Michael Jackson!

OK, no matter how you feel about Jackson personally, the man made some awesome music in his lifetime, which is why I was uber excited for this week’s episode of “Glee”… the Michael Jackson episode!

Yup, lots of cool cover songs were there, accompanied by fantastic dance numbers, but this episode bit at me on a personal level. Do you remember the last time we watched “Glee” together (and by that I mean I watched it, and you read about it here), when Finn proposed to Rachel? Well, this week we saw her answer.

Throughout the episode, we saw Rachel hemming and hawing as she tried to make a decision as to whether or not to tie her life to one man for the remainder of her time on earth. For some reason, she decided to go to her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend Quinn for advice. Because, of course, the best place to go for relationship advice is your current boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend (insert eye roll here).

This is where my issue with tonight’s show began and ended. Quinn told Rachel that she shouldn’t marry Finn. Rachel interjected with, “I know he and I haven’t lived together or anything, but, you know, I love him, and he’s the one, I know it.”

What the heck? Why are we sending a message to young people that it’s not only acceptable but also necessary to live together before marriage? No, I’m not a prude; I’m practical. Studies show that couples that live together before marriage are more likely to get divorced than those that don’t co-habitate.

Quinn also gave Rachel such awesome advice as, “We hardly know what we’re going to want in 15 years,” and “If you really want to be happy, you’re going to have to say goodbye.”

Who the heck knows where they’re going to be in 15 years? I sure don’t. One thing I know is that I will be standing next to my husband, because no matter what this life throws at us, we are a team. We are holding hands, weathering the storms, and coming out the other side, caring for each other’s wounds.

I said yes when I was 18 years old. I said I Do seven months later, when I was 19. We’ll celebrate our 10^th anniversary next July, and while it’s been quite a ride, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Do you want to know why? It’s because we don’t treat marriage as some feeling — we treat it as a commitment.

Of course there will be feelings involved, but the thing that gets you through the rough spots is that enduring commitment to one another. I hope my darling hubby doesn’t mind me sharing this, but during one pivotal fight in our relationship several years ago, he turned to me and said, “You’ve changed!”

I responded with, “You married a TEENAGER; what did you expect?”

The fact of the matter is that marriage is special, and not just about that squishy-lovey feeling. People change; they always will. I am not the same person that I was when I walked down the aisle, and my husband is not the same person who stood there waiting for me. But we’ve come to recognize that despite our differences, our shortcomings, and our successes, it’s amazing to share your life with another person.

What ticked me off about tonight’s “Glee” was that it made it seem like Rachel had to make a decision between her own life and her boyfriend. Life is what you make it, and I say that it’s much better when you face it with a partner in crime.

I adore my husband, and “Glee” made me sad that so many young people will only hear that marriage ends your dreams and ambitions. None of mine would have come true without him.

Rachel did eventually say yes to Finn when she thought she was rejected from her performance college of choice. When she got her letter saying she was a finalist, we got to see the fear in her eyes over her realization over what she had done.

Because, according to “Glee,” marriage ruins your life.

Or something.

I guess I’ll have to keep on watching and reporting back to y’all on how Glee treats the issue of teenagers getting hitched!

CNN:

The maximum sentence for involuntary manslaughter is four years in prison. However, because of prison overcrowding and budgetary concerns a new California law allows for a possibility that Dr. Murray could serve his sentence on house arrest.

Dr. Murray’s legal troubles are far from over. Jackson’s father Joe Jackson is pursuing a wrongful death suit against Dr. Murray. Dr. Murray will also have to fight to keep his medical licenses in California, Nevada and Texas.

Full story here.

#1 – When was the last time you took a second out of your life to think about Aaron Carter?

#2 – Michael Jackson was unavailable for comment.

From Australia’s OK! Magazine:

On the second anniversary of Michael Jackson’s death, his former friend and confidant, Aaron Carter, 23, has come clean about his close – and controversial – relationship with the pop singer, revealing all to internationally renowned interviewer Daphne Barak during a charity visit to Marbella, Spain.

Exposing their most intimate moments together, Aaron tells OK! how MJ gave him drugs and alcohol when he was just 15.

‘I never talked about it… This is the first time. I do… I miss Michael… I have spent such incredible times with him. I did things with him that nobody else did… But I was also troubled about what he did to me,’ Aaron says.

