He was an icon, the Elvis of my generation. Like many, I took him for granted in his heyday and forgot how great he was. When I told my eight year old daughter that Michael Jackson had died, she said "That basketball player guy?". So I didn't let her go to bed until she watched every MJ video (not really, but almost).

When I was in Vegas last week I saw a comedian do ten minutes of MJ impressions and jokes. Sucks to be him today...

Sux man, for all the reasons listed above.

The King is dead.
Long live the King.

It's all faked to promote the comeback tour. Picture it: a vigil is announced at some venue. Everyone's all weepy and signing 'Billie Jean' when suddenly fog starts to roll in... the lights dim. Fireworks explode and MJ jumps out on stage with a 'WeeeeHeeee' in full thriller zombie makeup. OR IS IT!? Sweet Zombie Jackson!

He's weird enough to do it.

Just sayin'. Get ready for it.

Overrated. You would think from the years of insane adulation that crowds of mouthbreathers have gven him that MJ had actually made a positive impact on the world. He wasn't a doctor who found the cure to a disease, he wasn't a war hero, a social innovator or poet. He wiggled on stage, squeaked out soem generic pop music and dressed like a cross between Liberace and Willy Wonka. Lets save the tears and concern for people who deserve it. He's not worth the time and energy.

It does suck but honestly he hasn’t made anything good since the 80’s. That was the real Michael Jackson.

Well said, nice tribute.

HEY TRENT, JESUS HATES YOU!

PS. YOUR MOTHERS A BITCH

To Trent,
While I expect to no doubt hear low lifes like you come out in droves in the wake of such an event. Its undeniable how the man was a humanitarian and how he shaped and changed pop culture forever. You may not like the man but he damn well deserves at least a little respect.

The guy was undeniably a legend. I'm going to remember him for who he was in the early 80s--a gifted performer who literally changed both music and the world in general. He truly was the King of Pop.

Anonx -

"Humanitarian" is the newspeak term for "bipolar pedophile narcissist," I guess?

He had a couple of good songs, a long time ago. There's no need to praise him for any more than that.

I remember being totally blown away by Space Michael when I was playing that game. It was the weirdest cameo ever, especially since he lent his voice talent to the game.

I agree with Teague, he was a legend. Love him or despise him, he had a huge impact on music and millions of people. He should be remembered for what he did in his heyday, and not all the crappy controversies of the past decade.

Count Spatula nailed it! Look out world Jacko's coming backo FROM THE DEAD!!!

ps... Lets not forget about the totally awesome Moonwalker arcade game and it's cinema counterpart. Maybe Paul McCartney will buy the rights and finally release the movie on DVD!

Whatever your opinions about him you can NOT deny the impact he had on music and popular cuture. Another legend gone too soon, how very sad.

I plan on watching The Wiz sometime this weekend in tribute.

RIP Michael.

no doubt michel is having the time of his life in heaven now in his own version. for that video game clip makes the king of pop a little creepy for a vidoe game character. but one way his legend will live on.

Michael was a legend and will be missed by millions all around the world. R.I.P. Michael. King of Pop.

I am not the biggest fan, I own two albums, he had some amazing songs and I grew up during hs superstar time in the late 80's and early 90's.

It is sad that twisted individuals still like to make comments about him thinking they are funny....it just shows how I'll mannered an little respect they have. Regardless of anyones opinion he was proven innocent to all the scum that tried getting money from him and telling lies to get 15 minutes of fame.

Michael Jackson is a Legend.

A lot of internet troglodytes are coming out of the woodwork loudly proclaiming that he was "overrated" to get attention. I bet most of them weren't even zygotes when Thriller came out.

Say what you want about his later years, his bizarre behavior and his mental health, the man was a fucking entertainment God. Probably without hyperbole the biggest solo entertainer since Elvis.

That said, he years haven't been super kind, and everyone is mortal. It was pretty sudden, though. I'm not going to any candle light vigils, but man it's the height of neckbearded, dorktarded geek hate to call a man who spent a decade without peer entertaining a whole planet "overrated."

