Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson vs. the devil
2002

Michael Jackson. Where do we begin? We all thought he was weird enough back in the Thriller days, back when he was shy, graceful, haunted by something strange and beautiful.

But then he grew up, and wow:

It's been one long weekend at the Neverland Ranch ever since. Brooke Shields. Emmanuel Lewis. The Elephant Man's skeleton. Bubbles the chimp. Corey Feldman. Plastic surgery - oh, lots of that. His music got ordinary, but he sure didn't. That pesky child-molesting business, which Jackson settled out of court.

(Q: How can you tell it's bedtime at Michael Jackson's house? A: The big hand is on the little hand!) Calling himself the King of Pop. The marriage to Lisa Marie Presley. That kiss on the MTV Awards. "And they said it wouldn't last," he joked. It didn't. That other marriage and divorce. More chimps. More money.More problems.

The whole alleged nose-falling-off deal. Invincible. Heard it? Bad. No, no - really bad. His record company persuades 2 million people to buy it anyway. Just because it's Michael. Al Sharpton. Tommy Mottola. The devil. Jesus H. Christ.

Michael's biggest meltdown has to be his latest - imagine, riding around New York in an open-top bus with placards to protest people not buying your album. But then, his latest is always his biggest ever. Every time you think Michael has reached the final frontier of self- immolation, he aims even further, finding whole new ways to fall apart on a massive public scale, flaming out worse than his hair in a Pepsi commercial. When it comes to the art of the rock & roll meltdown, he is the world. He is the children. He is Michael Jackson. And if they say, "Why? Why?" tell them that it's human nature. Or something.