All I have to say on the subject

In 1996, my friends Dave, Eric and I were sitting in Dave’s college room idly watching telly at the end of the evening. The News at Ten was on when we heard the incredible news that Jarvis Cocker had stormed the stage at the Brit Awards during Michael Jackson’s hubristic and overblown performance of Earthsong to wave his bottom at the King of Pop and generally make mischief.

“A spokesman for Mr Jackson said he felt hurt, angry, betrayed, upset, disappointed, humiliated and embarrassed.” intoned the newsreader solemnly. There was the briefest of pauses and then Dave and I – at the same time, with exactly the same inflection, said as one:

“Are those the names of his seven dwarves?”

I laughed so hard I thought I was going to die, as did Dave. I'm afraid Eric, on the other hand, looked on blankly. It just goes to show that you can spend too much time with a person, a sentiment I’m sure Jordan Chandler would echo today.

There’s going to be a lot of drivel written about Michael Jackson over the next few days and weeks, some in the media and an awful lot in the blogosphere. I can see it’s already started. His rabid fans are a very strange bunch - god knows why, surely he can’t have got round to molesting them all when they were little? Unless he’s very good at visiting plenty of kids in a short space of time - the Santa Claus of sex, if you like. We can all look forward to bucketloads of hypocritical cant about how we should remember him as a great artist rather than a creepy, deeply disturbing and disturbed man with a giant funfair in his back garden and a yen for sleepovers who was full of love for children everywhere. But only if they were boys.

There are a lot of very tired jokes flying around about Jacko, usually followed by someone saying “too soon?” Well, no. It’s not too soon but for goodness’ sake if you’re going to do tell jokes at least make them original eh? Anyway, punchlines are often redundant where Michael Jackson is concerned. To attempt to prove my point, here’s a brief timeline:

The late Seventies. Is a bit eccentric. Has first nose job.
Album title: Off The Wall

The early Eighties. Releases string of classic singles. Genuinely exciting and innovative artist.
Album title: Thriller

The late Eighties. Music starts to wear thin. Rumours start to circulate about oxygen tents, tea parties with Bubbles the Chimp and buying the Elephant Man’s remains. Colour virtually completely changes and the plastic surgery begins its long journey towards “scary”.
Album title: Bad

The early Nineties. Allegations break about sleepovers and “Jesus Juice”. Numerous tabloid stories appear about kiddy fiddling at Neverland. Litigation followed by a lucrative out of court settlement.
Album title: Dangerous

The late Nineties. Reputation irrevocably tarnished. No longer booked for bar mitzvahs.
Album title: History

See? You hardly need a punchline when the facts are like that. Though with hindsight the title of his 2001 album Invincible seems poorly chosen.

We were talking about him on the funbus home. Cornish Rob explained with horror that the tributes at Glastonbury had already started, with Gabriella Cilmi including lines from Billie Jean in one of her songs. This got us on to a discussion about our ideal Michael Jackson cover. Cornish Rob wanted Spinal Tap to cover Ben. I initially wanted Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas to cover Man in the Mirror (because it would confirm something I’ve suspected for a very long time). But then when I mulled it over a bit more I had a better idea.

I reckon Depeche Mode should cover Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough. Because, of course, it’s a matter of public record that Dave Gahan "just can't get enough". So if he can’t stop til he gets enough, but he can’t get enough, he would have to keep singing the song forever and the space-time continuum would melt in the face of the ultimate pop paradox. It could be interesting. On a similar but unconnected note, I’ve never understood why the lead singer of Travis and the lead singer of Garbage didn’t get married. Not because they’re Scottish but because she’s only happy when it rains and I have it on good authority that it always rains on him. They just haven’t thought these things through, or maybe he just doesn’t fancy her because she’s a ginger.

In the pub after work I was discussing the death of the King of Pop with Mikey and his friend Daryl and we came to a conclusion about the whole thing.

Martin Bashir is the kiss of death.

Think about it. He interviews Princess Diana and she meets her untimely end in a tunnel in Paris in bizarre circumstances. He interviews Michael Jackson and he dies at the age of 50. Martin Bashir is like the Jessica Fletcher of journalism, wherever he goes people mysteriously pass away. Do you think we could get him to do a feature on Vernon Kay?