A few things I've concluded from my disappearance into the Michael Jackson-scape, which I am finally beginning to come out of:

1. God gives some things to some people and some things to other people, and God gave MJ lots of things he didn't give to you or me.
2. One of those things was a completely incomprehensible sexuality.
3. Another of those things was an intensity in performance that makes it completely impossible to turn away from him.
4. I don't necessarily believe that MJ touched children inappropriately, but it's not possible to know (see #2).
5. It's okay to fetishize childhood. It's not okay to fetishize children. So if your behavior is going to be otherwise bizarre, it's best for everyone that you make the aforementioned distinction *really* clear. Because outsiders won't be able to. And that makes it very, very difficult for people to love you and your music without internal conflict.
6. Everything about "Dirty Diana" is right.
7. Don't beat the hell out of your kids. Not any of them. And definitley not the dreamy, sensitive one. Don't call them ugly. Especially not during adolescence. And especially not the dreamy, sensitive one. He'll be able to be an extraordinary entertainer even if you *don't* fuck him up forever.
8. We are each of us more complicated than any of us can fully understand.

I feel better having laid this out. I have been seriously crazy for two weeks trying to figure this man out, then trying to accept that I will never, ever be able to. Fully embracing #8 is my new lifetime goal.

My friend Patrick (film studies & German) told me the other day that he refused to be confirmed in the Catholic Church because his parents promised to take him to see Jurassic Park when it came out, but they took him to the local drive-in with terrible sound and worse picture quality. And if they didn't respect his religion, he wouldn't respect theirs.