by Matt St. Amand

Created on: July 20, 2009

Like the Bible, Bob Dylan has a quote for every occasion. When it came to the "star studded" memorial service for Michael Jackson at the Staples Center on July 7th, one Dylan line, above all, came to mind: "They're selling postcards of the hanging" from his song Desolation Row on the album Highway 61 Revisited.

No one could ever accuse Michael Jackson of being humble. Sure, he was a benevolent, harmless, torrentially talented man/child who did many good works in his lifetime. He made the money and he spent the money. It was his - he could do whatever he wanted with it. To anyone who would criticize Michael Jackson for his ridiculously ostentatious wardrobe - that sequined glove always stood out to me as a wretched beacon of laughable excess - I would offer the line from Jesus Christ (which I think of every time I stiff a panhandler): "The poor will be with you always." But for all his virtues - and they were many - no one could accuse Michael Jackson of being humble.

So, the unhumble, ostentatious Michael Jackson was waked yesterday in a concert hall named for a company that sells adding machines and Liquid Paper. I didn't watch the event. I don't have any interest in postcards of hangings. But this being the 21st Century and this being North America, there wasn't a gawddamned place I could go yesterday where there wasn't a TV barking in my face - and every one of those TVs was tuned to the orgy of weirdness in Los Angeles.

What I saw was stomach-turning: a gaggle of funeral crows surrounding Jackson's eleven year old daughter as she was propped up, nearly hysterical, to speak of her love for her father. The normality of the child's pain and grief stood in stark contrast to the rest of the debacle's unreality.

The painful, schmaltz-upon-schmaltz musical selections performed to slide shows of Michael Jackson flashing on a screen five storeys tall was more than my pancreas could take. And all of those "stars" crowding on the stage for their few minutes in the spotlight. It's like Jimmy Kimmel's appointment book was used to find "stars" who were available: Usher? John Mayer? Jennifer Hudson? Magic Johnson? Kobe Bryant? Shaheen Jafargholi? Al Sharpton (whose speech, I'd heard, was actually well done)? Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, who apparently embarrassed herself in her over-the-top late-breaking defense of Michael Jackson against child molestation charges, of which he was completely acquitted years ago.

Incredibly, Jesse Jackson - America's #1 Uninvited Guest

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