full advantage and turned himself into an even bigger side-show attraction. And the glaring fact that no one really wants to mention is that his work has not held up very well. Has anyone actually listenend to Thriller lately? Now it just makes you wonder what all the fuss was about. Even his more recent offerings sound horribly dated.

Remember in the midst of the child abuse allegations (one of them) he produced that faux documentary and "tribute" concert to himself? The documentary showed him being chased around Germany by a throng of fans ala Beatlemania. A friend and I both noticed that whereever he went the same people were showing up in the "crowd" (which if the camera pulled back was really about 30 or 40 people). Same thing at the "tribute" concert. They would show a shot of the audience screaming and crying. There was some slip up and they showed an over head shot of the audience. Everyone was sitting except a small group in the front with cameras on them being coached. But I would find myself watching just because it was so appalling: his nose is falling off, there's Liz, there's Liza.

He was a flim flam man and the vultures will carry on and turn his death into his last spectacle.

This is definitely one of the better MJ articles I've read. You nailed the silliness of most of the media tsunami surrounding this story. In regards to the celebs, it's all part and parcel of their craven need for attention. It's also interesting that Sheryl Crow was interviewed given that she's spent her career talking about how icky it was to be a MJ back up singer.

The great, hysterical mourning reminds me nothing so much as a really BAD Monty Python skit.

Seriously, people. Get a grip. His best album was from 1979, Off the Wall (which was terrific). Everything else??? Bleh.

And he's been looking like Ceasar Romero's "Joker" (think TV Batman) for the last 10 years. Eeuuuu.

Please, get a grip, people. Michael Jackson was a pop star long ago, and his contribution to music is and will be significantly less than hundreds of bands over the last 30 years.

He was in all probability a child molester.

And I feel nothing but relief for his own children. While they will be grieved by the loss of a parent -- children grieve the loss of the worst parents imaginable -- at least they now have a chance to grow up normally.