Snorting coke from the ripe round asses of Filipino hookers or something, I somehow managed to ignore every dreadful moment of Michael Jackson's spectacular crash and probable, as it were, burn thus far.

Honestly. But I positively did not see this coming.

Covert operations? Aggressive invasions? Secret warrants? An allegedly roofied-up pre-teen with a wine hangover and a funny (funny) taste in his mouth? I'm as abashed as a bashed- in ashcan's bashed-in ass. Abashed, I tell you!

Let us never speak of this again.

Let's instead concern ourselves with things less repulsively fascinating. Such as? Well, have you heard that Lara Flynn Boyle got dumped by Jay Penske, like, 10 minutes after she got his name tattooed on her ass? Or the news that sweet Naomi Campbell supposedly heaved a hotel telephone at some ex-assistant's head ("frivolous lawsuit," my Ouija board says)? Or that Johnny Depp was just crowned People's "Sexiest Man Alive" (proving definitively the understated appeal of drunken gay pirates over 40)? And just what about that other poor little 13-year-old, anyway? The hand-holdy ex-cancer boy with the spiky blond hair? We wept for Uma, we cried for Nicole--but who has spared a single drop of brackish eye-dew for ex-cancer boy?

Oh, you do too know who I'm talking about: The incredible melting Michael Jackson was mooning, fawning, and gaily gawking all over him in that über-disturbing documentary thingy a mere fistful of months ago. (What was it called again? Living with Michael Jackson? Like an Oprah special on viral leprosy--"next on Living with Michael Jackson... survivors share their heroic stories.") Remember him? Well, there's most likely one broken-hearted little middle-school student out there, scratching out inscriptions of "I-heart-M.J. 4-Ever" from the ragged brown-bag covers of his textbooks in a weepy fit of betrayal-flavored boy rage. That's all I'm saying.

Actually, I never even watched that damn documentary. I'm not even sure it really happened. I have no clue what I'm talking about. Ignore all that.

But for reasons unfathomable, my hopeful little heart (which harbors little appreciation for The Thing of Pop's contributions to personal aesthetics or to music, really) can't help but hold a dimming glimmer of compassion for the poor daddy-whupped-my-old-white-woman-trapped-in-this-little-black-boy's-body-if-I-didn't- perform-like-a-trained-monkey-ass creature; alone, alienated, twisted as a twisted sister in a twister from the get-go; once a legend, now a human disaster.

You'd have waxed weird, too, if your head was melting. And I seriously don't want to talk about it anymore. adrian@thestranger.com