Y’know, if I ever decide to become a child molester, I’m gonna make sure that I have the best-selling album of the decade before I start dipping my pen into the Romper Room ink pool.

That would appear to be what Michael Jackson did, and it’s done him well thus far. After all, despite a purportedly overwhelming amount of evidence against his cause, he still has a legion of religiously devout fans, as well as more celebrity friends than are listed in Johnny Carson’s old guestbook. And both groups are avidly supporting him with the incoming of this trial. So not only does he have the moral support of his fans, but he has character witnesses willing to take the stand for him.

Of course, when your character witnesses are a guy who was on trial for rape and a woman with nearly ten marriages to her name, you gotta wonder if Mikey’s defense isn’t asking them to kindly back off. Then again, you gotta be kinda loopy to represent a guy like Jackson in the first place.

I am convinced that Michael Jackson could commit atrocities against humankind that would make Osama bin Laden shit himself, and he’d still have hundreds of people flock to him like vultures to a pasty white corpse with no nose. And it didn’t take this trial to make me aware of this fact.

Lemme set the stage for ya: my radio show at Skidmore was basically a hard rock expo peppered with commentary, observations, and sage truths.

Just imagine this blog with a soundtrack. That was my show in a nutshell.

The slot I had during the first semester of my senior year was from 6 to 8 in the evening. My lead-in was an hour-long show entitled “Off The Wall: A Tribute To The Jacksons.” The hosts were a boyfriend/girlfriend team who were both Jackson fanatics, and their on-air content consisted not only of tunes by Michael, Janet, and the 5, but also “impressive” solo work by Germaine, Tito, Marlon, and LaToya. There was also Jackson Trivia, holiday songs, “This Day in Jackson History,” etc., etc., ad nauseum (or just plain “added nausea”). Top it all off with the fact that the female half of the team shelled out a whopping $300 and change to see the Michael Jackson Tribute Special back in 2001, featuring Michael, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Usher, and a veritable cornucopia of $&B stars and Pop Tarts.

First off, how late were the program managers up at night to have an all-Jackson’s program as a lead-in to a balls-out hard rock show? Then again, it is Skidmore, so it’s likely that between alternating bong hits, beer funnels and Esperanto’s Dough Boys, my show would’ve sounded like a great lead-in for an all-polka show.

Wait… that was my junior year… sonuva…

Secondly, this led me to two rock-hard, undisputable truths:

1 – Jackson fans are absolutely rabid. You really have to just forsake all reason and love the hell out of this man if you’re willing to purchase Tito Jackson’s solo records based solely on the fact that he is Michael’s sibling.

2 – The female half of this crew had to give the most amazing blow job known to man, because I do not know a single red-blooded American male that would fess up to liking Michael Jackson in this day and age, let alone sit beside his girlfriend and profess said fandom on a radio show.

Seriously, how can you doubt that this man is beyond fucked up and has an unhealthy obsession with children? That ol’ boy ain’t right, folks! It’s as plain as the fingerprint on the kiddie porn. A lot of us don’t want to believe it, and I understand that. Maybe to some of us, Michael is one of the last truly magical characters in the world that has yet to be debunked. Rank him up there with Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy; it seems to fit the idiom he’s crafted for himself.

Look, I ain’t rankin’ on the guy for his odd behavior or his appearance. At the core if it all, it may not even really be his fault. It’s purely a psychological thing probably brought about by his childhood and all the shit Big Poppa Joe put him and his sibs through. The saddest part is that, in his mind, Michael really doesn’t know that what he’s doing is wrong. Chalk that one up to legal insanity, folks. It’s the same reason that Jeffrey Dahmer was killed in a prison riot and not by lethal injection. Because he thought that putting post-sodomized human entrails on the menu was an OK thing to do.

I forget who said it, but one reported likened Michael Jackson to Howard Hughes. Now this is not the Howard Hughes depicted in The Aviator. This is the whacked-out germophobe version. The guy who was such a hugely public figure that when he all but vanished, people’s already-unhealthy infatuation with him rose tenfold. The unsettling part of this analogy is that while it may be accurate to a fault, Michael’s eccentricities have, like the times themselves, grown more disturbing and frightening.

And it’s hard to deny that. Some folks are eager to cry “conspiracy” to defend Michael’s name, and to be fair, any conspiracy theory may have an element of truth to it, if not too far-fetched. Example: The U.S. government’s watch over and eventual deportation of John Lennon was initially regarded as just wild conspiracy theory. Today we know it to be fact. But the shortcoming of the Jackson theory is this: what would anyone have to gain by setting the man up? I mean, hey, I hated Moonwalker as much as anyone, but I wouldn’t frame the guy for child molestation to get my kicks.

No my friends, this one is sadly very much a reality. We gotta accept that. For many people, this may be the equivalent of discovering that wholesome, likeable J.F.K. cheated on Jackie. Or learning that Mickey Mantle was a massive alcoholic. It’s a sad truth that diehard fans have to learn to deal with. Coming to Michael’s aid isn’t going to help him. Maybe in terms of morale, sure. But it’s not going to be able to sway twelve jurors. That’s what his attorneys are attempting to do. Please leave that job to them.

And please leave college radio alone. Just… just stop dipping into my Kool-Aid, will ya?

Goodnight, and have a pleasant tomorrow.