I'm not gonna off myself or anything, but I still remember bopping around as a 5 year old in my living room to a well-worn Thriller cassette.

You gotta give it up for MJ. I was born in 1980, and as I grew up there was nobody on the planet more popular and beloved than him. Unlike the celebrities now who tour the world adopting babies for charitable reasons, Michael actually brought the world together with this music.

There's a lot of haters on the 'nets right now saying how overrated he is and only remember him for his controversies. Those people were clearly born after the height of his career. Because if you lived through the Micheal Jackson 80's, you'd remember him as the God of all Pop Icons that he really is.

Even though he hasn't produced anything for a long time, he'll be missed!

chad: Heaven? I think that paedophiles go somewhere a little hotter

A lot of you must have been born during the 80's. Michael was an icon as early as the late sixties-the first 20 years of his career (that would be 1968 to 1988 or so) changed everything forever in mainstream popular culture, whether you like it or not (and I didn't necessarily!). His career as THE celebrity, as TR put it, lasted longer than his bizarre fall from grace. And he WAS a humanitarian before he went totally bonkers-he did do a lot of good, very unselfish work in the world. Love him or hate him (and I never liked his music, not even a little bit) I think in the end he was just a product of his life. There will definitely never be another quite like him, and to say he 'had a couple of good songs' is just plain naive.

...You know, his insanity and pedophilia aside, Jacko was proof positive that anything can happen in America. Where else in the world can a poor little black boy grow up to be a rich white woman?

Lets face it the real Michael Jackson died in 1985, the man he became wasnt the peformer we all watched growing up. Say what you want about him but he was talented and thats more than you can say about 95% of the artists today.

Quite the wit, OM. That joke is as fresh as the first time I heard it 5-10 years ago. :-/

Whatever Wacko Jacko might have become, he was a cultural icon in his day. You know who else had "a few good songs?" Elvis and the Beatles. Everyone in my generation owned the Thriller LP. Every single damn one of us.

Hell, you can still get hundreds of people to gather together and re-enact the zombie dance at the drop of a hat (or one sparkly glove, as the case may be). Cruise YouTube for 2 minutes for the proof.

Love him or hate him, he was a sign of his times.

Well, I suppose a site where I post under this name is probably the best place for me to get my thoughts down. Like a good number of previous commenters, I was born in the 80's so I got to see Jackson at what was arguably the high point of his solo career right before he started to really lose it. I wish he'd gotten some type of help so that he could have better coped with the abuse he suffered as a child instead of creating a fantasy world that only resulted in more problems for himself and others. While I was never a huge fan, he entertained thousands (millions?) of people over the course of his career and inspired countless others to follow their dreams of becoming performers. Just as we shouldn't gloss over the bad things he did, we shouldn't forget the good he did. Maybe now we'll be able to get a better understanding of the real Michael Jackson, and not the media circus that he admittedly created himself sometimes.

Michael Jackson has only done one good thing since the 1980s, and that is that he has supposedly willed the Beatles catalogue back to its rightful owners.

I grew up in the 90s, and have only ever liked three of his songs "Beat It" "Say Say Say" and "Smooth Criminal" though I respected him as a singer.

I do not have any respect for him as a person, however, and no matter how great of art a person produces, if they are a complete and utter scumbag, that is what I will remember about them. Michael Jackson chose to be a child molesting freak and to not get help for his many psychological issues, and as such I will remember him as a high-quality musical performer with an utterly unforgivable and reprehensible personal life.

Well said.

I don't make excuses for anything he did in later years, but I don't feel we'll ever fully understand the extent of the problems he went through in his personal life and would urge people to remember him first and foremost for his immense talent and what he gave to the entertainment industry.

I can't view the video because the player is disabled at work, but I remember his appearance is SC5 (Part 2, was it?) Thanks for reminding me of not only his random appearance but of a game I used to love!

"Oh no - they've got Space Michael!"

Am I a bad person for immediately thinking a Death Note may be involved?

Jesus, all the adulation for this guy within the last 24 hours has been somewhat disconcerting for me. All the "wacko jacko" talk seems to fade, and people act like this dude was a saint. Kinda makes me wonder what people will say about OJ when he dies.
"He was a wonderful family man."
If this were a prefect world, and I know it is not, the evening news would've sounded something like this: "Michael Jackson passed away today. He had one of the most lucrative careers in entertainment history. He will be remembered for his talent onstage, his opulent lifestyle, and child fucking." They always leave that part out.

RIP King Of Pop

You are a legendary icon!

So the term "innocent until proven guilty" does not apply to Michael Jackson simply because he became Wacko Jacko? So if I accuse someone of rape just to see if they might give me money, then the poor guy I picked is guilty of rape? Simply because I accused him? Niiice! I might have to go to the States and start throwing accuations out there. It would be good for the balance of my bank account!

Sure the guy was crazy, and I do not know for certain that he did not molest those kids, but; he was found innocent in a court of law, on ALL accounts, after being accused by a family who apparently had tried the same thing with a security guy. Just seems fishy to me...

The funny thing is that I'm not a die hard fan. I just grew up in the eighties and remember hiding behind my mother when Thriller came on tv. It's acually the first thing I remember watching on tv. He was a great entertainer and he made some of the best pop music we will ever hear.

Om, way to steal a Dick Gregory line. Douche. And any self-respecting geek has to at least be a fan of Michael's videos. Thriller, Leave Me Alone, Bad (directed by Scorsese)...these are masterpieces. And the Moonwalker game is still pretty fun to play.

Hopefully 20 years from now Michael will be like Elvis, where we only remember the good early years. You never see clips of fat, drugged up Elvis. You remember him at his best--the cool cat of "Jailhouse Rock" fame.

Michael Jackson = Freak Pedophile

Many children will rest easier.

You don't pay a kid $20 million to avoid court after being accused of child diddling and having your wang photographed by cops unless there's a real reason. You figure it out people.

And oh ya: no hits in 20 years and 2 million sold for his last album.

Cause of death? Suicide. He could have never put on a 50 shows in London and he knew it.

Innocent until proven guilty... or until he admits to drugging a fucking child. I suppose he was looking out for the child's heart by giving him wine and pills. What a great man. Awesome musician and showman at one time, but scumbag pedophile trumps the label "King of Pop"

Michael Jackson will come back as one of the "black and white" lanterns in blackest night... or perhaps is the first sing of the apocalipse and them all the deads will arise lead by michael wearing his red jacket, anyway im ready for those damn zombie dancers, i have always been ready.... always...

I'm very glad you made a mention of Space Channel 5, I enjoyed those games. The Japanese must have been huge fans of MJ.

I'm so glad you fawning sycophants were entertained and inspired by Michael Jackson because somewhere out there you will find a handfull of children whose lives have been forever damaged by this sick and twisted child predator who built what was tantamount to a pedophilia palace where he lured and groomed his victims while selling you people the bait that he was this eccentric Peter Pan who really loved children. Enjoy his music while his victims continue to be traumatized and may most likely perpetuate deviant behavior themselves because of what happened to them.

Man, a lot of you guys are just horrible.

Michael Jackson has barely been relevant in music for 15 years!
All of the idots who are crying and saying their little prayers and holding their little vigils need to grow up and get a life. Where are the weepy prayer meetings and candlelit vigils for the countless thousands of children who will die from entirely preventable means this year alone?
This mass, societal outpouring of grief makes me as sick now as it did in August '97. None of you knew him, none of you had a stake in his life or his death.

