First of all, I wish MJ had hung on for one more news cycle, so Farrah could have had her day in the sun. I was watching MSNBC earlier, and one of the talking heads said they had been working on a Farrah tribute, but they pushed it aside when MJ died. It was all MJ all night on my TV. Yes, we knew her death was coming, but I wish she could have had more “Remembering Farrah Fawcett” moments. They died just hours apart.

As for MJ…wow. What to say. I’m not sad, I didn’t know the guy. But I’m disappointed. Whatever you think of him, MJ was the greatest showman of the 20th century. His music, his dance, his performances…unparalleled. Yeah, the hyperbaric chamber and the pet chimp and all that, sure, crazy stuff. The nose disappearing, the skin bleaching (instead of saying “this is the face of vitiligo” and being ’spotted” he went for a uniform look), the plastic surgery, the dangling kids over balconies and making them wear masks…yes, the man was certainly bizarre. But goddamn he had some fucking talent. For years I was ashamed to admit I was a fan of Michael Jackson. When I was in high school he was at his weirdest and being accused of stuff, and I kept my mouth shut. In more recent years I have decided, you know what? Liking the music is different from liking the weirdness. Plain and simple, I like Michael Jackson’s entire body of work. His short films are fantastic. His collaborations – with Paul McCartney, everybody on We Are the World, etc – are amazing. Michael Jackson fucking rocks.

As for the child abuse stuff…I think he’s too complicated to fit the traditional pedophile mold. I don’t think that whatever he did with little boys was from the predator standpoint that most pedos come from. He wasn’t raised right. His (non) relationship with his father, his earliest years having been onstage, seeing sexuality at a young age, all of it turned into a very complex individual who couldn’t understand what was wrong. Now, that doesn’t excuse him; he was an adult and should have been responsible enough to not do whatever he did. But I think it explains it better than “ewwww pedo” does. For decades he tried to reclaim some form of childhood. The very existence of carnival rides at Neverland Ranch speak to this. Setting up big party days where he invited dozens of kids to go on the rides WITH HIM reinforces it. Something was disconnected between the “boy” Michael and the “adult” Michael. Yes, he knew better – nobody with an average IQ thinks it’s okay to molest kids – but he was coming from a different standpoint.

And even as I say all this, I wish I had more to say about Farrah. I really hope she and Ryan O’Neal got married in time. A friend says he read she didn’t regain consciousness and it never happened, but by golly, if those two decided to get married, I hope they got to. I suppose it is a blessing for him that MJ died because now he can grieve in (more) peace than he would have otherwise, since everybody’s focused on MJ. But still…wow…what a day. What a day.