Coming to terms with Michael Jackson

It's taken me a few days to really process what's gone on this weekend. I guess I've decided to sit down and write this, because I really need to wipe the slate clean, so I can get back to the real world on Monday. We've spent the last four days talking about the man, playing his music, watching his videos, and dammit, I want to hear about something else.

Of course, like everyone, I'm sad that he's gone. But then, at the same time, it's not even that big of a deal. I know that's contradictory, but Michael Jackson was a contradictory man. He was a "man in a child's body" who grew up to be a "child in a man's body," and all the while, he was a "shrewd businessman," who died $500 million in debt. The man just doesn't make any sense. So, neither do the first two sentences of this paragraph.

What I mean, though, is that the Michael Jackson that I grew up with had long since left us. The Michael Jackson I grew up with was a good looking black man with a pointy nose that a normal person could actually breathe through. Whatever left us on Thursday was not Michael Jackson. Let's face it, when a man changes as radically as he did, sometimes, you need a to invent a wild theory or two just so the pieces fall in place a little easier. So that's what I did.

I personally believe that Michael Jackson left us sometime after 1986, because he was still black when his hair caught on fire. "Bad" came out in 1987, and he was beige. He also appeared to be sexually frustrated, because this was the beginning of his intense phase, where he screamed a lot, mean mugged, and grabbed his crotch a lot. There was a lot of pent-up aggression there.

And we've all see the evolution of his face since. His nose disappeared, his cheek bones rearranged themselves, and he grew a cleft in his chin. Plus, he kept getting whiter. Now, the common theory is that he was getting a lot of plastic surgery, but I can't believe that any plastic surgeon could do all of that to a man's face and still have a license, which means he was either getting back-alley plastic surgery, or he was kidnapped by aliens and replaced with this poorly done replica.

I'm not making that up. I seriously thought all of this out, and shared it with others.

The thing that amazes me is how we accepted it. No one bought the second Lionel or the second Aunt Viv, but we swallowed this like we were appearing in a "Booty Talk" video. If I showed up at your house in a year, only I was white, with perfectly straight hair, no nose, and completely different facial features, would you really believe it was me? If so, I'm going to start getting random white people to pass themselves off as me, just to see what happens.

But that's all beside the point, because even if it was really him, the Michael Jackson we all loved was gone right after he stopped releasing singles from "HIStory." We didn't know the man anymore, because every time he was in the news, it was for something fucked up. The police were taking pictures of his penis, or he was accused of showing his penis to little boys, or he was paying off little boys, because they accused him of touching their penises. Everything about him after 1997 was sexually related, and let's face it, no one ever wants to associate "Michael Jackson" with "sex." He didn't even have the good sense to distract us with good music. R. Kelly could figure that much out, and he can't even read.

So, by this point, I wasn't even able to connect this guy to the zombie-dancing, gang-war stopping, spaceship-transforming superhero from my youth. That guy was awesome. This guy was a complete mess. He became that friend that you had to write off. The one that made you think to yourself, "I can't roll with them no more."

Sure, you'd been close friends since Saturday Morning Cartoons, but now, he's smoking cigarettes and stealing cars. Yesterday, he showed you that he's got a gun. With no serial number. He asked you to hold it for him until he came back and got it. The metaphor works if you replace "Saturday Morning Cartoons" with "Thriller," and all of the bad stuff with "accusations of child molestation," "going to court in your pajamas," and "continuing to chop off large portions of your face until your ethnicity is completely unverifiable."

But at the same time, you still miss that friend. You want them to do well, get better, whatever. You continue to wish them the best. And sometimes, you sit around and think about the good ol' days when you two were tight like skinny jeans fresh out of the dryer; when the other one was never too far away. Sometimes, you really miss that friend and wish that things could be like they used to be. Something will spark a good memory, and suddenly, you just want to go over to their house, give them a hug, and forget whatever split you two up to begin with.

That was Michael Jackson to me.

Like everyone, I was a huge Michael Jackson fan. Like everyone, I knew his songs, I tried to dance like him, wanted to dress like him, wanted to be like him. I loved Michael Jackson. And I still do. But after I certain point, I had to let him go, because I couldn't defend him anymore. I mean, who gets accused of child molestation TWICE?

There was a stage where I wanted to believe in him, then a stage where I wanted to just put him in a car, and drop him off at someone's grandma's house, so he could get right. All of that gave way to a sentiment like, "Yeah, that's my junkie/alcoholic/thieving cousin. Keep an eye on your purse." You just give up and accept that this is what he is now. The greatness that was once there is gone forever. He's enjoying his visit at the Extended Stay in "Crazy Town" too much to come back to us.

That's the reality, and that's been the reality for more than a decade. So when I look at it like that, I was kind of prepared for this. When that much crazy surrounds your life (ripping off the prince of Bahrain, trying to pass off white kids as his own, joining the Nation of Islam), the end coming up like that isn't that much of a surprise. We've had time to prepare for it. And I completely separated the being who left here from the person I grew up idolizing a long time ago.

I think the hardest part of it all is that, it's a huge change in my personal world order. Michael Jackson has been a fixture in the world for my entire life. For my entire life, he's been there as an omnipresent figure, and always as the biggest star in the world. I can't remember a time when I didn't know who he was. Hell, I can remember where I was when four of his videos premiered on MTV. There are muliple years of my life that I can't remember, but I remember the first time I saw "Thriller," "Bad," "Black or White," and "Scream" like it was yesterday.

Thanks to its bowel-loosening terror, "Thriller" was mostly watched from outside.

I have memories of him as far back as I can remember. Other than my immediate family, I can't think of anyone else I can say that about. And now, he's gone. The words "Michael Jackson is dead" still don't even look right to me as I type them. The words together look like gibberish, as if I typed, "flat Joe with leg phone these hi. Serendipity." My brain just isn't able to process the combination.

But I'm able to reconcile all of the feelings I have about him. Some people might think I'm a hypocrite for kissing his ass while I talked shit about him for so long, and I'm not taking back anything I ever said about him, because I still believe it. That doesn't mean that I wasn't a fan of his. Hell, Dave Chappelle said far worse than I ever thought up, and he was a fan, too.

Just because I'm a fan doesn't mean that I have to accept everything that he does. Just because I love his music doesn't mean "he didn't do it (whatever "it" may be)." Mostly because I believe that blindly following anyone is setting yourself up for trouble. Just look at the Republicans. But sometimes, you just have to take the good with the bad.

I hope that Michael Jackson has finally found the peace that he was unable to find in life. Goodbye, MJ. Thanks for making "Off the Wall," giving Travis a job, and for letting Sega make the "Moonwalker" video game. The "Smooth Criminal" long-form video was awesome.

And to the crazier MJ fans...don't try to kill the doctor.

Yes, you write like an idiot

If I typed my words like everyone else, then every word in this sentence would be misspelled, with nary a hint of punctuation. When I chat online or read text messages that people send me, I have to wonder if I'm the only person in America who passed third grade English.

It might be the fact that I'm a nerd, but I like to think that i didn't sleep through remedial pre-English. When I get done reading the kind of sentences that are probably what caused my English III teacher to start drinking, I have to ask what the hell is going on. A little advice to everyone: Not putting periods in your sentences and leaving out words entirely make people question whether or not English was your first language. If you're not asking that question of someone else, then you're the one that we're wondering about.

I just don't understand. I know you went to school. Sure, the American Educational System isn't the greatest, but I know you learned what a run-on sentence was. I also know that you learned to proofread your work, so there's really no excuse for me to ever have to read anything with the word "teh" in it.

No one's saying that everyone should use TEH sentence structure of the Declaration of Independence, just that people should probably take a little more pride in their writing. No one I know is so busy that they can't take the time to actually write out the word "you're." I'm sorry, I didn't realize you'd transformed into President Obama.