Read the rest here.

Apparently not content to subsidize the whining of the nonentities at Media Matters, Soros is taking a break from his adventures in currency manipulation and general scuzziness to enlist entertainment celebrities like Sting in his newest quest.  The Drug Policy Alliance is the result, a group whose members, as its founder puts it, “come from across the drug use spectrum.”  Yes, the junkies, stoners, hopheads, dope fiends, pill-poppers, and Lindsay Lohan are unanimous:  Drug laws are bad, and it’s probably BusHitler’s fault.

The threshold problem with comments by Sting such as, “The war on drugs represents an extraordinary violation of human rights,” is that Sting presumably not only believes this piffle, but further believes that he can put down his bass and offer meaningful input into the discussion.  This assumption of competence is a common delusion among celebrities, and here it has more potential for damage than most mindless celebribabble.

Now, Sting is not alone – no one in that clip says anything worthwhile.  One woman, who is bald for no apparent reason, states that “The War on Drugs is a war on people of color,” as if Americans decided they would outlaw crack because they fear that black people might enjoy themselves.  Montel Williams shows up to explain that drug laws prevent him from making choices about his own body, but the awful tie and ridiculous earring he chose to wear make a powerful argument against allowing him to make any kind of choices at all.

Tony Papa also appears.  He went to jail for 12 years for being part of a drug deal – oh, I mean committing “a nonviolent drug offense” – and became an artist on the taxpayer’s dime.  While most of us will likely ask “Why only 12?,” naturally Papa is worshipped by trendy leftist celebrities.  Some Hollywood half-wit even scooped up the rights to his inspiring story.  So, to repeat, Tony Papa joined a drug conspiracy, got arrested, went to jail, leveraged that into becoming a hip artist and the subject of a movie, and yet he is somehow the real victim.

Of course, there’s also the perennial “America imprisons more people than anywhere else in the world!” meme.  In fact, the only drug incarceration problem in America is that too few drug dealers are incarcerated.  Sting suffers from the same delusion that afflicts many of his celebrity pals.  He seems to think that if the kind of people who deal drugs didn’t have drugs to deal, they would naturally flock to the world of hard work and responsibility.  Oh, if only drugs weren’t illegal, the drug dealing scumbags who infest our ghettos, barrios and college sociology departments would morph into clean-shaved, untatted workerbees eagerly embracing the world of 9-5 employment.  Yeah, it was outlawing meth and crack that turned the scumbags into scumbags. 

At one point, the clip promises “new solutions” to the drug problem.  Then Sting pops back up, smug and self-satisfied, to announce that drug laws violate his individual sovereignty.  Uh, typically, when you say you are going to provide new solutions you might consider, you know, providing some new solutions instead of some new cliché.

I certainly enjoy Sting and his pals’ new-found appreciation of my personal autonomy and “sovereignty over my body.”  I assume they’ll be standing by me when I reject the government’s interference in my health care decisions.  Unlikely.  If you think consistency is one of their strong points, perhaps you’ve been smoking the same stuff as them.

Now, Sting was always annoying but here he is reaching new heights of crappiness and pomposity in direct proportion to his declining relevance.  It’s always a pleasure to hear some Brit mega-millionaire who glides around his English manor practicing tantric sex sound off on American domestic policy. 

Please Sting, save us!  Unleash the full intellectual firepower you’ve amassed writing forgettable smooth jazz/rock fusion tunes for people who buy their music at Starbucks.  Just because you’ve been waited on hand and foot for three decades by a coterie of professional sycophants telling you you’re wiser than Buddha and smarter than Einstein doesn’t mean it’s true. 

There may be a case for looking at our drug laws, but these nimrods don’t make it.  The most compelling points are made by the conservatives at National Review and the libertarians at Reason.  Sure, pot smokers steal your snacks, listen to Phish and sound-off with long, disjointed monologues about the miracle of hemp, but I have a hard time getting too bent out of shape by them.  Many celebrities are among them, but Sting and Soros aren’t just talking about causal stoners.  They think we ought to go open season on meth, crack and whatever else these degenerate half-wits today are ingesting.  No thanks – I’d prefer not to live with the mess you’re rich enough to ignore.

