The Agony and the Ecstasy

It couldn't have happened to a freakier guy. The King of Pop is a pop-star pariah. Michael Jackson's invitation to sing on a Sept. 11 tribute album was turned down by a platoon of big-name stars. His new single was beaten out of Britain's No. 1-single spot by Kylie Minogue (Kylie Minogue!). Even if you never liked him, you've gotta cringe upon reading: "Jackson was said to be deeply hurt when producers of the TV telethon rejected him three weeks ago. Dozens of Hollywood-stars, including Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson and Julia Roberts took part. The 43-year-old singer offered his services, but an organiser said: "We felt he didn't fit the spirit of the show. The fear was that his performance would have been about him, not the victims."

It's the stuff of Russian novels. It's an opportunity to use 25-cent words ending in "-thos." A once invincible performer, driven over the edge or merely unleashing something deep inside of him, becomes more and more eccentric to the point where no one, not even the myriad pop stars influenced by his work, are willing to be seen with him in public.

Michael Jackson has become the benchmark by which our culture measures all other pathetic comeback attempts. Pat Boone, into hard rock and leather? Yawn. Elvis and the sequined cape? We scoff, because nothing, absolutely nothing, can compare with this: "His comeback concert last month turned into an embarrassing shambles. The guestlist, which included ageing film stars Elizabeth Taylor, Liza Minnelli and Marlon Brando, did little to impress younger fans many, of whom booed, slow-handclapped and eventually walked out."

A concert featuring Liz Taylor is not just a bad idea — it's patently psychotic. It makes anyone considering buying Invincible remember that, one morning in the late 1980s, we woke up and realized that MJ had lost his cool in a very big, very catastrophic way. He was sleeping with monkeys and building hyperbaric chambers and hanging out with has-been celebs, and that was a dark, eerie road we didn't want to go down. Whatever he was thinking, he had lost his bearings in the American cultural landscape.

There must have been some point, circa 1992, when MJ, lying in his pure-oxygen bed, looked at his reflection in the glass and realized that he was not what he used to be. A point where he decided to turn things around, to embark on a series of Herculean efforts to win back his fans, including a two-disc best of/new material album. Which is, tragically, what sealed the granite block on the mausoleum of his career. Because HIStory was more than just a bad album. It was a colossally self-centered bad album, on which Jacko forced us to look at him close up, listen to his creepy 4-year-old voice, examine his pasty white skin. MJ and HIStory reminded us of the disease-addled uncle who, at Thanksgiving, wants to give all the little girls really big hugs.

Some have said that, after Sept. 11, the age of irony is over. But those people, clearly, have forgotten about the peculiar fate of Michael Jackson. He wants so badly to hang onto the crown of pop, and we are letting him, even though that crown is now one of thorns. His songs may be derided, he may be the butt of a thousand pedophilia jokes, but he will never be forgotten. He is America's biggest freak, our cultural idiot man-child, the sad product of our celebrity fixation. We may laugh at him, we may pity him, but we will never forget him.

— Clay Risen (clay@flakmag.com)