In Defense of Michael Jackson

I walk a lot. In fact, I may be the ultimate walker. Long walks, short walks, morning walks, afternoon, evening and very late-night walks, I do them all.

On more than one occasion, I have walked from downtown Los Angeles to Beverly Hills. This is somewhere between a three and five hour walk. I can’t be more specific because when I walk, time is not what I am focused on. In New York City, I’ve done the Upper East Side to Wall Street walk more times than you would believe.

By doing all this walking, often at oddball hours and especially in very large cities, I have noticed a very interesting phenomena. Big time movie stars and rock stars come out very early in the morning before there are crowds out that can bother them.

I was once in Boston Common at 7:00 on a Sunday morning, only to find I was sharing the beauty of the Common with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

During various walks, I have passed Michael Douglas in New York City, Madonna in Chicago and Pamela Anderson while she was filming in downtown Los Angeles. This summer, again in downtown Los Angeles, it was me and Dennis Franz from "NYPD Blues." He was actually filming a couple of blocks away the Nextel commercial that is now being broadcast all over television

Now when I pass these people, it is generally very early in the morning and we generally are the only people on the street, so we do become aware of each other and generally there is a nod of acknowledgment between us and sometimes a "Hi, how are you?", but that is generally it.

It was a little different this August on a trip to Las Vegas, though. One Saturday morning at about 6:30, I was on one of my walks on The Strip in Las Vegas. Now Las Vegas is a 24-hour city if there ever was one, and about the quietest you are ever going to find it is at 6:30 on a Saturday morning. I was passing by the Paris Hotel (Outside the hotel there are replicas of the Eiffel Tower, Arche de Triomphe and other French national monuments.) when a very large limousine pulled up just out of earshot in front of me. Out stepped a very tall bodyguard followed by none other than Michael Jackson. It was just the two of them.

I noticed two girls on the sidewalk to the left of me. They were taking some picture near the hotel and I said to them, "If you want to take a picture you won’t forget, look over there, it’s Michael Jackson." They proceeded to run over to him and asked him if they could have their picture taken with him. He agreed. Somehow, I was recruited to take the picture.

Now Michael Jackson up close is quite a sight. His surgically re-engineered nose is very tiny and it has a very distinct curl to the front of it. It is the type of nose that would probably look very cute on a five year old girl. He wasn’t wearing any makeup, but his skin was as white as any skin I have ever seen. He talked with that squeaky little child’s voice, and when the girls also asked him for an autograph, he held the pen with all five fingers, the way little kids sometimes do.

Now, as I mentioned, in the past it has been a nod and maybe a "How are you?" when I have passed a celebrity, so with my picture taking duties over, I handed the camera back to the girls and was about to be on my way when Michael started to ask me and the girls questions. He asked me where I was from and what I did for a living, for starters. The questions were all very simple questions, the type a polite seven year old might ask in the company of adults. This chit chat went on for about five to ten minutes and then Michael was off to look at the Eiffel Tower and other monuments in front of the Paris.

This encounter has come back to the forefront of my memory as the photo of Michael "dangling" his baby has been circling the internet, television and newspapers. Everyone has kind of had fun with this picture.

Now I watched the video of this incident on the internet and Michael takes the baby out on the balcony, has a firm grip on the baby and lifts the baby over the railing for what can not be more than five seconds. The baby starts to kick and Michael immediately takes the baby inside. This isn’t dangling.

Since my encounter with Michael, I have been able to think of him only as a seven year old child stuck inside an adult’s body that he is desperately trying to have surgically made into a young child’s body. There may be a part of him that is a marketing genius, or maybe it's his handlers that are the marketers, I don’t know. I know that he definitely has a part to him that is very child-like. The "dangling" incident definitely can be explained by the young child part of him. He is at his hotel, sees the crowd of fans below, wants to please them, and rushes to show the baby off in a fashion very similar to the way a seven year old might, if a seven year old indeed could have a child. End of story.

Of course, others have seen it differently.

"I can't believe what I saw. Obviously, Michael is somehow out of control," said Donald Trump, who has had Michael as his guest at the Trump Tower and at Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, according to The New York Post.

The Post then reported that Dr. Joyce Brothers chimed in with, "Jacko's hasty ‘I'm sorry,’ which he issued in a carefully worded statement, was empty."

"It helps him to try to apologize, but that's not an apology. I really don't think he's capable of putting himself in someone else's shoes, to have empathy to feel how others feel," she said.

Then The Post Reports that, "Curiously, many celebs whom Jacko claims are among his closest friends refused to come to his aide yesterday.

"Among those who clammed up were Elizabeth Taylor, Martin Scorsese, Marlon Brando and Michael's first wife, Lisa Marie Presley."

Well Michael, as long as you are not trying to sponsor legislation to snoop inside my computer, raise my taxes, implement a National ID card or bomb Baghdad, then Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando, Donald Trump and Martin Scorsese may not be there for you. But I got your back covered, buddy.

You see, we here at STR really believe in live and let live. In fact, the name of our site, Strike The Root, was chosen by founder Rob M. based on a passage from the writings of a very wise and independent soul, Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau, you may recall, also has that very famous passage that states, "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away."

Now, it is very easy to play lip service to these words, but it is only when a character like you comes along that we get to see who really lives and breathes these words. Now Michael, you and me hear about as different drummers as you can get, but as long as you're not messing with my drummer, I'm not messing with yours.

Now I know there have been hints in the past in the media that you have messed around with some little kids. This is the toughest thing I have to deal with. If those rumors are true, then it is open season on you. But, frankly, after our brief encounter, I can’t picture you having sex, or anything close to it with man, woman or child. I know you have three children but I am definitely thinking big time, major league artificial insemination.

I can definitely see you jumping into your jammies with friends to watch "E.T.", which I understand is your favorite movie and that you have seen over 300 times, but that's the extent of it.

Now I guess you did pay some parents off, keeping them from filing charges against you, but I wonder two things: First, where were the parents when all this was going on? And secondly, I’m wondering if one of your legal advisors took a good close look at you and wondered how good you would have been on the witness stand, explaining how you and your friends were just watching "E.T." in your jammies. Your handler may have just looked at the balance in your checkbook and decided the easy way to handle the situation was to pay the parents off.

Anyway, there is no way I know the details of what went on and neither does anyone else on the outside. I do know that sometimes things can get distorted and blown way out of proportion. I know, for example, that during the sniper shootings in the Maryland area, all kinds of people reported seeing the shooting coming from a white van, or a white van "speeding away," and that the police put out sketches of white vans wanted in connection with the shootings. Of course, we now all know that there was no white van involved in the case.

So Michael, I'll tell ya, it would have been much easier for me to write a positive column about Mother Theresa, because you are definitely way out there, but I don’t think Mother Theresa needs my help. And I really think you are just one unusual character and that is the extent of it.

Now, unfortunately, while the media is having a field day with you, there are some real dangerous characters out there by the name of Bush, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld and Poindexter who do want to snoop inside my computer, raise my taxes, implement a national ID card and bomb Baghdad. They wear nice conservative suits, probably haven’t worn jammies in decades, and I only wish they would spend a lot more of their time just watching "E.T." and going to the zoo.

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