Don't get me wrong, though, because I love MJ's early material, from Off The Wall to Bad, and even enjoy Dangerous because the songcraft is so strong (datedness does not really hamper enjoyment of an album), but I hate what he's become and he's ruined my goodwill with Invincible.

VoicesCarry said:

So we disagree.

You stick with Madonna and I'll stick with MJ.

Cloudbuster said:

We'll see who lasts longer

I hope Sony doesn't buy out his contract. They have a history of abandoning artists who are experiencing personal conflict.

4jamiestarr said:

...its tha' face of "something" ugly!!! "i keed, i keed!!!"...

I like the captain crunch with marshmallows. yummm. No yucky soy milk though. the young boys love the sugary cereal after a night of rough sex.

"The latest Michael Jackson controversy perfectly mirrors the shallowness and exploitation at the center of the entertainment business.


Jackson now seems to have become the three-dimensional picture of Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray, the man who looked forever young but kept a picture hidden that recorded his layers of crime and sickness. Jackson's reputation carries the foulings so emblematic of our time, revealing themselves in spiritual pustules.


It is a strange tale. Jackson evolves from cute little exploited boy and lead singer in a bubble gum group of brothers all the way to a progressively eccentric and repulsive tabloid favorite.


In terms of color, Jackson went beyond Clarence Clemons' observation that to be successful in rock you need to look black but sound white. Jackson's ascension to the King of Pop was made possible by his having made himself look like a pale, androgynous Disney character.


His plastic surgery and his fey refusal to grow up rhymed with our culture's death camps of cosmetic surgery that so purely express the evermore contagious insecurity of human beings in the face of time. Those expensive camps in which one is not gassed but cut up are where so many, to use the cliche, reinvent themselves.


Jackson surely did that. He changed his look; he acquired new companions: a midget child star, a chimpanzee, Elvis Presley's daughter (who left him, saying that their marriage was never consummated).

Now a second set of child molestation charges. Whether Jackson is guilty or not, there is a basic truth about the entertainment business today: to be the King of Pop is to be the King of Pedophilia.


I say that because pedophilia is the essence of the pop music industry, where children are exploited in every possible way by products arriving in the form of lyrics or images or dehumanizing perspectives.


Our children are made hungry for things they cannot digest. Their narcissism is used against them, which is the exact technique of the pedophile who says to the child that he or she - unlike all those other kids! - is mature enough to be treated like an adult and to do things that other kids either don't understand or are too lame to appreciate.


Our children are told that hostility, vulgarity, shock and sex are the weapons that best express their freedom from the adults who - hidden inside the industry like the Wizard of Oz - are setting them up to consume even more demeaning products.


From any angle, Michael Jackson is no longer the man in the mirror. He is now the mirror itself"

--Stanley Crouch, Black culture critic.

2freaky4church1 said:

Sounds profound. Put more succinctly: he be a freak, yo!

Cloudbuster said:

You're right, he's not a freak. His face just evolved that way.

VoicesCarry said:

I ain't saying his face is looking good. But it was cruel comments that made him insecure about his appearance in the first place.

Cloudbuster said:

Oh well, he could have just gotten over the comments, like most normal people who've been bullied/called freaks, etc. You know, told his father to f*** off, gotten on with his life.
[This message was edited Sat Dec 20 9:24:04 PST 2003 by VoicesCarry]

Let's see what you look like, Cloudbuster..lol

VoicesCarry said:

Sure he could. But he didn't. Doesn't mean he deserves to be ridiculed about it for the rest of his life, tho'.

Cloudbuster said:

When you do what he did to his face, you leave yourself open to ridicule, sorry.

VoicesCarry said:

Yeah, if you're an insesitive shit.

2freaky4church1 said:

I wanna see you dance first.

Cloudbuster said:

Right, I'm insensitive for not pitying poor, poor, poor defenseless Michael Jackson, who had all the advantages most people NEVER get and STILL managed to screw up his life. Call me crazy.

Actually, call me when he grows a backbone.
[This message was edited Sat Dec 20 9:33:39 PST 2003 by VoicesCarry]

VoicesCarry said:

Wrong. He was already screwed up as a teenager.

Cloudbuster said:

We all are, in one way or another. Guess that gives us an excuse for life.

VoicesCarry said:

Granted. We are. But why should that give us the right to rip the piss out of someone who is in the public eye?

Cloudbuster said:

a) It's his choice to continue to be in the public eye.

b) The consistent child abuse reports are very disturbing.

c) Having a monkey named Bubbles is pretty funny.

I mean, by your logic, we wouldn't be able to poke fun at Dubya. His hilarious malapropisms would go unheard.
[This message was edited Sat Dec 20 9:45:42 PST 2003 by VoicesCarry]

VoicesCarry said:

a) So.

b) True. But that doesn't mean they're based on fact.

c) Pets often have daft names. What's your point? Should he have called his monkey Jeff?

Cloudbuster said:

Well, when you pay off the child in question, it's basically an admission. First case never got to criminal court because the kid wouldn't testify and Mike STILL gave him $20 million? Something's going on there...

Also, if it's his choice to be in the public eye, then it's his responsibility to deal with whatever attention he gets. Everyone in the public eye opens themselves up to ridicule. This is not something new.

But no more paddling the ball back and forth. Let's agree to disagree.

VoicesCarry said:

Cool.

:handshake: