Is it art? Part 2

Lots of people have plastic surgery, but some people insist on taking it to extremes. For instance, Joan Rivers looks like an alien struggling to get her human disguise to fit, whereas Jocelyn Wildenstein has turned herself into a one-size-fits-all punchline. Whenever a picture of them appears in the press, you can guarantee that someone will pop up and diagnose them with body dysmorphia.

Blame Lolo Ferrari - by turning herself into an 11 year-old grafitti artist's depiction of womanhood, she inadvertently introduced the world to the psychological disorder. As a result, anyone who goes under the knife more than a couple of times is instantly damned with dysmorphia-by-proxy.

Like anorexia and bulimia, it's a mental condition that manifests itself in a pathological disappointment with one's appearance. It's hardly surprising that many people were keen to diagnose Michael Jackson with dysmorphia too, given that he rearranged his face the way most people try out a different haircut.

But maybe Michael wasn't as unhappy about his appearance as we all thought he was - it turns out he actually wanted to look like that. Even if it meant he had the eyes of a cartoon bear and a nose that only existed in two dimensions.

In the last few days, Michael's collection of artwork has been revealed to the world, and it's a sight to behold. In the last ten years he commissioned a host of paintings, depicting his idealised self in a variety of poses. It's enough to make Jarvis Cocker's head spin.

As well as being portrayed as a superhero and King Arthur, Michael appears in one painting as a bizarre cross between Michelangelo's David and Botticelli's Birth of Venus. Surrounded by floating porcelain-skinned cherubs, the tastefully draped King of Pop shows off some pretty impressive pecs and abs that Peter Andre would kill for. And although there's only a swathe of muslin between Michael's groin and a crowd of naked children, there's absolutely no sense of predatory sexuality.

No doubt people will be falling over themselves to condemn Michael's lack of taste (and possibly clothing), but is it really that shocking? After all, Michael may have paid up to $150,000 for the portrait, but all he's done is what countless thousands of people do every day. The only difference is that they do it in those 'pose as a cowboy' photo studios, or by sticking their heads through a crudely cut hole in a cartoon of fat people in Victorian bathing gear. Different strokes, different folks.

Nicolas Cage loses his National Treasures

Does anyone have a fiver they can lend to Nicolas Cage? Only he's a bit strapped for cash at the moment - so much so that he's already had to take the unfortunate step of selling off one of his three European castles.

I know, your heart just bleeds for him. Especially if, like me, you've ever sat through one of the National Treasure movies, an experience not unlike having someone bellowing a Dan Brown novel at you through a loud-hailer.

Then again, noisy, explosive movies make up more than half of Nicolas' eclectic filmography, with the rest of his output involving introspective, downbeat dramas about the frailty of the human condition. No prizes for guessing which half brings in the big bucks - clue: his last big movie saw him providing the voice of a vengeance-seeking Guinea Pig.

But even the multi-million dollar paycheques don't seem to be sufficient to sustain the kind of spendy lifestyle that would make Michael Jackson look like Scrooge McDuck. In recent years, Cage has shown about as much consideration for his purchases as he has for his film roles, splashing his cash on 15 huge houses, four yachts, an island in the Bahamas, a Gulfstream jet and 22 cars. And barely a penny on a decent haircut.

Despite the fact that he brought in an estimated $40 million last year alone, Nicolas is now looking at the poorhouse (although for once, he's not viewing it as an investment property). And like any self-respecting celebrity, he's not prepared to be held accountable for his shopping addiction. Instead, he's suing his former business manager for $20 million in damages for sending him "down a path toward financial ruin".

The lawsuit all sounds convincing enough, using phrases like 'breach of contract', 'constructive fraud' and 'breach of fiduciary duty'. But there's a big difference between the careful siphoning off of funds and willingly signing on the dotted line to buy an island in the Bahamas, or $7million on a Bavarian castle.