Your typed words represent you and are supposed to reflect your intelligence, or in most people's cases today, your lack thereof. I understand that no one ever wants to seem like they're really smart, but do you really want to seem like you're really stupid? Is that how you sound when you talk? Do you even sound like that in your head? If you do, you should probably read more, or at the very least, stop inhaling bus exhaust.

I can't even pretend to write like everyone else does. I get lazy sometimes when I chat or text, and even then, I still write properly. At worst, I don't capitalize words, which is still a far cry from the broken English I read on a daily basis. In 100,000 years, when the alien archaeologists are picking through the remains of our failed society, the first thing they're not going to notice is how "the American tribe was a bunch of knuckle-dragging retards." But if they're anything like us, when they type it into their mento-computers, it'll read "dood americanz r stoopid rofl!!!"

There is truly no hope for the universe.

Some quick basketball hits....

Word on the street is that Cleveland and Phoenix are trying to work out a deal that would send Shaquille O'Neal to Cleveland in exchange for Ben Wallace's expiring deal and another player that is completely irrelevant. In other news, my psychic powers are predicting that Cleveland will won't be able to get through Boston or Orlando to get to the NBA Finals next year.

I was musing over how Cleveland was going to handle losing in this year's Eastern Conference Finals and the conclusion I came to was that they were going to completely overreact in an effort to convince LeBron that they were doing something. I had no idea that I was going to be this correct. Bringing back Ricky Davis would have been better.

Cleveland, you really don't need to do this. You're like the dude with the girl that's out of his league: You're taking her mother to the doctor, getting McDonald's for her little brother, spending your rent money on a pair of shoes from her favorite store. You're completely overcompensating and it's not necessary. How do I know this? Because you're Cleveland, a city that ranks below Baghdad when it comes to "desirable places to live." And the rest of Ohio is no great shakes.

Seeing as how he's from Akron and has never left the state for any longer than two months in his life, I don't think he's going anywhere. Just reel it back a little bit. Don't do this to yourself.

I know Shaquille O'Neal had a career resurgence of sorts this season. Still, you've got a team built around LeBron James that is dying to run and the one thing that's keeping them from running like horses all the time is Zydrunas Ilgauskas.

Now, I assume this move would be made to counter Dwight Howard, who Cleveland had nothing for in their matchup.

Consider this: Earlier this season, Dwight Howard outplayed the Big Cactus so badly that Shaq was forced to flop and then throw Stan Van Gundy under the bus for it. What, Shaq is the solution to your Superman problem? You're gonna counter Superman with a Superman?

Before you finalize that marketing plan, consider this, as well: Shaq couldn't keep up in Phoenix, and most of that team is about three degrees away from a nursing home. So, he'll basically just be slowing down another team. Because that's genius if I've ever seen it: Speeding up a team by adding another big, slow, center.

Marcin Gortat PWNS Reebok

What's gotta be a bigger kick in the teeth for Reebok: The fact that they were reduced to signing backup Orlando Magic center Marcin Gortat to a deal or the fact that he told them that he wasn't removing his "Air Jordan" tattoo from his leg?

First things first, what's the big deal with it? It's on his calf and, even though the bright red tattoo stands out on his pale white skin, it's doubtful than anyone is going to see it without the benefit of high-powered photography. Secondly, if this little incident prevents a single person on Earth from buying a pair of Reeboks in favor of a pair of Jordans, then Reebok should just go ahead and sell themselves to adidas.

Oh, they already did that in 2005? Wow, what a healthy brand Reebok is.

People aren't buying Jordans over Reeboks because of Marcin Gortat's calf tat, they're doing it because...well, I don't know, exactly. In my mind, there's nothing appealing about a line of shoes that starts at $129. You could by three pairs of Reeboks for that. The Reebok name has certainly seen better days.

And clearly, those days are way behind them, because if you don't have any leverage over Marcin Gortat, then you're in trouble. He's not even the biggest sports star in his own country, and Poland has about 600 people in it. Andrew Golota probably has a higher national profile there, and the only thing he's known for is punching other guys in the crotch.

Speaking of Orlando...

Hedo Turkoglu is opting out of his deal which is another way of saying that he's probably leaving. Not because he wants to, but more because General Manager Otis Smith completely failed Negotiating 101 when he signed Rashard Lewis. Mostly, the part that says "Don't pay someone what they want when no one else is really checking for them."

No, it wasn't the smartest thing to commit $118 million to a guy who isn't a franchise player. In Game 4 of the NBA Finals, Rashard Lewis only had six points, and he's getting paid $17 million in 2009. LeBron James doesn't make that much. Dwight Howard has already signed an extension for $85 million. Jameer Nelson's on for another $30 million. Hedo's making about $7 million, I believe, and it stands to reason that he's probably going to want $10 or $12 million next season.

It all comes down to whether or not the DeVos family is willing to pay the luxury tax and if so, for how long? They seem to be okay with it if they're winning, but at some point, they're probably going to get tired of overpaying Lewis. I'm tired of them overpaying him and I don't even like Orlando.

It's time to hop off the "Hate Kobe" bandwagon

Kobe Bryant is, at worst, the second-best player in the NBA. In thirteen seasons, he's won three NBA Championships (yes, they're HIS, too), an MVP award, two scoring titles, been an eleven-time All-Star, and owns all kinds of NBA records. He is universally recognized as the best closer in the game, and is three wins away from another NBA Championship (and first Finals MVP, if they win).

Yet, Kobe Bryant is probably the most hated player in the NBA, and has been for some time.

Since he's come into the league, he's been accused of being aloof, arrogant, vain, self-centered, out for dolo, and every other way that a player can be described as "selfish." People say he shoots too much or that he's not a good teammate; people throw in his face that he's not Michael Jordan. And they're right. Michael took way more shots than Kobe did.

I'm not saying he hasn't been a selfish player at times; he has been. I just don't think that's a reason to hate a player as much as Kobe is hated, because Kobe being selfish doesn't mean that his 81 points against Toronto wasn't amazing. But we all know that's not what this is about. After all, hating a player for being great is really stupid. Unfortunately for Kobe, he gave his detractors their reason for making their hatred legitimate.

He "snitched" on the beloved and untouchable Shaquille O'Neal. What a reprehensible act.

Now, I don't know what that has to with admitting that Kobe Bryant is a great player. I also don't know exactly when snitching became an unforgivable sin.

Was Kobe wrong for telling the police what he told them? Yeah, he was. At the same time, the man was being interrogated by the police over a rape charge, and this is a guy who (as far as I know) had never been in trouble with the police before. There's no telling what was going through his mind at the time. He was probably scared, because unlike so many of us, he actually had a lot to lose. You'll have to excuse him for not being a hardened criminal like the rest of Thug America. At 24 years old, he was too busy winning championships to get in shootouts with the police.

Personally, I don't hold that one against him. Shaq was understandably and rightfully upset with Kobe. Of course, Shaq also shouldn't have been cheating on his wife, but we can't expect superhuman behavior like that from our professional athletes. That's just silly.

But all of that happened in 2003 and Shaq has gotten past it. I don't know if he's actually forgiven Kobe, but they're on speaking terms again. Shaq has even expressed a desire to return to the Lakers when his Phoenix deal is up.

Yet, everyone else is still holding Kobe's youthful mistake against him. Remember, he was only 24 at the time. That was six years ago. You know how much dumb stuff people do in their early 20s? There's a long list of things on that list that are worse than what Kobe did. Now, how much of that do you want to keep having thrown in your face when you're 30?

How would you feel if your girl kept throwing in your face how you cheated on her in 2003? If it was me, she'd be talking to an empty room, because I would have left her in 2004. Who wants to be around someone who won't let go of the past?

There are so many of us preaching about forgiving our public figures; preaching about letting Michael Vick live his life now that he's out of jail, but not a day goes by that someone doesn't bring up that Kobe's "a snitch." Now, I could be crazy, but where I come from, financing and participating in a dogfighting operation is way worse than telling the police that Shaq uses hookers. We can forgive Michael Vick for committing an actual crime, but we can't let Kobe live this down? Is this real life or is this a Chris Rock stand-up special, because that's n-word logic at its finest.

The truth of the matter is that people didn't like Kobe since he left Lower Merion, and since they didn't have a valid reason not to like him (perceived arrogance is not a reason), they waited until something, anything presented itself and rode it into the ground. When it comes to Kobe Bryant, people act like middle school girls; treating Kobe like crap because both of you wore the same dress to the 'Enchantment Under the Sea" Dance. And here I was thinking that we were all grown-ups.

The only person he wronged was Shaq and the only person he needed to apologize to was Shaq. He must have done it, because we all know how touchy Shaq can be. If he hadn't apologized, Shaq probably would have released a single about it, with an accompanying dance by now. So unless people are somehow attuned to his soul and can still feel the unresolved hurt from Kobe's words, that should be the end of it.

I'm not defending any wrongs that Kobe has committed in his life, and that's not the point here. We all know he did wrong, but he didn't commit genocide or sodomize children; he wronged his teammate. Everybody makes mistakes, and in comparison to many of our own mistakes, his wasn't that bad. If you think you were worthy of forgiveness for yours, then you should probably let this one go. If you don't like Kobe, let it be for something that like might go in his Hall of Fame entry, like the time he crushed your team in the playoffs, Denver. Not because his rape trial was held in your state. A lot of things have changed since 2003.

And so has Kobe Bryant.

How Not to Repair Your Image

Chris Brown's new YouTube video is a prime example of why celebrities should have publicists. If Chris Brown had one, they've probably shot themselves by now.

I've never been famous before, but I've watched every episode of "Entourage," so I feel pretty safe in saying that when dealing with the media, you want to put your best foot forward. You want to present a good image, so that soccer moms won't freak out when they see your poster go up on their daughter's wall. Fortunately, for Chris Brown, that's no longer going to be a problem, because everyone's already seen what Rihanna would look like after a bar fight.

Basically, Chris Brown's career is dead. My exact words after all of this came down were, "I hope he knows how to produce or play a musical instrument."

But "Slugger" doesn't agree with me, which is admirable. And it's going to take a huge uphill battle on his part to get him back to a place where people don't automatically associate him with a broken orbital bone.

A good publicist would probably start with a list of talking points that repeated almost verbatim on every major talk show in North America. You should think he's a part of the Bush Administration by the way he sticks to his script. There should be a carefully crafted image that's being presented, with as much charm and good grammar as he can muster. And none of it should include the word "hater." You're trying to carefully repair your image, not renew your hood pass.

Clearly, "Rocky" doesn't see it that way. If he has a publicist, they're either focusing on smarter clients, like Amy Winehouse or preparing a tasty cocktail of rum, coke, and strychnine. Amy Winehouse only appears in the news when the story is about drugs or when she goes back to the hospital and she's a publicist's dream in comparison to Chris Brown.

To put it another way, celebrity sex tapes create more positive press than a YouTube video where you and your boy address the "haters." We understand that you might be a pretty good guy, but there are more eloquent ways to say it than throwing in, "I ain't a monster," as an afterthought at the end of the video.

You might not be a monster, but you're only slightly smarter than DMX. DMX, while a total loon, is capable of understanding why people continue to be upset with him. You dismiss your critics as "haters," as if blacking your girl's eye is somehow okay. At least you chose "Graffiti" as your next album's title and not "Blood on the Dashboard."

Then again, your target audience is the same one that kept buying R.Kelly CDs. Your YouTube video might make your sales explode for all I know.

Corporate Logos: The Next Big Thing

I can't believe that I'm actually writing about the WNBA. But it's also the first time they've ever been newsworthy.

The WNBA's Phoenix Mercury have decided to replace their team name on their jersey in favor of the team's official sponsor, LifeLock. LifeLock paid $1 million for the right to turn some of basketball's least watched players into moving billboards for identity theft protection. WNBA President Donna Orender called this "an innovation." Because it's not like we haven't seen rampant advertising in America before.

Just like that, some are predicting this to be the next trend for American pro sports. I think that's getting a little ahead of ourselves. The fact of the matter is, more people would watch the D-League over the WNBA if it had a TV deal. The NHL has a greater national profile than the WNBA and the NHL are airing their playoffs on Versus. Everyone knows that the WNBA is in financial trouble and has been since it came out, and will probably continue to be until women start dunking on the regular.

So this "innovative" move really isn't that big of a shocker. It is very likely to catch on in a league where the team that won it's first four titles just folded. And it's only innovative in the sense that it's the first televised professional basketball league in America to do this. Major League Soccer has been doing this since it's inception just to get off the ground, and all European sports do this.

So why wouldn't it catch on here? We already have ads in our video games and sell naming rights to our stadiums, so why wouldn't we just go all the way and have Nike and L23 logos all over our Cleveland Cavaliers jerseys?

First thing I'd say is that no one would buy a basketball jersey that said "Duracell" across the front instead of "Knicks." But it wasn't that long ago when everyone was buying those NASCAR jackets that had corporate logos all over them. Nelly has made a career on rapping about his shoes. And I don't know how well it caught on, but down here in the South, there was/is a trend where people are covering their cars with corporate logos, without any prompting from the companies, presumably because they get off on humiliating their race.

So it would appear that our sports leagues are already prepared for such a transition. Despite being in relatively good financial shape, our leagues will do anything to make a dollar, even making us sit through an Ashlee Simpson halftime show, in a desperate attempt to draw in a more varied audience. Claiming that their teams need a new stadium to fight off competition, when there's only one football team in the state. Really, there is nothing that is beneath a sports team. Logic would dictate that it's a matter of time before "Baby Ruth" replaces "Yankees" on baseball jerseys.

For God's sake, one baseball team let Sony promote "Spider-Man" by putting the logo on its' bases. They have no shame. The only thing stopping this from taking the sports world by storm is that, unlike the WNBA or MLS teams, the team names for NFL, NBA, and MLB teams actually have value.

Corporate ownership, despite the fact that they would eat babies live on the air, if it was profitable for them, value image above all else. And they know that something in Boston is going to burn if they remove the name "Celtics" from their jerseys in favor of the "Sam Adams" logo. I know they bent over and took it when they had to buy tickets to the FleetCenter (now TD Banknorth Garden), but the Celtics have never changed their jerseys. Never.

Conventional numbers can't calculate the PR hit that a team like the White Sox would take for doing something like this. You'd need Pythagoras to come back before you could figure it out.

There's no way that the Knicks or the Bulls or the Browns or the Cowboys would go for it. The leagues didn't start this way, unlike in Europe, where they always had Porsche or Heineken plastered all over them. There isn't a deeply engrained history of outside sponsorship for American teams. Almost all of them were started by rich businessmen and private investors. There was no need to ask GM to sponsor the NBA or NFL or MLB, because the owners made their fortunes by investing in GM to begin with. Or in meatpacking plants. Candy sales. Whatever.

As a result, our sports franchises are brands unto themselves. Realistically, they could sponsor someone else's products. The American pro sports logo just as recognizable, if not more, than any product that's looking to replace it. How many cricket teams do you know that could do that?

Not only that, they'd have to be afraid to lose jersey sales. That's a huge revenue stream for teams. Every year, people shell out up to $300 for authentic jerseys like the ones the players wear, but how quickly are you going to rush out to buy a Kobe jersey that says "Staples"across the front? The best that they can hope for is a small logo off to the side, but making some corporate logo the centerpiece? Not going to happen.

Or at least it shouldn't. If nothing else, it just looks cheap. Just because it's good for Europe doesn't mean it's good for us. Just look at the Reliant Robin.