i'll be in charge of the first insane rock star asylum

i'm not entirely sure i remember how or why we started talking about it today, but one of us at work made a comment that we should be listening to michael jackson this week. another one of us, jordan i think, said something about his sister (yes, it must have been jordan then) not wanting to listen to mj ever again. that, to me, is very sad. how can we forget about everything michael has done for us just because he's a fucking lunatic now? find me someone on the street that won't sing "billie jean" with you. well, someone besides jordan's sister.

at what point are we allowed to let a musician's life get in the way of their music? i asked myself that question as i sat down to write it, and already, approximately fifteen words later, I have my answer: when their music starts to sound like their lives. i can still listen to "thriller" because it has absolutely nothing to do with sleeping with little boys or with being fucking out of your goddamn mind (well, i suppose that last point could be argued, but you know what i mean). i'm trying to think of negative examples, and unfortunately all i can think of is fred durst, who continues to be such a fucking douchebag all the time that he has to go and ruin a perfectly good who song just so he can stop writing terribly shitting rhymes about how he once touched britney spears.

i've never tried to listen to invincible, mainly because i'm afraid it might sound like what michael has become: an awful human being. i suppose "you rock my world" wasn't altogether terrible, but it certainly wasn't very good, and besides, by the time the album came out, we already had his replacement groomed and ready to go. i said it before, and i'll say it again: "rock your body" is my favorite michael jackson song. anyway, it doesn't matter, because the real michael jackson ceased to exist after the release of dangerous. sure, there was some guy claiming to be him that did a whole bunch of crazy nonsense, like dangling babies out of windows and claiming that record industry racism was the cause of disappointing sales for invincible, but we all know that wasn't--couldn't be--our michael.

because really, honestly, when you think about it, there's obviously something very wrong with this michael. i'll be up front about this: there is no doubt in my mind that he is guilty. he might not be guilty of this particular offense, and the previous actions of the accusers are indeed suspicious, but he did say on national television that he sleeps with children. why did he say that? because he's fucking nuts. i am completely convinced that he is a sexual predator and should be kept as far away from children--no no, all people--as he should from a recording studio, but i also thought that, if convicted, he should not go to prison. do you know what they do to guys like him in prison?

he's insane, and he should spend some time--if not the rest of his time--in an institution where someone could at least try to help him. in prison, he would die, guaranteed, within a week. actually, he probably wouldn't have gone to a normal jail anyway; i'm sure jail is different for famous people (e.g. martha stewart). but anyway, jailtime wouldn't help him while institutionalization might. and shouldn't we protect our rock stars, no matter how far they've fallen?

in other news, i think you should listen to this review (by the washington post's hank stuever on npr today) of alanis morissette's new album, which just so happens to be an acoustic re-recording of jagged little pill. a very interesting commentary on a topic that i know i'll pick up shortly. in fact, that's what i was going to write about tonight, but then i decided to write about michael jackson, sorry. until tomorrow.