With the wolves at the door, Nicolas must now be weighing up every offer that comes his way in the hope of clearing his debts. Maybe we'll finally get to see that sequel to Leaving Las Vegas we've all been hoping for, where a hopeless shopaholic relocates to Nevada committed to spending himself to death. Instead, he meets a whore who is happy to cash his cheques, and they both live happily ever after, watching QVC and flicking through old issues of the Betterware catalogue. I smell another Oscar...

Bitter Queen vs King of Pop

Despite their reputation for flakiness, celebrities are usually a reliable bunch. For instance, Britney will always be a trashy, inarticulate mess, Jordan will always find something excruciatingly private to discuss with a paying publication, and Rupert Everett will always say something shockingly ill-advised whenever he has a new product to plug. Unfortunately though, Rupert seems to work less than Victoria Beckham's smile muscles, and so we don't hear from him nearly enough.

Thankfully, with new Channel 4 show The Scandalous Adventures Of Lord Byron to promote, Rupert's crawled out from under a plastic surgeon to speak bluntly about anything that takes his fancy. This time around it's Michael Jackson and the very notion of celebrity that bear the brunt.

Having already labelled Jackson a freak, Rupert added that "He looked like a character from Shrek. He was a black to white minstrel." Pointedly ignoring the medical issues affecting Jackson's skin-colour, Everett's rapidly derailing train of thought elaborated on the racial issue, commenting that "He personified the pain and anxiety of a black man in a slave country." If anyone can claim to be an expert on the complexities of race relations in 21st Century USA, it's bound to be an ex-rent boy whose last role of note was that of a comical headmistress.

But according to Rupert, Jackson's death heralds a bigger event - the end of celebrity culture as we know it. Comparing the extremes of modern celebrity to the last days of Versailles, he wonders how much more bullshit we can take about celebrities. Well, I don't know about him, but I can handle plenty more. Which should be good news, since at least it means there'll still be an audience the next time he wants to talk publicly about his time as a junkie, or perhaps slate service men and woman for always "whining about the dangers of being killed."

Then again, it shouldn't really come as a surprise that he spends so much time talking out of his arse, since he's had so much plastic surgery that it's practically next to his mouth anyway.

Grief is the new black

After yesterday's epic send-off, rumoured to be viewed by over 31 million people in the US alone, and costing the city of Los Angeles $1.4 million, everyone is fixating on the nature of grief in today's celebrity-obsessed world.

Despite almost constant news coverage since his death, and a Lazarus-like resurrection in music charts around the world, the turnout for Jackson's memorial was somewhat underwhelming. The city of LA anticipated around 250,000 mourners would converge in the streets to pay their respects, but in fact only around 1,000 bothered to show. This meant that the 3,240 police officers deployed to steward the crowds outnumbered the mourners 3-to-1.

One case where the grief was perhaps underestimated, was little Paris Jackson, breaking down as she paid an emotional tribute to her father. Many children whose parents die young are denied the opportunity to even attend the funeral, and this is something that can stay with them for decades, having been denied the chance to say 'goodbye'. But Paris, finally free of her father's all-encompassing paranoia, was allowed to step forward and defend his reputation as the perfect dad. In doing so, she was able to answer his sneering critics and remind the world that, innuendos aside, he genuinely loved his children. But some critics are unhappy about this, speculating that Paris was exploited, seemingly cajoled into taking centre stage and casting off the weird veil we'd seen her in for every previous public appearance. I think everyone's just surprised that Michael Jackson managed to produce three apparently normal, well-adjusted children.

It wasn't just Michael's close family who came forward to share their memories of the begloved one. In the last week or so, anyone who ever met him, spoke to him or opened up their shop for him came forward with their own personal recollections of the man who was not Billie Jean's lover. Uri Geller, clearly mourning the last vestige of his media relevance, spoke at length (and frequently) about his friend, even speculating about what actually killed him. Liz Taylor began by issuing a statement to say that she was too upset to issue a statement, before then issuing a statement about her broken mind (as if we needed further proof). And Madonna managed to stop crying long enough to announce that she couldn't stop crying.

