Sleep well, MJ.

There's so much to talk about lately, but I guess I'll start with Michael Jackson.

I had the poster. You know the one. The Billie Jean one. It was on my wall back when my bedroom still had wallpaper with cute little cats and dogs on it. I didn't take it down for years. Well, until roughly when "Bad" came out.

I had "Thriller" on vinyl. Who in my age range didn't though? I played it over and over and over again. But again, who in my age range didn't?

As many of you know, I had 13 years of dance training. There were *a lot* of dance numbers to Michael Jackson songs in there. Catwoman - I'm talking to you about "Dirty Diana." And black spandex biker shorts with neon stripes.

I saw somebody say today, and I'd like to second it, that I remember the days before internet streaming where you couldn't just see any video you wanted when you wanted it, and the need to stay glued to MTV to see "Thriller," or "Billie Jean" or "Beat It". You had to *work* to see videos then. Those videos were always worth it.

Did you know, by the way, that the Michael Jackson death all but shut down the internet? Cnn.com crashed. Twitter crashed. TMZ crashed. Wikipedia crashed. There was a whole CNN story on it today.

But here is what strikes me most about the Michael Jackson death. It's almost as though we've forgotten that we tormented this man into seclusion and possible drug addiction. The media coverage is all "Let's not forget that despite his impressive musical career, he was marred with wierdo behavior." I mean, let's not forget that it was wierdo behavior that we all wanted to hear about in the most salacious manner possible.

In a crazy moment, I found myself agreeing with Dr. Drew Pinski in a comment he made about Britney Spears family being awesome - and yes, I hated myself in this moment. But he basically said that Michael would have been better off if he'd had a family like Britney's, who when she was exhibiting obvious mental health problems and possible drug problems, stepped in and created a conservatorship and protected her. You do have to wonder if possibly the saddest thing about Michael Jackson's life was that, until it was too late, there was nobody there to protect him. I don't think it's debatable that to a possibly lesser and possibly greater degree the man died with some crazy in him. The sad part is "how much of that could have been avoided," and probably the harder question is "how much of that could have been avoided while not denying the world a man's talent and seemingly endless goodwill?" I guess there is always revisionist history when something like this happens, but it just seems like "He was a man everybody loved" would be a more honest statement if made "He was a man everybody once loved, but now mocked." I also, in another moment where I hated myself, found myself being grateful for Pete Wentz's public flogging of Perez Hilton for trying to act like what he does isn't on some level evil. Pick on the strong, you know? Lots of celebrities out there asking for drama. To the best of my knowledge, Michael Jackson just wanted to be left alone.

I don't know. I know that life usually plays out the way it's supposed to and in my world Michael comes back around sometime and has the most fantastic childhood that he seemingly always dreamed of. And if the iTunes best seller list is any indication his entire debt will soon be paid off by the rash of song downloads going on right now.

And maybe his death will put him back where he belongs. Admired as an entertainer and a trail blazer. Much of the strangeness forgotten. Not that I was above saying "He named his kid BLANKET? Are you kidding me?" I made all the jokes about his turning into a white man that everybody else did. And I feel badly about that now. I hope we all do.

In 8th grade, I had to do a report on Motown. I had video clips, and one of them was of Michael Jackson doing the moonwalk for the first time. That says something. That that moment was important enough to make it into an eight grade term paper.

Sleep well, MJ.