The next few days of television are going to be excruciating. Non-stop tributes to Michael Jackson. I'm sure Governor Sanford is wishing to returned to this country just one day later.

Question: how many hours will MSNBC and CNN and the others keep repeating the footage of Jackson's corpse being transferred from the helicopter, into the white van, and to the coroner's office. I suspect it will rival the endless footage of OJ's white Bronco making it's long and boring trip down the freeway.

...and Tinwoman wrote that MJ was in such ill health he probably could not perform onstage and would not live much longer. Prescient remarks :o

All hail the return of Bill Wyman!

...just by reading the headline. Then I read your story and I think you got it just about right. But you missed talking about this moment here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En-cHBv7UpA&NR=1

Take a look. Here he is in his prime: post abusive childhood, pre self-mutilation. God he was good. Extraordinary. This is how I want to remember him.

The year was 1983. I was a black kid from Nebraska with a scholarship to attend a leading New England boarding school. I was so out of place in so many ways: Lower middle class among the wealthy, midwestern kid among children of the eastern elite, a democrat among the Reagan youth, religious among the not so much. A kid literally trying to make the grade. Wow the first year was pretty hard. Yet Michael Jackson was the coolest person in the world. He smashed the racial barrier on MTV. The most successful artist of his time. the biggest album of all time. Even Eddie Van Halen the reigning king of rock guitar played with him. Jackson belonged to me in a way he could not belong to ther other kids. His success was my success too. If he could make it, I could too.

I and the world would later hear the tales of his sad upbringing. We would hear the accusations of abuse which if true (which I suspect they were) made him an abuser in addition to being a victim. But that was later. Then he was the king of pop and for a while made my world a better place.

Rest in Peace. My you find the joy in the next life that seemed to allude you in this one.

For the last 25 years, it's been suicide in slo-mo. I thought his first album was the best, bar none. Everything else, bleh.

The buzz? Exhausting....

Enough already.

I meant 'all ready' to rant. Jeesh, and I used to teach English. My only excuse is that I have been crying like a baby tonight regarding this news. Not like me at all.

You would have think someone of importance to our world has died -- like the Dalai Lama or something. Four major stories in Salon and 13 smaller stories! I have felt lately that Salon is turning into a reflection of our impoverished American culture, focusing on its obsession with celebrity, ridiculous events and phony conflicts.

Michael Jackson was a sad, sad man. He deserves a brief goodbye, acknowledging his talents and contribution to the world of music.

But please spare us this insane sensationalism and morbid fascination!

Music critic Dave Marsh wrote a book entitled Trapped: Michael Jackson and the Crossover Dream. You will have a hard time finding it, because Jackson fans abhorred it. But Marsh talked with some concern and genuine sympathy for Jackson. Many of the considerations of Jackson's life, mentioned in Wyman's article, were written by Marsh years ago. (The book came out in the aftermath of the disasterous "Victory" tour.)

But Marsh never returned to Jackson, as far as I know. I imagine that what Jackson turned into was so sad he couldn't stand it. You did that work, Mr. Wyman, and thank you for that.

A big lesson for everyone - that most people will ignore - is that Jackson died, emotionally and creatively, long before his body did. And it was because of the celebrity culture in which he swam, and swallowed wholesale, and ultimately drowned.

Is the Dalai Lama really that relevant to us?

MJ was a person of importance. That's why so many people are making a big deal of it. I have a lot of respect for the DL. But MJ had a far greater impact on my life. From my perspective as an African American, his career helped demonstrate that it was truly possible for a talented, hard working person of color to achieve the highest levels in American society. A theoretical possibility become reality.

Don't minimize that.

Thank you for this fine tribute, Mr. Wyman. When you mention Mr. Cobain, this brings up a sore subject. In addition to addiction and depression, there were two other things in the mix that killed Mr. Cobain- Courtney and Love. Cheers.

1) God, you see pictures of him as a kid just starting out with the Jackson 5, sunny, irrepressible, and it just breaks your heart. :(

2) Excellent article, Bill. My mother aptly noted that success/celebrity was all Michael Jackson knew--he never had a chance to have any kind of real life outside the fishbowl. (Which is why his later albums were progressively weaker--his talent and skill wasn't enough to cover up the fact his creative well was running dry and mega-success had fishbowled him in the worst way. Nor was it enough to help him heal--or outrun--his demons.)

3) I had always wondered why the insane plastic surgery, and finally heard a good reason (via the author of the unauthorized MJ bio). Michael was trying to wipe out any physical resemblance to his father in the same way he was wiping out his father's failures as a musician and a dad.

Jackson, Brian Wilson...or Layne Staley. :(

Michael Jackson should be remembered for his talents as a performer. But this facination with his personal life is just voyeristic and morbid. Apparently people like to know that there are people who are even more screwed up than they are.