And then there's the memorial service itself. Aside from some wildly varying vocal tributes, and a selection of ill-advised hats modelled by the Jackson sisters, what really stood out were the appearances by people who never actually met Michael Jackson. Queen Latifah, John Mayer and Jennifer Hudson all paid impassioned tribute to the pop legend, despite never having encountered him face-to-used-to-be-a-face. Interestingly, the most talked about appearance of the entire show was a 12 year-old boy. Rather than accusations of impropriety, this pre-teen showed up to offer his interpretation of Michael's 'Who's Loving You'. Shaheen Jafargholi had originally shot to fame in the most recent series of Britain's Got Talent, and it was clear from the start that he was a big fan. In fact, he was due to duet with Jackson next week for the first of his shows at the O2. Instead, here he was rubbing shoulders with Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey and Lionel Richie, with his idol laying in a casket stage right.

The fact is, it doesn't really matter whether the people eulogising Michael Jackson actually met the man or not. The fact is, they knew him. They knew him the same way every one of his fans felt that they knew him. Because that's the nature of celebrity, of a life lived in the public eye. There's an emotional connection between performer and audience, and it doesn't matter whether that audience is made up of the great unwashed or the great and the good.

Now, can we finally change the subject?

Death takes a holiday, visits Hollywood

After the double whammy of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson, suspicious celeb-watchers, convinced of the rule of three, have been scrutinising the news media for details of who would complete the terminal tryptich. Conveniently disregarding the death of long-time Johnny Carson cohort Ed McMahon and shouty infomercial legend Billy Mays, the harbingers of doom have grown increasingly random in the search for celebritragedy.

As a result, we were treated to the shocking news that stuttering movie mumbler Jeff 'one note' Goldblum had fallen off a cliff whilst filming in New Zealand. Suspicious movie fans' skepticism was presumably piqued by the very idea that Goldblum was working, given the fact that almost a decade has elapsed since anyone has seen him in anything. Nonetheless, it only took a couple of hours for the lanky ex-BrundleFly's supposed demise to be ranked in Google Trends' top five most popular search terms.

A day later and it was Britney Spears' turn to do battle with the Grim Reaper's online counterpart, as pranksters spread bogus information after hacking into her Twitpic account. Why no-one bothered to question how Britney was able to tweet from beyond the grave I'll never know. Still, with the world already in mourning mode, I guess it didn't seem too much of a stretch to add Louisiana's favourite pop tart to the 'in memoriam' guest list.

The whole phenomenon of prematurely announced celebrity mortal-coil-shuffling is nothing new, even Mark Twain once famously had to write a letter stating "the report of my death was an exaggeration". The difference is, tweets and blogs give the anonymous masses the power to make up whatever story they like and transmit it across the world in a nano-second. And information overload means its almost impossible to seperate the factual wheat from the fictional chaff.

The highs and lows of culture

There seems to be a media black-out on anything not related to the ex-King of Pop at the moment. The only celebrity news currently being reported is who's said what on Twitter about their grief for Michael Jackson. But as is always the case when someone is dispatched to the great VIP area in the sky, there are also a number of commentators who feel compelled to analyse the context of the grief and what it says about us as a society.

Usually, these editorials are less than complementary about the hoi polloi, and strive to intellectualise the writer's viewpoint. One such bullshit bulletin was posted on the irritating website bullypulpit.com which claims to be the ultimate destination for 'the most interesting and creative artists, authors and culture creators'.

In an astonishingly pompous posting that epitomises 'shitting on one's doorstep', entertainment writer Lou Carlozo attacks not only Michael Jackson himself, but also the entire concept of 'popular culture'. Given the nature of this very blog, Carlozo's words have a particular resonance that I'd like to address.

Having rechristened Jackson as the 'King of Pop Culture', Carlozo begins by accusing pop culture as "valuing the ephemeral over the substantive". Aside from the fact that some of Jackson's most remarkable contributions to both music and dance are almost thirty years old, who's to say that art must be enduring? Surely an artistic creation is valid, even if its lifespan only lasts for seconds rather than decades. Carlozo also sniffily dismisses Jackson as an entertainer rather than an artist, as though the two concepts are mutually exclusive.