The fact is that His Stingness knows nothing – or cares nothing – about the unspeakable devastation drugs cause, particularly within the inner cities.  Instead of standing behind the one truly effective response to urban drug terror – throwing the bastards in a cell and dropping the key down the Guatemalan sinkhole – His Majesty Sting decrees that drug dealing scumbags should run free, then retreats back behind his gates and armed guards to further hone his delayed orgasm skills.

Well, Sting, let’s discuss your really keen points about why poison ought to be legal.  But let’s expand the scope of our discussion to include some other celebrities who might be able to provide us with some valuable insights.  Let’s invite Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger, Brad Renfro, DJ AM, and Brittany Murphy to weigh in with their points of view.  Oh wait, they’re all dead.  So are just a few others.

Like a Sean Penn who can’t help but fly into some hellhole, figuratively fellate the local anti-American strongman then jet back to Santa Monica in time for dinner at Pizzeria Mozza, Sting wanders out of his fairy-tale life for a few minutes to tell the benighted peons in the real world how they need to live their lives before retiring back inside his palace behind three layers of security.  The violence, the abuse, the wasted potential brought on by drugs mean nothing to him; what is important is his own act of scolding his lessers for failing to conform to his personal vision.

That’s Sting’s high – lording over others as if he was something more than a glorified cruise ship bassist who got lucky and didn’t have to spend his career cranking out covers of Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” for Corona-swilling passengers during runs between San Diego and Puerto Vallarta on the S.S. Living Hell.  And like so many in the entertainment world, he’s guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of possession of stupid ideas – with intent to distribute.

Original Source: 2003 Mugshot Photo, Artwork Size: 19″x 29″, Medium: Mixed Media.

USA for Africa was formed by singer/actor Harry Belafonte and agent/manager Ken Kragen to aid starving children in Africa. A noble idea if ever there was one!  So they got Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, yes he was a big star before he was just Nicole’s daddy, and they got a bunch of their friends and fellow big shots to record a song for charity.

I don’t know how much of the $63 million raised was actually turned into food on the plate for a kid in Africa but let’s say it was 100%. That’s a little less than Michael Jackson spent on lawyer fees and llama feed over the same period of time. My point is that if the forty-plus millionaires had really wanted to do something selfless they could have each kicked in a million or two into an endowment and at an average return of 6.5% on an fund of 50 million they could have donated more money to poor nations and still have the fifty million sitting there working for the starving kids.

It just seems to me that what is promoted most with these celebrity videos is the celebrities themselves.  

The horrible situation in Haiti has spawned a new group of super wealthy musicians and actors hungry to let us know how caring they are. They have gotten together to redo the 1985 classic. I saw a photo of the group and right smack dab in the middle is the Poster Girl for American Liberalism, Barbara Streisand, a woman whose personal net worth is probably equal to ten years of the GNP of Haiti.

Look you guys, you want to get together and pat each other on the back, that’s great. You really want to help Haiti; sit down and write a check so big it actually brings your net wealth down a percentage point or two and form a foundation that will support aid to Haiti forever.

Heck, I’ll even kick in a few bucks myself.

On January 8th a search warrant issued in Houston for the office and storage facilities of Dr. Conrad Murray helps to confirm that the Los Angeles coroner’s office believes Michael Jackson died from an overdose of propofol.

Dr. Murray’s attorney, Ed Chernoff, is saying that his client didn’t do anything that would have killed Jackson.  Of course that is what attorneys get paid for, but in this case Mr. Chernoff is likely to be proved wrong.

Dr. Murray has admitted to administering propofol to Jackson over a six-week period to treat insomnia.  When that seemed to fail and Dr. Murray thought Jackson was becoming addicted he added other sedatives to the mix.  Propofol alone is enough to cause respiratory arrest and adding other sedatives to it only exacerbates its danger.

I have been a Physician Assistant for the past twenty-five years and for the last twelve years I assisted cosmetic surgeons with liposuction in the Los Angeles area, including Beverly Hills.  This experience gives me some insight into the use of propofol.  Propofol is generic for Diprivan, which is primarily used by anesthesiologists to induce general anesthesia.  Some surgeons use it while doing liposuction and other cosmetic procedures because it wears off quickly and does not have the unpleasant side effects that other sedating medications do, (i.e. nausea, vomiting and a prolonged recovery).

On the downside propofol can cause severe respiratory depression.  However, when competent medical personnel administer it under the correct conditions it is quite safe.  No ethical doctor would ever consider using it as a sleep aid.  And certainly the FDA has not approved it for treating insomnia. Administering propofol must be done in the presence of a physician who is certified in Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) and preferably under the supervision of an anesthesiologist.

One would think that the drug overdose deaths of Heath Ledger, Anna Nicole Smith and Brittany Murphy would send a signal to the physicians of celebrities.  But it seems celebrities are given a pass and these doctors are so mesmerized that they “throw caution to the wind.”  They violate everything they learned in medical school, they throw out their Hippocratic oath and the requirement to “first do no harm.”

Even the people who surround these celebrities, their cooks, their housekeepers, and their personal assistants become subservient; to do otherwise would get them fired.  So the celebrities become the victims of their own success, no one is there to tell them “no,” no one is there to give them advice – especially something they don’t want to hear.  Close relatives are just lied to and kept at bay and those who persist are ostracized.

Dr. Conrad Murray

Kai Chase was hired as Jackson’s chef and spoke of Dr. Murray arriving daily at the mansion about 9 p.m. and not leaving until the next morning carrying oxygen tanks.  Apparently she would stay with Jackson all night in an effort to get him to sleep.  Occasionally Chase would cook for the doctor as well. One could assume the oxygen may have been used when Dr. Murray was administering propofol.  When someone goes into respiratory depression it is always helpful to have oxygen available. That being said any doctor giving propofol under those conditions is just plain crazy.

Jackson’s brother Tito was convinced that Michael became dependent on drugs.  Back in 1993 when the Neverland Ranch investigation was going on he said, “He deliberately did it away from us. He didn’t want his family to know anything about that part of him. He did almost everything in his power to make sure we didn’t know.”  Now apparently his sister La Toya believes Jackson was murdered for his money. But that is another story.

Kristine Foumier, Jackson’s former housekeeper knew of his dependence on drugs back in 1993 when he was being investigated for child molestation. She said the entire Neverland staff knew about it. “Yes, and people would say, his eyes were rolling in the back of his head and he wouldn’t know what he was talking about. I think he had good periods and bad periods and when he had a bad period he had a bad period. Then he would get off (get off the drugs) and then it would start again.”

Michael Jackson’s nurse Cherilyn Lee stated that he “begged” her to administer the drug several days before his death.  Jackson was so desperate to sleep he told Ms Lee, “Find me an anesthesiologist, I don’t care how much money they want, find me an anesthesiologist to be with me here overnight and give me this IV” (Intravenous Injection). Obviously even Jackson knew it required the presence of an anesthesiologist.  But Dr. Murray seems to have put his medical knowledge and his oath which includes “first do no harm” aside. He also violated the “standard of care.”

According to the Medical Board of California Dr. Conrad Robert Murray is licensed to practice medicine as a “Physician and Surgeon” his record of address is a post office box in Las Vegas.  In 1989 he graduated from Meharry Medical College School of Medicine. Meharry Medical College, located in Tennessee, is the largest independent, mostly black, private medical college in the country. His primary practice location is listed as the Las Vegas zip code 89119. Apparently he also has a clinic in Houston.  He has been licensed in Texas since 2005.  He may also be licensed in Arizona but I am unable to confirm it.  In both Texas and California there are no pending or past disciplinary actions against his license.

“Standard of care,” which is defined as what a reasonable person would do under similar circumstances.  Obviously Dr. Murray violated the standard care when he administered propofol in a non-clinical setting. “Failure to meet the standard is negligence, and any damages resulting there from may be claimed in a lawsuit by the injured party.” In this case the negligence led to someone’s death.

On 6 February TMZ reported that Dr. Murray visited Jackson’s tomb at Forest Lawn Memorial Park last Wednesday.  Was he paying his respects or simply searching for sympathy from the public?  Trying to make deals with Los Angeles prosecutors is no different.  He and his lawyers don’t want him seen being handcuffed and arrested.  But why shouldn’t he be?  Wouldn’t you or I have already been arrested and put in jail with no bail for killing someone by lethal injection?  I guess having a license to practice medicine gives one license to be immune from arrest.

Dr. Murray’s attorneys are hoping he will be charged with involuntary manslaughter and only serve two to four years and possibly lose his license to practice medicine. If that happens it would be just as bad as the O.J. Simpson trial.

Elizabeth Kelly, a Cleveland criminal attorney said, “If Dr. Murray were an ordinary doctor and Michael Jackson just an ordinary person, I doubt whether he (the Los Angeles DA) would have had such an interest in this case. But there was certainly public pressure.”   

I say that Dr. Murray is an ordinary doctor and if it were a John Doe that he killed by lethal injection he would already be in jail with no bail.

In my mind the case against Dr. Murray for medical malpractice, negligence, and manslaughter in the death of Michael Jackson is sealed.  Guess they won’t be calling me as a juror.

On the eve of Michael Jackson’s death, I penned a column for FOX News in Michael Jackson’s defense arguing that he should be remembered for all his charitable accomplishments as opposed to the unproved accusations against him.

“Sure, Jackson was prosecuted twice, and although this reporter can’t acquit him of any charges, he was never convicted of a single crime,” I wrote. “He certainly didn’t deserve the tabloid innuendos that only fueled a toxic fire that was burning his reputation to a cinder in the court of public opinion.”

I stand by that statement, but there’s a difference between tabloid innuendos and facts, and to my surprise it turns out that although the most damning evidence against Jackson is indisputable, Hollywood and the media have paid little attention to it.

Even last week when the FBI released their own files on Jackson, including one report about a pair of Mexican boys that he may have molested in the 1980’s and a British boy who Jackson allegedly had phone sex with in 1979, it made little impact.

I was never a Michael Jackson fan, but I cheered in 2005 when he was acquitted on child molestation charges because his defense lawyer made a convincing argument that he was framed. I assumed that because the alleged victim’s mother seemed extortive, that her story and her son’s story were both lies.

I also convinced myself of what many others had, which is that Michael Jackson was just a strange guy who loved kids and didn’t want to hurt them.

There’s a darker side however, that cannot and should not be ignored even if Hollywood refuses to believe it. I learned about that dark side when I finally investigated the sexual abuse allegations in the wake of Michael Jackson’s death for a national news network earlier this year.

The first thing I discovered was a story reported by journalists Andrew Breitbart and Mark Ebner in their New York Times bestseller, Hollywood Interrupted, an investigative exposé of the entertainment community in Los Angeles.

Apparently, Jackson had a mysterious relationship with Frederick Mark Schaffel, a controversial gay pornographer who had a history of making films with young adult males over in Europe. When Schaffel wasn’t producing gay porn movies however, he had another job here in America – he was Michael Jackson’s personal videographer at Neverland.

When Jackson allegedly first ‘learned’ about Schaffel’s background, he immediately fired the pornographer and issued a public apology that pledged Schaffel would no longer be associating with him. However, a couple of years later Schaffel was allowed to return, and in 2005 he was named by prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator in Jackson’s sexual molestation case.

Despite this stunning, contradictory display of hypocrisy, the media never probed into why Michael Jackson hired a gay pornographer – fired him – and then rehired him to film children who were visiting his ranch or why the celebrity superstar was paying such absurd amounts of money to him.

During the 2005 trial it was revealed that Schaffel had apparently signed two checks in the amounts of $500,000 and $1 million to an account that he and Jackson were the only signatories. Schaffel also alleged that Jackson owed him another $3 million for “producing fees.”

No one knows what that money was actually for, but Breitbart and Ebner obtained a source in the Los Angeles pornography world who said that Schaffel, as the authors put it “had a predilection for young-looking performers, preferably straight, who he would recruit in Eastern European countries like Hungary and the Czech Republic for both his personal and professional pleasure.”

Later, I located a source of my own in Hollywood’s gay community who knew Schaffel, and he confirmed that Schaffel had a very suspicious reputation in connection with the films he produced.

The next revelation came while researching the original 1993 sexual abuse accusations made by Jordan Chandler. To my surprise, Chandler wasn’t the only boy whose silence Jackson bought. After Jackson settled with the Chandler’s in 1995 for an estimated $15 million he paid $2 million to another boy named Jason Francia in 1996. Francia’s mother worked at Neverland as a maid from 1987-1991.

All of this time, I had thought Jackson had only settled with one alleged victim, but apparently he had actually settled with two. That also meant that there weren’t only two boys who had accused Jackson of sexual abuse, there were three – Jordan Chandler, Jason Francis and Gavin Arvizo. The recently released FBI files indicate there could be more.

The next day, I found hundreds of blogs reporting that Jordan Chandler admitted he lied and wanted to issue a public apology to Michael Jackson. The story was even reported by an online European news site and for a short time on Wikipedia as well. Apparently, Jackson’s fans weren’t above fabricating lies to clear their hero’s name.

After persistent attempts to contact Chandler’s family to confirm or deny that rumor, I finally reached Jordan’s uncle at his Santa Barbara law office.

“Jordan never recanted any of the allegations he made against Michael Jackson because they are all true,” Ray Chandler told me during a telephone interview. “You know,” he added, “from the very beginning this has been a nightmare for Jordan and the entire Chandler family. Hopefully, now that Jackson has passed away, this will be closure for Jordan – may Michael rest in peace.”

Later, I learned that when both Jordan Chandler and Gavin Arvizo were asked to describe Jackson’s genitalia to law enforcement officials the two boys both gave accurate descriptions. I also read that when the LAPD served their original warrant on Neverland in 1993, police found children’s games and books in Jackson’s bedroom along with pictorial books featuring photographs of naked boys. Police said that it was common to find children’s books and toys in pedophiles bedrooms because they help lure innocent children.

What really interested police however, was a special indoor alarm – the only one of its kind in the entire Neverland ranch – connected to Jackson’s bedroom hallway to alert him if someone was approaching his door.  One veteran LAPD detective who investigated nearly 4,000 sexual abuse cases said he believed the alarm was installed because Jackson was doing something in his bedroom he didn’t want anyone to know anything about.

Finally, I learned from Ray Chandler that when Jordan Chandler’s father, Evan, confronted Jackson face to face about sexually molesting his son, the singer reportedly didn’t take offense to the stinging accusation or even deny it. He simply smiled and in a soft, childlike tone and said, “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

In other words, Jackson never denied he had sex with the 10-year old – he just didn’t believe he did anything wrong. There’s a big difference between the two.

These stories are not tabloid tales based on flimsy sources, but rather true facts, most of which Jackson brought upon himself by paying off his accusers and permitting sexual deviants to have access to the children he invited to his home. Still, the media hasn’t breathed a word of any of this since the pop-star passed away.

Instead, Democratic Congresswoman Shelia Jackson Lee reminded the nation during Jackson’s funeral service that everyone is always innocent until proven guilty. But anyone who is honest knows that just because someone isn’t proven guilty in court does not mean they’re innocent in the real world. If that were true, then O.J. Simpson would be innocent too.

Back in July when I listened to Lee tell her audience that she was proposing a Congressional resolution that would name Jackson as a “great humanitarian,” I wondered how his alleged victims – and any other victim of child molestation felt at that moment. Perhaps in the midst of showing our reverence for Michael Jackson, I thought we should all take a moment of silence to show our consideration for them too.

Michael Jackson copped a plea in Hollywood’s court of public opinion that he was just an unusual guy who never grew up and loved kids and as the judge and jury many of us accepted that plea because we didn’t want to believe the alternative. I ended my original l column by saying that, “Michael Jackson deserves an accurate place in history.”

I stand by that statement.

Madonna is famous for, among other things, reinventing herself. “Reinventing” is show business talk for falling to a new level of depravity. You never see the Hollywood press praising someone for finding faith or cleaning up their act but if they demean Christian values or morality, they get raves. So I was interested to see if this was some sort of political or religious statement or just the latest fashion craze.

So I watched the performance for a few moments. The woman who was the focus to the number then moved to a piano inside a glass case which later ignited in flames. I started to suspect that this wasn’t Madonna because to the best of my knowledge she doesn’t play the piano and is old enough to remember that the late Michael Jackson set himself on fire awhile back. At the end of the song the woman leaned back with outstretched arms as if to say I have exhausted myself as an artist by dancing and lip syncing for three minutes.

