How should we remember this man?

Michael Jackson died. The worst part about this, for me, is that one of my all-time favorite internet jokes no longer even makes sense (it starts out, "Michael Jackson died" and relies on the singer still being alive to be funny). The second worse part is definitely that I have to put up with hearing about how great Michael Jackson was from people/news outlets that totally ignore all of the negative aspects of his life. I'm all for respect for the dead, but shouldn't our lives be treated as a whole and not have big chunks of it ignored?

For example, of the six newspaper front pages I saw the day after he died, all but one of them had black Michael Jackson in the picture. The one that didn't had a picture of a fan with a blow-up doll of white Michael Jackson (USA Today). This very transformation is something which is utterly ignored. Really, when describing the man's life in a couple sentence summary, wouldn't the total change of his skin color warrant a quick reference? Sure, it's embarrassing to the guy, but it radically altered his life. That and the lupus, which supposedly aggravated the skin color change while remaining in total remission.

The other great embarrassment is the child abuse allegations. Now here, we've got some pretty convincing evidence, assuming you believe what children say. I've heard a number of points to defend his innocence from people, including "If he was guilty, they would have found him guilty," to which you can debunk with "OJ." Some people try to claim that the allegations are fabricated by a bunch of people looking to jump on a gravy train. Not only is that pretty disrespectful to the victims, why do people pick Michael Jackson? There are rich celebrities out there who look a whole lot like child molesters who this collective of gold diggers doesn't seem to be targeting. And there was evidence of him spending the night with young children and, sorry, but the, "He didn't know it was wrong," really doesn't fly.

I admit, Michael Jackson was a darn fine musician and one of the first blacks with some serious crossover appeal to white audiences. So, in a way, Michael Jackson helped bring white people pop music as we know it today. I'm not going to thank him for his gracious gift of Brittney Spears, nor Rihanna. Though I will continue to listen to "Thriller," "Beat It," and The Jackson Five with a smile on my face while my voice breaks trying to hit the high notes. And really, I'm going to miss the possibility of a Jackson Five reunion tour.

Mark Johnson is an unprofessional writer who drinks too much and smokes too little. Witty, unconventional, cavalier, badass: all terms rarely used by others to describe him. Mark takes nothing half as serious as perhaps it should be taken; to date, this has not gotten him physically harmed, but he worries. Caving to public pressure, he has a personal blog at whynotjustblog.blogspot.com