Black and White By Jim Higo (1/3)

(1/3), (2/3), (3/3).

At last it's here! That eagerly awaited time when the celebs queue up to be seen and to be heard. The moment when Hollywood's finest come together amidst an array of anxious attire, desperate, designer dresses and hazardous hairdo's. It's the time for sickeningly sycophantic speeches and putrid, puerile platitudes amongst a sea of insincerity. Yes the Michael Jackson court case is finally upon us.

Forget the Oscars, ditch David Letterman, switch off Celebrity Big Brother; the place to be if you want to watch those desperate darlings who yearn for attention, adulation and affection (and which of them don't?) is in the wings of the Santa Maria Courtroom. I have to say that I care very little for any of the protagonists in this preposterous pantomime and I find it impossible to either empathise or sympathise; it really does say nothing to me about my life. As with most things American it just has that sickening feel of everyone being on the make.

It certainly seems to be taking its toll on Michael, he looked as white as a sheet when he turned up for court yesterday. It appears that what the jury needs to establish is whether Jacko is a child molester or if he is merely a well-adjusted middle-aged bloke who likes sharing his bed with young boys?

Only in one very specific set of circumstances does the second option become sufficiently palatable to enable the defendant to emerge from the trial with his lifestyle being seen as acceptable. Only when two uncontrolled and unchecked components collide does the sickening suddenly become sufferable. Only when America and celebrity come together, do the rules change. America, seems not only to have jettisoned the word normality (I hate normalcy), it seem also to have lost sight of its meaning.

Not even in Lincolnshire is it considered reasonable for a 46 year old bloke to spend most of his time playing games, watching videos and sleeping with young boys.

Add to the equation celebrity status, which, especially in America, seems to grant a person a completely different set of life rules and suddenly Jacko's behaviour is seen merely as being a bit weird and wacky and outlandish. Barnardo's, the children's charity, said if similar circumstances were reported in the UK, an investigation would be launched, closely followed by a lynch mob intent on either castration or a house burning.

The exception to this is in Newbury where their lynch mobs hand over a strongly worded letter that politely requests relocation to another town followed by an intense course of counselling.

Supporters of Jacko say that this case and the accompanying accusations have made him an international object of loathing and scorn, something which I always thought he had achieved when he released his Off the Wall album. And if we're talking real crime then what about his fashion crimes, the one glove, the white suit and red socks, the gold cock guard. Then we have his crimes against cosmetic surgery.

Pictures that make your jaw drop almost as much as his seems to have done, a nose that disappeared quicker than Daniella Westbrook's and skin that faded quicker than John Leslie's career. But none of this is really what the Jacko trial is really about. Nobody cares about the legalities; noone is interested in the judicial toing and froing. This is a freak show of monstrous proportions, a modern day gallery of grotesqueness.

Continued Next Page (2/3),

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