Ron Hart column

I do not know if you have heard yet because the media is really playing it down, but entertainment icon Michael Jackson died recently. Each news outlet has its own angle on this event, mostly involving 24-hour mindless speculation. So I thought: Who better to pontificate wildly on this subject without knowing what the heck he is talking about than yours truly?

Beside the public memorial at LA’s Staples Center, there is also to be a service at the Neverland Ranch crime scene. The evidence tags have been removed, and this future Dis-Graceland is now available to the media. Neighbors are torn on this possibility because Neverland has always been an enigma to them. For years they thought it was a middle school for boys.

Michael Jackson might be buried as all his heirs would like, and as his father-in-law, Elvis Presley, was (and as I want to be some day): near his own gift shop. Nothing dignifies a man’s life like people being able to pay their respects and buy a shot glass with his picture on it to commemorate the somber moment.

Like most iconic and out-of-control stars, Jackson will be worth more dead than when he was alive and spending like a Congressman. This will be a near-term financial blow to the Jackson family. If stage father Joe Jackson knew that the Lord was going to take one of his sons, he would have offered Tito first.

Since he morphed before our eyes from a black male into a white woman, I did not realize that many consider Michael Jackson a person who broke racial barriers. Maybe they mean that he started off black and worked his way toward becoming white. He clearly was a talented guy with deep-seated personal issues, but Rosa Parks he was not. Even rival attention junkies Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton could not sell that one to the American people. Perhaps their last chance at selling that particular myth died with Billy Mays.

When you think of Michael Jackson, you have to also think of the children — and how best to keep them away from Michael Jackson. He violated the “three tykes and you’re out” rule long ago.

Apparently he had a tortured childhood, just like most people who are in therapy after making hundreds of millions of dollars. The main thing I want to know is who fathered his kids. It was obvious that Michael was not interested in the mechanics of baby making, but he clearly liked kids — truly a dilemma.

From what I read, Michael married his dermatologist’s assistant, Debbie Rowe, so she would bear him some kids. It has been reported that his dermatologist, Dr. Arnie Klein, was the sperm donor father of the two oldest Jackson kids, Prince One and Paris. Perhaps Michael did open the world’s eyes to the racial possibilities of an African-American entertainment legend marrying a redneck’s daughter (Lisa Marie Presley) and then having Jewish kids. Since there is no Jewish mother in the mix, I wonder how the kids will be raised. If child celebrity history is any guide, they will be raised by the media and the court system.

Many are taking Jackson’s death hard, which surprises me. I never take any celebrity that seriously, but some do. A friend from Memphis told me that he called down to Raiford’s Bar to ask if there was anything going on in connection with Michael’s death. The club owner said she was “tore up about it,” and my friend told her to hang in there. She said, “Baby we are. All we can do is take it one drink at a time.”

The cautionary tale that was the life of Michael Jackson is one that we learn over and over. Never surround yourself with “yes men” who will only feed your demons instead of telling you “no” when they know they should. We have lost a talented performer who lived a tragic life. I hope his death will teach us to avoid drug addiction, false friends, and living for too long in Neverland.