Michael Jackson's onstage squealing, yelping, and hiccuping were about as original as McDonald's hamburgers. And his choreography mimicked-- at best-- a second rate aerobics class. Are people really this stupid?

The acclaim accorded this drug-addled pedophile is baffling. That Salon would devote any more pixels to its hagiography borders on the irresponsible. Please stop?

I mean half the divas on the pop scene are known to be clinically insane and violent. R Kelly has repeatedly committed statutory rape and urinated on children, on camera. Why is this so different? It's not.

>> The triumph is that -- for all the harm he did -- he left so much good in the world. <<

I disagree. I doubt that Jackson's victims would agree that his music outweighed the pain he caused them. It's incredibly insensitive to try to measure human pain against music.

Many of us Africa Americans who are self aware and intellectually honest acknowledge overcoming some level of self hatred. Just last night I read an article where the author cited a recent study that showed 70% of all people (black, white...) associated more positive traits with whites and more negative traits with blacks. I believe that is so many of us gave Jackson a pass for him presumed self hatred. We could relate on some level. If we didn't the phases "Black is Beautiful" and Jesse Jackson's "I am Somebody!" would not have had the power they did when I was growing up.

At the peak of his success, Michael had it all. Yet he could not see what we saw when he looked in the mirror. The myth of Micheal's life should be a cautionary tale to anyone who has ever wrestle with any type of self esteem issue of any sort to love the person you are (secular folk), love the person you were created to be (religious folk). Failure to do so will result in a person living in an internal hell even if that person should happen to have it all externally.

Happy Birthday with love to my daughter Logan who is 21 today. Love Dad.

As a youngster, she got to choose several photos to display on the wall of her room. She chose Michael Jackson,Peter Pan, and David Copperfield in that order.

On July 7th, she will be 21 and Michael Jackson will be buried.

Putting Jackson in some imaginary line of significant black men that leads from Nat King Cole to Obama is the height of the ludicrous. He broke no media barriers for black entertainers. When the Jackson 5 came along and bubblegummed Motown, they followed on the heels of a ton of great black musicians who were on every variety and music show of the era. The Supremes, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Smoky Robinson, The Temptations, and a ton of others harking back to Doo-Whop had long broken any color barrier that might have existed.

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The Jackson 5 were part of the move to leisure-suit America. The early-Seventies fusion of folk, blues, rock, soul, acid rock, and other genres into a protest and political medium, and the ascendancy of the counterculture in the arts and fashion, sent the corporate music types off in search of Bee Gees, Archies, and Jackson 5's to spray saccharine on the fire. Michael Jakson was ideal for them. Mohammed Ali broke barriers. Jackson was used to prop them up.

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Michael Jackson was a Diana Ross wannabe from beginning to end. He was always what he looked like, from the vapid little boy being exploited by the family band, to the nose-jobbed Ross lookalike of "Ebony and Ivory", to the creature with the creepy vibe of an androgynous Batman villain the end. The media circus surrounding his pointless and predictable death is a travesty of journalism. End it!

Did MTV really have a "color barrier" in its earliest days? I very much doubt that MTV did not play Eddy Grant's "Electric Avenue" or Stevie Wonder (and Paul McCartney's) "Ebony and Ivory." MTV had a format barrier; they played white Top 40, album-oriented rock, and English New Wave in their earliest days. Michael Jackson reminded them that white suburban teenagers would listen to and watch well-produced and accessible R&B. Once "Thriller" was being played every hour, of course, then there was no reason not to also eventually put Prince and Whitney Houston in heavy rotation as well.

I never have been a big Michael Jackson fan. My music is jazz and classical. That said, I do believe he was a great artist and his work (obviously--look at the shock and grief at his death) touched many people.

He was also a troubled child who never was able to grow up. What a sad life. Who ever really loved this child who never grew up? He was exploited and emotionally abused by his family and I would wager was sexually abused by someone. The people around him used him for what they could get from him. Would Lisa Marie have married him if he had been a fifth grade teacher? All the famous people who consider themselves to be his close friends--how often did they see him? Once or twice a year, maybe? Most people see their close friends often.

For almost his whole life, the people who cared for him and cared about him, were people who were paid to do it.

What a sad life.

it might have been Mort Sahl or Lenny Bruce --

it was Lenny Bruce -- probably from one of his routines, but it's in his book, whose title I forget (sorry).

The cult of Celeb Worship has claimed another self-esteem challenged life. Sad. But must we again be bombarded with weeks, months, years (god forbid) of wall-to-wall mass hysteria. I haven't completely gotten completely over the Princess Di swoon.

Oh, to be in the flower or teddybear business.

.....lovely,heartfelt and concise,Micheal. Well done! However,it was definitely Lenny Bruce......(I'm not sure Mort Sahl could have managed it...)

cheers,

MG

All I know is that whoever tagged him the king of P.O.P. totally nailed it... Pedophilia On Pediatrics.

"I very much doubt that MTV did not play Eddy Grant's "Electric Avenue" or Stevie Wonder (and Paul McCartney's) "Ebony and Ivory."

Wrong, NO black American artists were played on MTv before Michael Jackson. Bowie even asked one of the addle pated Vj's why the pre-Jackson landscape of Mtv was lily white and he was told "...because sponsors in the South have complained."

Kelly Emberg, Cheryl Ladd, Cheryl Tiegs, Christie Brinkley, Susan Anton, Farrah (RIP)etc etc every beautiful women was really really white and there were no Black or Latinos in the media who were not bad ass jive talkin or goat owning/vest wearing stereotypes. Jackson ushered in so many important changes in how the media views other cultures and races that his contributions are incalculable.