Monday, February 03, 2003

News of the Weird
In the Times (UK) (beware of bizarre registration system), Joe Joesph stuns with When this man smiles, his ankle flesh twitches:
BEFORE watching Martin Bashir’s documentary Living With Michael Jackson (ITV1), you might - quite understandably - have assumed that Michael Jackson was a little weird. But after 90 minutes in his company you realised that he’s VERY weird.
Ya think?
But the chief excitement is always catching sight of Jackson’s latest seasonal facial configuration. It’s like bumping into a schoolfriend you haven’t seen for 25 years and wondering if you’ll still recognise him.

And suddenly, there it was, filling the screen. Oh my! You doubt that there are many ads in the Los Angeles Times from plastic surgeons boasting: ?Cosmetic surgeon to Michael Jackson?.

The nose looks as if it has been moulded from Plasticine. The lips are carmine. The face is the white of a powdered Regency dandy’s. The skin, taut as a drum, looks as if it has been pulled up from Lord knows where. When Jackson smiles his ankle flesh twitches. And then it hits you! He doesn’t look so strange after all. He looks like someone familiar. Yes, that’s it! He looks like Diana Ross!

Bashir deserves full marks for securing this scoop access to Jackson. But, frankly, once inside Neverland, Jackson’s Peter Pan-themed estate in Los Angeles, pretty much all he had to do was point the camera in Jackson’s direction to make our jaws drop.
Kinda like visiting the zoo. Or Berkeley.