10.28.09 STOP THIS ALREADY

This is It premiered last night and everyone loved it and blah blah blah.  Michael Jackson was the King of Pop, he was one of kind, an extraordinary entertainer — really, we get it.  That doesn’t make this any less of a tacky media circus.  And please, for the love of God, can we stop writing articles that read like they should have Chariots of Fire playing in the background? From the LA Times:

It was just plain weird that Michael Jackson wasn’t at last night’s world premiere of his concert film “This Is It” at L.A. Live’s Nokia Theatre.

Really, L.A. Times?  It was weird that Michael Jackson wasn’t at the premiere of a movie that wouldn’t have been released if he was alive?  Now I’m no professional journalist, but it seems to me like it’d be bad thing for your first sentence to be complete bullsh-t.

“He would have loved this,” said Sony Pictures movie chief Amy Pascal, whose studio paid $60 million for the rights to the film.

You could almost picture Jackson moonwalking down the red carpet [...]

As his soulful pop tunes blasted on loudspeakers, some 5,500 guests, including Will Smith, Jamie Foxx, and, of course, Paris Hilton, posed for the paparazzi. Kenny Ortega, who directed and produced the film, stopped Jackson’s four brothers on the way into the theater to thank them for “going out of their way to be here tonight.” No sign of Janet or Daddy Joe. Even Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa made an appearance.

Of course he did.  The whole point of this was to artificially associate yourself with a beloved celebrity’s legacy.  Oh, and the mayor’s also hoping you’ll donate a few bucks to pay back the $1.4 million the city spent on the funeral.  You know, the one that didn’t actually end with a person being buried.

Jackson would have been amused to see Sony’s Pascal in her Jackson-like get-up; a white fedora hat with a black ribbon, a white V-neck T-shirt, cropped black military-style jacket and ultra-low black hip-hugger slacks with silver sequenced stripes down the sides and a matching belt. You go girl.

Would he?  Would he have loved her outfit?  Well that’s f-cking adorable.  Tell me, what did he think of Paris Hilton’s outfit?  I’m done with this article.  In other douchebag news, massive tool Roger Friedman valiantly defended Michael’s honor from frivolous lawsuits.   He refers to him by first name, of course, because they’re close personal friends.

Dr. Arnold Klein, Michael Jackson’s long time dermatologist, is determined to embarrass him today. Yes, Michael is dead, but his movie is opening to rave reviews. What can Dr. Klein do to steal the spotlight?
Well, he sued Michael yesterday for just under $50,000. Klein says Michael racked up that balance with him between March 23rd and June 22, 2009. Procedures were mostly facial things — Restalyne, suntanning, Botox, that sort of thing.
It’s interesting to note that Dr. Klein — for whom Debbie Rowe (they no longer speak) once worked, and who set up the birth of Blanket, Michael’s third child — charged Jackson a grotesque $5,000 for an unscheduled weekend appointment and $7,500 for another.
The purpose of the lawsuit does seem to be to reveal a laundry list of Michael’s treatments. Klein could have filed last summer, or waited until after “This Is It” was released — or even better, wrote off the amount since Jackson kept him in business for years. But greed is greed, and Klein picked yesterday to get maximum exposure. As Chrissie Hynde sings so brilliantly, “You know who your friends are.” [via the people who still employ Roger Friedman for some reason]

How dare this doctor time his opportunistic lawsuit to coincide with an opportunistic movie!  He’s totally embarrassing the guy who’s dead anyway, and extorting money from the poor people who continue to shamelessly profit off him!  And $50,000?  Why, Michael’s estate could never afford such a sum!   But as Third Eye Blind so brilliantly sang, “Doot doot doot, doot do doot doo.”