Ay Trent, why don't you go fuck yourself... How are you gonna put down a legend like that? For you to say something like that about a guy who back on his hedays accomplished alot takes alot of balls! You will never accomplish a percent of what he did... Till you change the music industry, pop cultures, and inspire alot of people you can't say anything negative about him... R.I.P Michael "The King of Pop" Jackson! And Trent... If you don't like any of this you can just "BEAT IT"...hahaha suck on that bitch!

http://www.buttonmonkey.com/misc/maryfischer.html

All those people insistent on believing that Michael Jackson was a pedophile, you'd do well to read that. The circumstances are too suspect to believe that the accuser was actually molested. The only time when the accusations actually came out was AFTER the boy's father, a dentist, gave the boy the drug sodium Amytal, which he claimed was in order to pull the boy's tooth. The problem with the drug? Let's read on here:

"“It’s a psychiatric medication that cannot be relied on to produce fact,” says Dr. Resnick, the Cleveland psychiatrist. “People are very suggestible under it. People will say things under sodium Amytal that are blatantly untrue.” Sodium Amytal is a barbiturate, an invasive drug that puts people in a hypnotic state when it’s injected intravenously. Primarily administered for the treatment of amnesia, it first came into use during World War II, on soldiers traumatized—some into catatonic states—by the horrors of war. Scientific studies done in 1952 debunked the drug as a truth serum and instead demonstrated its risks: False memories can be easily implanted in those under its influence. “It is quite possible to implant an idea through the mere asking of a question,” says Resnick. But its effects are apparently even more insidious: “The idea can become their memory, and studies have shown that even when you tell them the truth, they will swear on a stack of Bibles that it happened,” says Resnick."

This is a drug that is considered so powerful and the side effects so insidious that some doctors won't administer it outside of hospital settings, and yet we're going to believe a boy who was given this drug by his father to "pull a tooth" when he makes accusations of sexual molestation?

As for why Michael Jackson gave the boy $20 million, the only reason his lawyers recommended it was because Michael Jackson would have most likely been called to testify, and the lawyers knew that he wouldn't be up to the task of testifying. His emotional problems basically kept him from being able to adequately defend himself. As a final note from the article:

"And what became of the massive investigation of Jackson? After millions of dollars were spent by prosecutors and police departments in two jurisdictions, and after two grand juries questioned close to 200 witnesses, including 30 children who knew Jackson, not a single corroborating witness could be found. (In June 1994, still determined to find even one corroborating witness, three prosecutors and two police detectives flew to Australia to again question Wade Robson, the boy who had acknowledged that he’d slept in the same bed with Jackson. Once again, the boy said that nothing bad had happened.)

The sole allegations leveled against Jackson, then, remain those made by one youth, and only after the boy had been give a potent hypnotic drug, leaving him susceptible to the power of suggestion."

"A nation addicted to lying to itself tells itself fairy tales instead of facing a pathology report. Yet, like Michael Jackson, the undertone of horror story still pulses darkly in the background. The little boy who grew up to be the simulation of a girl was really a werewolf. The nation that defeated manifest evil in World War Two woke up one day years later to find itself stripped of its manhood, mentally enslaved to cheap entertainments, and hostage to its own grandiosity. Maybe in grieving so exorbitantly over this freak America is grieving for itself. All the loose talk about "love" from the media and the fans gives off the odor of self-love. America is "the man in the mirror," the gigantic, floundering Narcissus, sailing into the stormy seas of history. "
http://kunstler.com/blog/2009/06/the-man-in-the-mirror.html

It's a damn shame that when someone dies you have all these self-righteous know-it-alls trying to throw dirt on their name. None of the people here insulting him have any proof of any of the b.s. they speak of. Shame that when you get accused of something in this country and all the idiots will speak ill of you from then on. That man might of been strange and had some emotional issues, but that doesn't mean he would hurt anyone. Would only be fitting if all of you ended up in similar situations, being accused of something you know to be false and having your reputations irreparably damaged. The man was an Artistic genius, a humanitarian, had a big heart, and was a cultural icon. If you don't have any respect for him, at least have respect for the people that do and stay away, and brood in private.

MICHAEL JACKSON WILL BE GREATLY MISSED!

JACKSON’S MUSIC IS SPECTACULAR!
_____________________
SCANDALS! SCANDALS! SCANDALS!

DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!

GEORGE W. BUSH IS AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS CRIMINAL STALKER!

George W. Bush continuously criminally stalked Margie Schoedinger to the point that she could not get away from it, and she committed suicide in desperation to escape: he murdered her.

“In her suit, Margie Schoedinger states that George W. Bush committed sexual crimes against her, organized harassment and moral pressure on her, her family members and close relatives and friends. As Schoedinger said, she was strongly recommended to keep her mouth shut. . . . Furthermore, she alleges that George Bush ordered to show pressure on her to the point, when she commits suicide” (blog of drizzten).

“George [Bush is personally complicit] in the death (murder to be precise) of my friend Margie Schoedinger in September of 2003. Determining the exact whereabouts and contacts of . . . George Bush on September 21 thru 22, 2003, should be entirely lacking in difficulty” (Leola McConnell—Nevada Progressive Democratic Candidate for U.S. Senate in 2010).

McConnell is correct: George W. Bush applying pressure (continuously criminally stalking Margie Schoedinger) purposefully to force Schoedinger to commit suicide does in fact constitute murder where it culminated in her death.

Bush’s method of murdering Schoedinger cannot exist in a vacuum: he must have murdered other people in the same way.

While he was president, actually, George W. Bush continuously criminally stalked numerous people to the point that they could not get away from it, and they committed suicide in desperation to escape: he murdered them. During Bush’s presidency, of course Bush would have desired to kill people whom he hated or get them out of his way. Insofar as Bush was clearly capable of murdering Schoedinger—even in “broad daylight”—and is clearly capable of getting away with it, in consideration of common sense and the laws of human nature, Bush of course murdered numerous people in the disgusting way he murdered Schoedinger. However, the vast majority of such scandalous information will never come out (the grisly details are typically hard to substantiate). A prosecutor really can lawfully charge a former president with murdering one or more people in the disgusting way Bush murdered Schoedinger. The American people unfortunately live in a world where evil presidents can murder any number of people—figuratively—with a wave of a magic wand and get away with it.

(There are thousands of copies of the information above on the Internet. It exists very extensively in all major search engines. Please feel free to go to any major search engine, type “GEORGE W. BUSH IS AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS CRIMINAL STALKER” or “George W. Bush continuously criminally stalked Margie Schoedinger to the point that she could not get away from it, and she committed suicide in desperation to escape: he murdered her” or “George W. Bush applying pressure (continuously criminally stalking Margie Schoedinger) purposefully to force Schoedinger to commit suicide does in fact constitute murder where it culminated in her death” or “George W. Bush continuously criminally stalked numerous people to the point that they could not get away from it, and they committed suicide in desperation to escape: he murdered them,” hit “Enter,” and find innumerable results.)

(Please feel free to see my “GEORGE W. BUSH IS THE WORST PRESIDENT IN U.S. HISTORY” blog.)
_____________________
Andrew Wang
(a.k.a. “THE DISSEMINATING MACHINE”)
B.S., Summa Cum Laude, 1996
Messiah College, Grantham, PA
Lower Merion High School, Ardmore, PA, 1993

Michael Jackson = Child Diddler

Here are a few simple facts about the allegations:

1. It was only under the influence of the psychoactive drug sodium amytal that Jordan Chandler said Michael had molested him. Sodium amytal makes the recipient extremely suggestible, facilitating the creation of false memories.

2. Michael did not give the Chandlers $20 million; his insurance company did, in direct opposition to his protests.

3. Gavin Arvizo, the second boy whom Michael was accused of molesting, changed his story more than once under cross-examination and was deemed lacking credibility.

4. No one ever witnessed Michael giving alcohol to minors or using the term "Jesus juice."

5. Although Michael sometimes allowed kids to sleep in his bed, he was not in the bed with them; he slept in a sleeping bag on the floor.

~~~

For more information, go to YouTube and look up the documentary "Inside Michael Jackson's Trial"; you'll see some of the evidence that convinced the jury that Michael was innocent.