How infinitely sad that Michael Jackson achieved a level of fame and fortune almost unmatched by any other entertainer yet died making decisions based on a lack of money.

Thanks for hearing my views out.

I find it interesting- I've commented on this with friends and relatives- that I was more affected by Michael Jackson's passing than I ever would have expected.

And I think that much of that is because- of all the celebrity funerals, wakes, and outpourings of grief that I've observed over the years, since Elvis Presley- this one brought up something I'd only dimly acknowledged: the Michael Jackson story is a thousand times more tragic than that of any other celebrated entertainer I can think of. Especially when his fame and wealth at the peak of his status as a figure of worldwide acclaim are placed alongside his reclusiveness and decline, and the tragedies attendant to his personal life.

Jackson seems to have absorbed twenty times more psychological battering at the age of 13 than most people get in their entire lives- mostly at the hand of his father, but also from an unhealthy dose of chronic hazing from his elder brothers, who were sadly also abuse victims of the father- discharging their own pain on Michael, the nearest scapegoat- an all too typical pattern. And that was only the beginning of the gauntlet he ran.

Imagine the sort of self-alienation that leads someone to seek to reconstruct their face- and then the grief from having the results be unsuccessful. Because whatever Michael intended to do to alter his face at the outset, there's no way he could have been other then horrified at the ultimate result. And this was exacerbated by his medical conditions- lupus and vitiligo; and then the terrible accident with his hair catching fire, and scarring his scalp...does anyone think that was Michael's real long black straightened hair, for the past 25 years? I think it's likely that he lost half of his hair follicles in that accident, and at some point after that time, he was in the position of having to wear a wig to cover his disfugured scalp. Along with his artificial prosthetic nose, and the nearly total reconstruction of the internal bone structure of his face.

I think that in turn helps to explain his refuge in powerful opiate narcotics. The tragic but effective internal solace they provide- usually at the price of producing reclusiveness and withdrawal from the world- may actually have been something that kept him alive to face another day. The full impact of all of his medical and physical ailments and disfigurements- and the knowledge that some of them were the result of his own volition- might have otherwise led him into even deeper pain. As it was, it still must have taken a terrible toll on him.

Add in the loneliness of his life as far as his inability to cultivate the friednship of his peers, and it's almost too much to bear, even to contemplate from a distance.

Michael's life is an object lesson in the axiom that material wealth is no substitute for a state of health, well-being, and a circle of close friends that one experiences as comforting and trustworthy company. True, kind, companionship. But he never got that chance.

Even with his child companions, he seems to have been so insecure that he felt the need to buy their friendship.

It really does make me sad to think about it all. And while I don't feel like going overboard in putting forth an interpretation of "what it means" as far as a statement- or indictment- of the values of modern American society, I'd say that there are definitely some symbolic, even mythic resonances present there. Perhaps the best thing that could happen would be if everyone thought about what it would mean to be kinder to each other.

He was a talented guy. Anyone who could cop James Brown like that, at 9 years old...

Svutlov, to call someone ignorant because he doesn't agree with Wikipedia just shows that you're a lazy researcher. Wikipedia is often wrong. Wikipedia articles can be written by anybody, and edited by anybody. By definition, Wikipedia equals "received wisdom." But received wisdom is often wrong. If 90 % of people believe something, that's what Wikipedia will say, even if it's wrong.

Beyond that, even the editors of Wikipedia don't think that that section is accurate. In fact, it's extremely dishonest of you to post that section of the Wikipedia article without the tag that precedes it on Wikipedia:

"This section's factual accuracy is disputed. Please see the relevant discussion on the talk page. (July 2009)"

If you go to the talk page, you find the exact points I made, with references. The best article on this was from Jet magazine in 2006, and you can read it here:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_14_110/ai_n16807343

Since we can assume that Jet magazine, a black-owned news magazine that began as a way to cover the civil rights movement, has no stake in whitewashing alleged racism at MTV, and since it is based on firsthand interviews with people on all sides of this issue, I think it's a pretty credible source. The citations in the Wiki article, on the other hand, all come from fan books and fan magazines like "Blender," which typically print lists of "interesting facts" with no attribution. So the wiki writer is just regurgitating conventional wisdom, without asking anyone who was there.

By the way, I was around and watching MTV before Billie Jean. I know for a fact that they were playing black artists. Even Rick James, when arguing that they didn't play black artists, had to be snide and make comments about Tina Turner having given up being black, because in fact they were playing a significant number of black videos already when his was rejected.

Say what you like, you (and Wikipedia) are wrong on this one.

The relevant quote from the Jet article:

When Michael Jackson's record label submitted his video for Billie Jean in 1983, it changed how the network excluded videos. Garland was the man who made the decision to air Billie Jean, though it didn't fit the formula.

"There was never any hesitation. No fret," says Garland, dispelling the "myth" that Jackson's record label threatened to pull all of its videos if Billie Jean was not shown. "I called Bob (Pittman, MTV co-founder) to tell him, 'I just saw the greatest video I've ever seen in my life. It is off the dial it's so good.' We added it that day. How (the myth) turned into a story literally blew our minds."

Interestingly, Jet could find no-one from Michael Jackson's record company to support the other side of this story, that they made a fuss and threatened to pull all their other videos. Walter Yetnikoff has made this claim, but interestingly, in the version he told CNN, which you can find here:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0906/26/sitroom.01.html

he was actually told that they wouldn't play Billie Jean because it wasn't rock (which is exactly what I said...it was a FORMAT issue). It was Yetnikoff who then threatened to tell the media that MTV wouldn't play the video because MJ was black.

So in Yetnikoff's own account, he lied about what MTV actually said. Why should we trust him at all, then?