The writer's second concern is that pop culture focuses on the artist rather than the person. Apparently his problem is that not all artists are nice people. Some of them cheat on their partners, neglect their children and focus on their career. He condemns John Lennon for being an absent father and Kurt Cobain for his selfish suicide, but it's often the demons that drive the most creative souls. Whether or not you agree with his worldview, which would imply that Pat Boone was a more worthy artist than Sam Cooke simply because he led a more virtuous life, Carlozo completely misses the point about popular culture. The convergence of celebrity and pop culture means that the life of the contemporary artist is scrutinised more closely now than at any other point in time.

Carlozo then goes on to accuse pop culture of profiting from other people's pain. Apparently, the fact that Michael Jackson memorabilia will likely proliferate on Ebay is a sign that people are looking to make money from his death. Now excuse me if I've got this wrong, but I thought that this is also true of high culture. After all, Vincent Van Gogh struggled with poverty his entire life, and committed suicide at the age of 37. It was only after his death that the true value of his work was realised. Interestingly, in 1990 one of his paintings sold for an astonishing $82.5 million.

His final, and most ridiculous claim is that pop culture "worships the wrong gods". Without any facts or evidence to base his theory on, Carlozo speculates that people crying for dead celebrity don't bother to pray for their own dead friends. In his words, "Music can salve. But it cannot save." Actually, music saves people all the time. It offers them hope, redemption and even a second chance. For example, rapper DMC famously credited Sarah McLachlan's song Angel with saving him from suicide.

You know, it's easy to lay into popular culture and condemn it as mindless ephemera for the unthinking masses. We all know someone who has a TV but refuses to pay for a license because "it's all trash anyway". We all have friends who like films, rather than movies, and will only watch something if it's black and white, subtitled and has been seen by about as many people as can fit into a Renault Clio. And we've all had a conversation with someone who claims to love Fleetwood Mac, but only the Peter Green era.

Pop culture is a broad ranging term that covers all kinds of creative expression, in a context that enables the widest possible audience to access it. And it gives them a universal vernacular that cuts across social, racial, gender and age boundaries, allowing them to connect through a shared experience. I'm proud of my love for popular culture, and if you've read this far, I'm guessing you are too.

The Way He Made Me Feel

Unoriginal, predictable and unimaginative. That's how it feels to be writing about Michael Jackson today, after seeing how coverage of his death is dominating every single terrestrial and cable channel right now. Whenever a celebrity dies, two things always happen - some people rush to deify, while others choose to condemn and dismiss. At first, I thought I might lean more naturally towards the latter.

Then I realised something. Everywhere I've been today, I've heard nothing but Michael Jackson's music. Driving to work it was all I could find on the radio. At the office, the playlist in the design studio played Jackson's music all day. We went out for a team lunch and the pub was playing MJ's greatest hits. Then this evening we went to an arts exhibition, and the DJ played an exclusive set of Michael Jackson. Everyone was nodding solemnly and singing along with every song under their breath.

It was then that I realised that this was something extraordinary. For the last 25 years Michael Jackson has been a one-man joke industry, an easy punchline for anyone who chose to disregard his impact on popular music. Whether or not you agreed with his self-proclaimed status as the 'King of Pop', you'd be hard-pressed to name an alternative worthy of the title. With the news media and blogosphere utterly dominated with quickly written eulogies, I thought I'd take a different approach and simply address all the things I learned from Michael Jackson's fifty short years.

1) Don't stop till you get enough
Michael was already storming the charts with his brothers by the age of 11, scoring four consecutive number ones with I Want You Back, ABC, The Love You Save and I'll Be There. Problem is, when you conquer the world of music before your voice breaks, where do you go from there? By the midpoint in his life he'd already recorded the world's best-selling album Thriller. It's no wonder James Cameron has been under the radar for 12 years since winning the Oscar for Titanic.

