a very nice and honest article.

I blame the people that accused him of molesting their children. These people need to stand up and admit to what they did and how they ruined MJ life; all for the almighty dollar. This was the straw that broke the camels back. The media was already calling him Wacko Jacko and weird and this just added fuel to the fire. Americans turned their backs on MJ when the rest of the world embraced him. They bought his last albums, made them #1 over there; all the media did was continue to crucify him. The poor guy didn't have a chance. He could never trust anyone as we see now; all the so-called friends are releasing tapes and writing books, still trying to make a buck off him. I truly believe MJ was sent here to do what he had to do and God said it's time to come home and rest now, my child. His name will live on forever.

Came across your blog, was excited to read it, felt the same way you did, then you called him strange, then you used the word "stranger and stranger" . . . you lost me there.

Where to start in answering? Martin Scorcese called Michael’s persona ’shamanistic’, Spielberg
called him an ‘ emotional star child’, Mark Romanek
( director of Scream ) referred to him as ‘metaphysical’, Anjelica Houston called him an ‘innocent.’ Whatever the word used, all of these highly creative individuals were each in their way trying to convey the sense of wonderment they felt in Michael’s prescence. You can hear it in his music. It’s seeded in every note, in the dynamics and harmonics of the songs he sang. If you listen and look you can feel it in his entire body of work. And his voice – that soft yet hard, steel yet gossamer power and beauty he could produce at will; that crept inside you when you heard it, broke through the fortress of your innermost being, and offered it – everything. It was deceptive, he sang disco songs when he came out and it was therefore easy to see him as ‘just’ that; but inside those songs ( whether they were his or how he interpreted them ) were the stamp of his essence. It elevated the merely kinetic to the kaleidoscopic, music into magic and a thousand songs into the substance of the soul. Some think of Michael as nothing more than an 80’s artefact, a relic of the bad, brash, primary-coloured, Lucas directed, pre-Aids / 9/11 times when we thought the whole world loved America and people adored their stars like the old movie idols from back in the day. Maybe. But what they fail to realize is this: every kid I know is discovering Star Wars for the first time, the Sistine Chapel is no less beautiful now than it was when its painter first stepped back, looked up and and exhaled. True art is immortal and it lives forever. Michael often quoted Micheangelo – who said: ‘I will bind my soul to my work.’ This is what Michael Jackson did. He took that boyish idealism, that thirst for freedom, that yearning to ‘move’ and be moved, his desire to be the best, his love and joy, his rage, his pain, his sorrow, his confusion and his loss – and put it into his work. When all the lies and the untruths have faded with time and the predators who, even now pick at his memory like vultures to the bone, have finished their feasting – his work will remain. I find it interesting that the same media who are now saying ‘enough Michael Jackson’ didn’t employ that same restraint when for over 15 years they set about eroding and degrading his spirit. The grief I have felt since the 26th has been so intense and so profound I know a great passing has occurred. It ' was' physical – ‘is’ physical, as if the whole world for a moment felt some of the slow agony of being that misunderstood, that lonely, and that betrayed. I know Michael is free now and he sings and dances amongst the worlds. In the moment of his leaving, he became at once a symbol of our lost innocence and the possibilty of regaining that. And for those of us left behind, who know who and what he was and what he tried to do here – his light will shine forever. It doesn’t matter if you don’t get it, or if you don’t get Michael because we get him. We let the ugliness in this world take him from us once – we won’t let it happen again.

We have a very *strange* relationship w/people who perform for a living. We forget they’re people. We feel entitled to treat them in ways & expect of them things we normally wouldn’t of other people. We treat them more like things/commodities & we don’t have much respect for them.

Madonna, in her MTV VMA tribute to Michael, said she thought Michael got the short end of the stick losing his childhood compared to her losing her mother – because she found mother figures, but he could never regain his lost childhood. And people didn’t understand him when he tried to relive parts of it – part of his ‘odd/freak/strange/weirdness’ - and it made him an easy suspect.

She also said she’d been allowed to find her own way & make her own mistakes. Michael had always been in the public eye since he was 5 y.o. He never had any privacy. Every mistake was magnified. He had to grow up in public & go through all the awkward stages of everything, especially adolescence, in front of the pitiless eye of the camera. I had enough problems doing it w/o media scrutiny. Michael told stories of fans looking for the cute young boy Michael & being disappointed w/the gangly teen w/the bad acne. One even called him ugly.

Can you imagine stories & pics of your first dates in your newspapers & local tv news & everybody talking about you like they do @ the Twilight/Hills/Gossip Girls or Jon/Kate or Angelina/Brad/Jennifer? Can you imagine the scale Michael had to face, especially after the child molestation allegations/trial? No wonder he became a recluse.

Even now in death, Michael has been stripped of privacy & dignity. ‘Friends & confidants,’ photographers & reporters with the ‘last interviews’ are coming out daily with new books, secret tapes, exclusive photos in everything from tabloids to the Architectural Digest to reveal the ‘secrets’ of the Man in the Mirror. Michael is a multi-million dollar industry keeping the publishing/tv/cd/media afloat & the vultures continue to pick at his corpse at his expense. Michael, the gift who keeps on giving – even as they continue maligning you.

well the article was fine and i understand thats how u want to remember this guy and its your right to do it in a way to make you feel better! but theres just one thing that i want to say and its the only thing that i think about it these days that we have him gone : i just learned to read and listen to things that media and different people including haters and lovers say about him and keep smilling because i found a great love for him which will always warm my heart up every time that i remember him and nothing would take this love away none of those stupid rumers or bitter facts!!!!! cause i learned to love him the way he was !!!! and i owned him that ! thats all!!!