The Jackson Extravaganza-Tasteless

Today, they sent Michael Jackson off in style, albeit not so much in class. To accommodate the Jackson family, his friends and AEG, half of greater LA was shut down today. Thousands of cops were out in force racking up who knows how much in overtime as they covered the routes from the Jackson estate in Encino to Forest Lawn to the Staples Center. All the major network anchors were there. The sky was filled with TV helicopters and three major freeways were shut down to the public. All to pay tribute to Michael Jackson. And oh, yes. The total cost to the LA taxpayer will be 3-4 million bucks.

The day began after 8 am when the Jackson motorcade left Encino en route to Forest Lawn cemetery for an early service. Is that to be the final resting place for the "King of Pop"? We still don't know. In fact, we don't even know where the body is as I write this piece. In the morning, the reporters were speculating if Jackson's body would actually be brought to the Staples Center-or just an empty casket. Anyway, from Forest Lawn, the motorcade proceeded to the Staples Center accompanied by a hearse containing a gold plated casket-presumably with Jackson's body.

The one positive aspect of this circus was that due to the large police presence, most fans decided to watch it on TV rather than go downtown and be blocked behind barricades blocks away from the Staples Center as was announced. Therefore, there were no disturbances and only one reported arrest.

As stated, the major TV anchors were all covering the "great event", most notably Katie Couric, who was outside the Staples Center broadcasting and frankly speaking, at her soapiest worst.

Inside, everybody who counted was there. Magic Johnson spoke and talked how Jackson had made it possible for kids to wear Magic Johnson and Kobe Bryant jerseys and hang them in their bedrooms-or some such nonsense. Brooke Shields tearfully told the crowd how Michael was sitting "perched on a crescent moon". Huh? Al Sharpton, in a burst of hyperbole, basically implied Jackson was some kind of Martin Luther King-another gross exaggeration. Then Sheila Jackson Lee, the camera-hogging congresswoman from Texas (what was she doing there?) reminded the audience of the fact that "as a member of Congress, we know what it means to be innocent until found otherwise", an obvious reference to Jackson's child-molestation trial. (I would remind Ms Lee that it doesn't take a member of Congress to know that Jackson was found not guilty and therefore did not have to go to jail. That was his constitutional protection-not that private individuals can't have a different point of view.)

Of course, there were songs by folks like Mariah Carey, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Ritchie, Jennifer Hudson and others. Everybody sang, "We are the World". The whole thing took 2 hours and 15 minutes. Then it was off to the Beverly Wilshire Hotel for a reception and the gold casket off to an unknown destination.

When reporters cornered one LA city spokesman and asked why the tax-payers had to foot the bill for this event, his only explanation was that this was "a world-class event for a world-class city." It would have been nice if AEG, the owners of Staples Center and the entity that was promoting the upcoming Jackson 50-concert tour, had offered to help pay the expenses. (They refused).

I know many feel that Jackson's contribution to music justified this spectacle, but given Jackson's overall persona, his well-publicized flaws, the lingering shadow of the pedophilia allegations and the issue that he probably died of an accidental drug overdose, I think something more subdued would have been appropriate. It is a troubling sign of the state of our culture that we made such a big deal out of his passing while more meaningful lives are being lost around the world under more tragic circumstances. What happened today in Los Angeles was a monument of over-indulgence to a man who lived a life of over-indulgence.