Michael Jackson

I'm still feeling under the weather plus it's now that time of the month. Yippee! I'm supposed to get together with a friend but frankly I just want to go home and get under the covers with a movie and a good book! I'm still of two minds whether or not I should cancel.

I'm also supposed to be working on my novel. I made it to page 350 yesterday, and I want to make my ten pages. I felt like crap yesterday and still managed to write, so I should make it. I worked on my President's Letter and my blog article, to get me started.

I was reading the testimony from the young boy in the Michael Jackson trial. I've been thinking about how I feel about Michael and this whole thing for awhile now. I watched the documentary on VH-1 and the piece on ABC Prime-Time by Martin Bashir who was called as witness by the defense, a reluctant witness mind you, despite the fact that his interview with Michael is what started this whole thing.

I'm basically cynical when it comes to things like this. I believe that O.J. and Scott Peterson killed their wives, and that Martha Stewart was guilty, but I have a hard time believing that Michael Jackson in guilty of child molestation.

I believe that he's guilty of poor judgement. The one that the VH-1 documentary emphasized was that Michael Jackson's childhood was stolen from him by his career. Now there have been other child stars who have turned out okay like Brooke Shields, and Melissa Gilbert. Unfortunately, if you don't have parents who can guide you, and keep you safe, you are not going to turn out okay in this crazy business.

Michael's father saw his children primarily as a meal ticket, a way to escape his dreary life in Gary, Indiana, and to make some serious money. Also to have the singing career that he never had. Michael was taught from an early age to lie about his age, he was forced to watch his older brothers bring groupies back to their hotel room and have sex while he was still in the room. He's retreated into this child-like existence at Neverland where he's Peter Pan.

I truly believe that all the plastic surgery and the whitening of his skin is to make him look more like the Disney cartoon version of Peter Pan. It's scary to me that of all the characters he could pick, that it's Peter Pan. I've always felt there was something sinister about the character of Peter, that lurked just under the surface. The refusal to grow-up, to stay in that child-like state of a pre-teen boy. The fact that children stay in Neverland only until they are a certain age and then they have to return to their families, is echoed in Jackson's own behavior. Once a child reaches puberty, Michael is no longer interested in him.

He has very few friends his own age, he spends little time with his family. He's surround by synchophants who do whatever he tells them to. Other people have advised him after the 1993 case that he has to change his behavior. Witness his marriages to Lisa Marie Presley and Debbie Rowe. It was his way of saying "Look, I am normal, I'm married." But neither marriage lasted.

Lisa Marie was clearly a publicity stunt, and Debbie Rowe was a brood mare, paid to have his children and then to disappear from their lives. Does anyone think this is normal behavior?

Michael clearly needs psychiatric help. Whether he will get this help is debatable. He's clearly shown that he knows how to manipulate people. I doubt that any psychiatrist would be able to get through to him unless he's admitted to a facility.

I blame the parents of these children as well as Michael. Was the allure of being taken care of, and free trips, worth it? Didn't you think that it was odd that a grown man would spend so much of his time surrounded by just children? Weren't you aware that your child was sleeping in the same bedroom or bed as Michael Jackson. What made you think it was okay? That he was a celebrity. Any parent would think that it was odd that a grown man would spend so much time with children that weren't his own.

I'm not denying that Michael Jackson had done a lot for children and that he loves them sincerely. But I think that something is warped in his head, mentally in many ways he hasn't progressed beyond the age of twelve.

I don't know if it's just arrogance or a child-like desire to keep at bay anything that is difficult to deal with instead of facing reality. I think it's a measure of both with Michael Jackson.

He's a talented artist who I've had the privilege of seeing perform twice when he was still with the Jackson 5. I still play his CD's, but I play them with a heavy heart. I find it hard to seperate the artist from the man who is accused of being a child molestor.

I hope and pray that Michael gets the help that he needs.