Sure, it's an easy target. Yup, I could write this piece with one hand tied behind my back. And absolutely, the entire thing is as predictable as a Steve Martin family comedy. But here's the thing... Michael Jackson is fucking NUTSO! He's beyond help! He's a freak of such mammoth proportions that he really ought to be taken to a Mexican clinic and pumped full of lethal drugs, then buried in the desert where the scorpions will eat everything except the plastic in his face. But he's not only a freaking nutbar, he's also a DUMB ASS. And here's why.

Back in the 70's, Michael Jackson was seen as the second coming of Elvis. Or at least, a second coming to be. As the focal point of the Jackson Five, he was a kid with a great voice, crazy dance moves and a massive future. Heck, if Tito could make it with his limited ability, then Michael was going to be a superstar.

And he was. Thriller was the biggest album in history by a gazillion percent, and the music videos that went with it are still played ad infinitum on those music channels that actually bother playing music videos anymore.

So what do you do when you're the biggest name in the world and have more money than God? You... buy a ranch and build an amusement park for yourself?

And you then invite children around to play with you?

And you then let those children 'sleep over'?

And then you have so many plastic surgery and skin bleaching treatments that your face begins to collapse into a weird white mound of plastic with eyes?

Who was really surprised when Jackson was hit with child abuse allegations in the 90's? A lot of people gave him the benefit of the doubt, reasoning that Jacko might be a little wacko, but he'd never harm a child. "He's a child himself!" they reasoned.

"WE STILL LOVE YOU, MICHAEL!" came the screams from people who haven't entered a Tower Records store in eight years and value celebrity over anything else in life. To them, Michael is king and will always be king... even if a few kids get their weiners touched in the meantime. You'd have to think that it was people like that who kept sending their children to Micheal's Neverland Ranch, even after the pop singing weirdo paid millions of dollars to have the child abuse charges dropped.

A cartoon in a Sydney newspaper at the time featured a reporter asking Jackson, "so how much money would you have paid if you DID molest that kid?" Unfortunately, those journalists who manage to arrange interviews with Jackson have never deemed it interesting enough to ask that question to his face.

So Jackson gets out of one near thing, and then goes and marries arch-Scientologist Lisa Marie Presley. LMP is a weird one herself, having bounced around as a kind of Scientology lure to some of the biggest names in entertainment. It's as if she has a fishing hook on her tongue, with the line leading back to the LA Scientology 'Celebrity Centre'. Nic Cage escaped her clutches recently, and presumably Jackson was considered beyond help when LMP made for the exits after she and Jackson enjoyed a relatively sickening, lightning quick 'Hollywood romance'.

So there was Michael again, with no female in his life, once more open to the talk that he likes little boys. So what does he do? He arranges for his secretary to conceive a kid for him. In the years since, Michael would arrange for another sprog plaything of his very own, which he would famously dangle (with one hand) over the balcony of a German hotel, much to the disgust of people worldwide.

But yeah, he'd never harm a child. After all, he put a blanket over the kid's head to ensure it didn't freak out...

So with his albums slumping in sales, his public stature in a freefall, and his future looking like it might not be able to pay for itself, what does Jackson do?

He shares his bed with boys.

So now he's been arrested and charged with child molestation, again complaining that he's innocent and that the cancer kid who made the allegations is simply out for money, but you know what? even if he was just out for money - YOU SHOULD PAY IT. You're an idiot, Jackson. An absolute, undeniable idiot who has put yourself in one stupid situation after another, surrounded by such 'mentally together' friends as Elizabeth "where's my Valium" Taylor and Macauley "Jackson II" Culkin. And let's not forget his good buddy Bubbles III and his favorite piece of room decor - the Elephant Man's corpse.

So now Jackson is on TV saying that he shouldn't be vilified for sleeping with children because he isn't a murderer or a sex fiend. "If it was Jack The Ripper - if it was about murder or sex, [sleeping with children] would be wrong. But it's not like that, so it's alright."

Sure. I mean, what's a quiet game of Man on Boy Rubba Rubba compared to the ritual slaying of 19th century prostitutes? How could we even be concerned when all Michael is allegedly doing is popping a couple of pills in a kid's drink and performing a little exploratory oral surgery on him?

Jackson's spokesman, ???, has now quit his post, claiming he had strategic disagreements with Jackson's people. At the same time, Jackson's people claim they fired ??? because he spoke out of turn. Either way, someone close to Jackson is more than a little disturbed about what he knows. Disturbed enough to get another job.

But now, the claims that set me off and forced my hand, making Michael Jackson the Bonehead of the Month for December 2003 are these, from imdb.com:

Jackson Accuses Police of Arrest Brutality
Troubled pop superstar Michael Jackson has accused Californian police of "manhandling" him during his arrest on charges of child molestation... Jackson also accused officers of deliberately harming him when he was handcuffed. He says, "(I was) manhandled very roughly. My shoulder is dislocated, literally. It's hurting me very badly. I'm in pain all the time. They did it to try to belittle me, to try to take away my pride. They put me in a certain position, knowing it's going to hurt and affect my back. Now I can't move - it keeps me from sleeping at night."

Yeah? And? You were ARRESTED, fruitcake! Maybe in your little rich kid world of ferris wheels and monkeys nobody ever gets 'hurt' (though a little anal penetration would seem to be par for the course), but in OUR world, where lunatics who sleep with children are considered criminals, you get cuffed, manhandled, thrown around a room a few times and told exactly what kind of fucknut you are.

Get used to it. Your cold, hard cell is waiting, and the cot that sits inside it has no oxygen tent.