2) It don't matter if you're black or white
People found Michael's skin tone an endless source of fascination. It started back in the mid-80s. His face looked patchy and he started wearing the glove - which most people put down to celebrity eccentricity and poor fashion sense. By the time he released Black or White in 1991, they found the lyrics ironic in the extreme. After all, if one's colour was irrelevant, why had he gone out of his way to change his racial identity? It emerged later that he had been diagnosed with vitiligo back in 1986, and in 1990 was prescribed a de-pigmentation cream to even his skin tone. By the late nineties he was almost translucent, and spent his time under a parasol or behind a man-burqa to protect his skin.

3) You've been hit by a smooth criminal
During the latter stages of his career Michael was accused not once but twice of child molestation. The first time his accuser was 13-year old Jordan Chandler who, together with his father, concocted a compelling case against the troubled singer. Eventually the Chandlers settled for $22 million and Jordy refused to participate in any further prosecution. Despite the fact that we live in a world where 'innocent until proven guilty' is supposed to be our legal system's guiding principle, Jackson was forever tarnished by this chain of events. Now that Jackson has moonwalked off this mortal coil, we may finally find out the details of the case. But I've always been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, if only because I believe that no parent worth their salt would ever accept a payment in place of prosecuting the person who had molested their child.

4) Never can say goodbye
Throughout his life Jackson inspired a level of fandom that George Lucas could only dream of. His impersonators even went under the knife to reconstruct their face to replicate his ever-more grotesque visage. Wherever he went there was always a healthy-sized crowd of uberfans willing to hyperventilate simply by being in close proximity to their idol. I imagine the coming weeks and months will be particularly tough for them.

5) I can thrill you more than any ghost would ever dare try
Not only did Michael break down racial barriers by being the first African-American artist to appear on MTV, his artistry redefined the entire genre of music videos. Partnering with visionaries such as John Landis, Martin Scorsese, David Fincher and Spike Lee, he turned the music video from a three-minute promo into a multi-million dollar experiment in short film-making.

6) The kid is not my son
His love of children led inexorably towards him having children of his own, Michael Jr, Paris and Prince (Blanket). However, following revelations of surrogacy and artificial insemination, not to mention the fact that the children (when we got a glimpse of them) were whiter than the Midwich Cuckoos, it became clear that Michael might have bought the kids rather than made them himself. Either way, he at least made sure that they enjoyed a life outside of public scrutiny, giving them a chance at an anonymous upbringing, something he himself never experienced.

7) You rock my world
Rock With You. Thriller. Bille Jean. Beat It. Bad. The Way You Make Me Feel. Smooth Criminal. Black Or White. Jam. Stranger in Moscow. Ten great hits, and that's just for starters. He rocked everyone's world. Is it any wonder that by lunchtime he filled seven places in iTunes top ten albums chart?

8) Invincible
He wasn't.

Caveat Emptor

That's latin folks, for 'buyer beware'. It's a standard cautionary phrase, deployed whenever a purchase looks too good to be true, or when there's a hidden catch.

Funnily enough, it's a phrase that sprung to mind the moment it was announced that Michael Jackson was set to stage a 50-night residency at the O2 arena.

Given that the self-proclaimed 'King of Pop' was only able to squeak out two lines of 'Heal The World' last time he took to the stage in 2006, the idea of a two-hour epic concert seemed a little unrealistic. The man has all the strength of a dormouse crushed under a boot, and the vocal prowess of sneeze in a tissue.

The truth, as they say, will out - and now facts are starting to emerge about what ticket-holders can expect. It's a stunning roll-call of lookalikes, tribute acts and additional performers, all of which should hopefully distract people from the fact that, according to Holy Moly, MJ is only contracted to appear for 13 minutes per show.

The latest news is that Michael may or may not have skin cancer, which is weird for someone who doesn't actually appear to have skin. Either way, it sure sounds like someone gathering together a pile of sick notes in advance of something they really don't want to do.