Michael Jackson as The Scarecrow in the film version of “The Wiz” (1978)

R.I.P. Michael Jackson, 1958-1984

The Michael Jackson worth paying attention to died years ago—probably sometime after January 27, 1984, when onstage fireworks caught his hair on fire while he was singing “Billie Jean” for a Pepsi TV commercial in front of three thousand fans. (Dramatization: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZnUI8tfKjg)

Shilling for Pepsi? Was that really necessary for somebody so wealthy already? Whatever, after that, everything got worse.

There was the Jacksons’ ‘84 “Victory” tour ticketing debacle: pure ’80s materialist wealth-hunger at its most disgusting.

There was the increasingly crass, embarrassing, desperate, hilariously contrived music, made for the most insipid reasons.

There was the bizarre, constant crotch-grabbing, apparently debuting with the Scorsese-directed, Richard Price-written “Bad” video in 1987.

By the early ’90s Jackson had become what he would be until last Friday: a darkside Caligulan megalomaniacal grotesque godking with an appetite for pharmaceuticals and pedophilia. He deleted his face, his beautiful blackness (Update:Read Quincy Jones’ thoughts on this). At a distance, somehow, he still had tens of millions of (one has to presume) imbecilic worshipers. At his side: a revolving retinue of enablers and sycophants. And at his disposal: a fortune, enough to buy off his victims’ guardians and elude basic justice, as the wealthy almost always do. (Then again… perhaps the pedophilia accusations from the early ’90s were in fact utter bullshit?)

So, please: ENOUGH WITH THE MOURNING, blatant revisionism and general whitewashing from commentators, critics, obituary writers and historians who are paid plenty of money to know, think, and write better. The Michael Jackson worthy of interest, of admiration, of respect, from moral human beings has been gone since 1984. For the last 25 years, Michael Jackson was an embarrassment-becoming-a-monster. That should count for something when we decide who is worthy of breathless tribute.

The finest Michael Jackson moment since ‘83, other than Weird Al’s “Eat It” or Jarvis Cocker’s heroic interference in ‘96, is surely Harmony Korine’s poignant 2007 feature film, Mister Lonely. Here’s the international trailer: