About a week before Michael Jackson died, I had a dream where I visited him in some crummy little rented apartment where he was living. In my waking hours that day, I had read a little article in the paper about his run of 50 shows booked at the London O2 Arena. There was an accompanying photograph of him, looking spectral and white. A man who for years had gradually been coming undone at the seams was planning to finally unravel, to come apart completely and irreparably, before the world’s largest audience. I turned to my girlfriend with the paper and said “He looks like he’s about to die. These shows are going to kill him.” I thought he was going to collapse on stage and die; and then die again, pixelated and with distorted sound, one hundred million times on youtube, myspace, facebook, and then again on the national nightly news (who these days seem to rely on bloggers, twitters and youtube for source material. Is this the future of journalism? Is “news reporting” going to end up as nothing more than an unqualified opinion column?? -- like this one ).....

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I was wrong, of course, about Michael dying on stage, or after a show, because we know he never made it that far. Which brings me back to my dream. A strange dream that smelt musty and stale in my mind, like old clothes and bad breath. I entered his apartment room, which had no windows; just a hanging light bulb, an unmade bed without sheets, clothes and rubbish on the floor, a box or two of things he had salvaged from his ranch- jewellery from memory, turquoise and blue bracelets and rings and ear rings to dress up a skeleton in drag. There were bottles of prescription drugs on the vanity, and the orange cap of a missing syringe. In my dream I said; “Michael, this is a wreck, what is going on?” and when he turned to speak, all I could see where his teeth chattering together.....

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Now that Michael has died, the swarms are left to pick over his carrion. The wreckage of his once enviable life seems to me like a giant junkyard. The Black Entertainment Awards was distinguished by Janet Jackson appearing to say a few words, representing a family that were “too upset” to appear themselves. Since then we’ve seen footage, pictures and quotes of Michael’s father looking not like a man broken by the loss of a son, but like a business man who’s business deal has just fallen through. A mild disappointment, rather than a tragic grief, is about all we get from Jackson Snr. His words of mourning seem rather hollow… compounded by the product spruiking epilogue of his official statement, that went along the lines of “in conclusion, the next product I want to show you is this terrific blue-ray disc player”. It becomes pretty clear that Mr Jackson Snr was the ultimate stage parent, a salesman who ultimately sold out his own children. Michael Jackson, like a whatever the hell Joe is selling now, was pimped from the beginning, and, like a girl who’s only ever felt good when people tell her she’s pretty, Michael relied completely on that song and dance for any sense of worth or connection. It filled the place, rather poorly, of real familial relationships (particularly paternal).....

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So was Joe Jackson responsible for his son’s death? Not single handed, obviously. But he was, it seems, part of an inner circle of self-motivated hangers on who are most likely implicit. Where were the family and friends who stood by as the King of Pop stuck three more needles of Demerol into his thigh? Where were they to suggest that 50 shows at the O2 Arena might not be a good idea for a grown man who won’t eat and who weighs 50 kilograms? Who was the doctor that didn’t mind prescribing Oxy-Contin; which from memory, was the drug they put my grandmother on to the ease the excruciating pain she had in the final days inside her cancer-ridden body. Did somebody suggest that taking three different kinds of anti-depressants and a couple of sedatives might indicate a problem that the pills weren’t helping very much with? For a man supposedly adored by millions, where were the few who actually cared enough to help the guy? Maybe Michael had successfully estranged himself from everybody who might have had the capacity to intervene. For all we know, he was surrounded by ‘yes-men’, or at least people who’s own problems were such that they rendered them incapable of helping anybody but themselves. Outside of that, all Michael had were goo-goo eyed fans, separated by stage barriers and including (judging by the recent London press conference footage) a solid showing of balding middle age men waving placards and screaming and jumping sycophantically like 12-year-old schoolgirls.....

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Now when Michael was booked to do the shows at 02 Arena, the word is that he only agreed to 20 or so. When these shows sold out, the rest were booked in, apparently without the drug-addled Jackson really agreeing to any of it. So the question remains, did Michael really give the impression that he was healthy enough to do 50 shows? Is the booking agent who said “I would trade my body for his” now eating his words? Or was this another case of denial, exploitation, and utter negligence? Was his manager ok with a run of shows that would compromise the health of a young, healthy man, let alone a dying 50 year old? In any case, those greedy bastards have no show now.....

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The point that I am making is that tragic endings like that of Michael Jackson don’t just happen by accident. They are the culmination of years upon years of bad decisions, denial, questionable motivations, exploitation and unhealthy behaviour. Piece by piece Michael’s humanity was dismantled, partly by others, and largely by him. His entire sense of self worth seemed to be derived from the world outside himself, to the point that he had a reputedly powerful “love affair” with his fans worldwide. On the flip side of that, he was incredible sensitive to public opinion, which is in turns violent, petty, fickle and cruel, and almost always fraudulent. He was like a teenager who never got past caring what the other kids thought of him, and there was no mum or dad, no regular friends to give it to him straight (I’m sorry, I think Liza Minelli and Elizabeth Taylor seem like really lovely women, but they, in they’re own drug addled, publicity soaked lives, probably weren’t the best yardsticks of health and normality for Michael to have).....

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I love Michael Jackson’s music, just like half the planet. Just like many of you, I can talk at length about my favourite songs, about the moments they book mark in my life, about the things they make me think about, and I can still revel in the infinite dopeness of some of the finest pop music ever conceived. Even as a kid, the first pop music I ever remember “flipping out” over was The Jackson 5 (which in retrospect, was one mind-frazzling talented 8 year old entertaining another, far less talented, but much better cared for 8 year old).....

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But, like I said, tragic ends often are the sum of tragic beginnings and middles. Despite appearances, perhaps this was Michael’s story from the out set, and it ended in the only way it was ever going to. As Lisa Marie-Presley has said, “the inevitable has just happened”. Inevitable indeed, like the fated conclusion to a doomed myth. What we have just seen is bookend, or if you will, “the final curtain call” to a tragic story; a lonely spirit; and a sad life that just so happened to provide the rest of the world with a whole lot else along the way.....

R.I.P. Michael Jackson.

-Andy Bull