In a few seconds I found this was indeed not Madonna but a woman who goes by the name of Lady Gaga, a reference to a “Queen” song. I was fascinated by this performer but not for the reason you might think. As a comedian I detected a note of farce in the act. The whole thing seemed to me to have a touch of “Borat” included.

With that in mind I did a little research on Ms. Gaga. The title “Lady” is a fake! I found no record of her elevation to that rank by any royal court. Perhaps she wants us to think she is English like Madonna and Kathleen Turner who have started using British accents for no apparent reason. She did however recently meet the Queen of England and wasn’t sure whether to bow or curtsey so she did a little of both. Lady Gaga is also prone to wearing outrageous get-ups which she refers to as “fashion.” She also has a habit of referring to herself in the third person. Just when I was letting all of this pretentiousness get to me I realized I was being had. Like a mark in the middle of a con who suddenly realizes things aren’t what they seem, I caught on.

Lady Gaga, I am a fan! You see, this performance artist isn’t following in the footsteps of Madonna. She is channeling the spirit of Tony Clifton. She is having us all on, the music industry, the fashion industry and the general public. Andy Kaufman lives.

When he died of an apparent drug overdose just shy of his 50th birthday on June 25, while rehearsing for an intense 50-show engagement in London, it seemed that this conundrum would never be solved and that his life and legacy would be forever shadowed. Then word emerged that concert promoter AEG had decided to sell extensive footage it shot of the show’s rehearsals and put it up for bidding war, which Sony Pictures won for $60 million. Debate raged throughout Hollywood and the business world about whether this was an appropriate outcome, or if it reeked of exploitation. 

Viewers can now decide for themselves, as the resulting documentary, “Michael Jackson’s This Is It,” comes out today. Packing dozens of hours of rehearsal footage into a 100-minute running time, the film offers both expected and unexpected insights into the creative process of one of the ultimate creative visionaries ever to walk the planet. 

On the one hand, audiences expect to see Jackson tearing it up as a dancer and possessing an insanely high-pitched vocal range. But they also might expect him to be a demanding diva, or to be too frail to work due to the massive array of drug addictions that allegedly killed him. Yet time and again, even on the final night of his life, his command of the stage is thrilling to watch and he’s fully friendly and engaging with all those around him. 

But there are far more compelling reasons to watch “This Is It” than the mere car-crash curiosity of seeing how obvious his afflictions preyed on Jackson. They lie in the jaw-dropping moments of creative invention and joy to be found in song after song after song in this film, as Jackson supervises and then unveils a super-suped-up 3D version of “Thriller” where he eventually bursts out of the onstage screen and into real-life action on the boards. 

There’s a goosebump-inducing, near-acapella rendition of his underrated ballad “Human Nature” that shows the self-proclaimed King of Pop was still in perfect voice, as well. Another segment shows Jackson directing CGI effects wizards on how to turn 10 onstage dancers into an onscreen field of 1000 dancers in military gear for a rousing rendition of his defiant “HIStory” song “They Don’t Care About Us.” 

But the biggest showstopper comes with “Smooth Criminal,” in which Jackson and his tour director/choreographer Kenny Ortega insert footage of Jackson jumping and running and sliding down bannisters into a Humphrey Bogart movie. As Bogie pumps a machine-gun full of lead into Jackson while the Gloved One explodes through a window for his getaway, it is impossible to keep from bursting into applause, as the audience of jaded critics did at Los Angeles’ historic Chinese Theater. 

Throughout it all, there is only one slight weak spot; when Jackson’s voice-over discusses the planet’s environmental problems in a way that’s simultaneously childlike and heavy-handed. Audiences are subjected to sticky-sweet footage of a young girl running through CGI footage of a rain-forest, surrounded by butterflies as the turgid ballad “Earth Song” plays. Yet, even here, the film is revealing a little-known side of Jackson as a social activist. 

Ultimately, director Kenny Ortega, who would have been the live concerts’ choreographer, has done a valuable service to Jackson’s legacy and for all those who are curious about the creative process of pop music’s apparent last great visionary. It was not exploitative to make this film, but rather an absolute necessity, as it strips away the horrid memories of Jackson’s alleged dark side and leaves us with him pointing us all towards the light of joy through sheer entertainment.