The Straight Dope (!) On The Death Of Michael Jackson

Because of the numerous conflicting stories regarding the last days of Michael Jackson, who better to set the record straight on the issue than someone with no knowledge whatsoever of the facts, as is our custom here in Sarasota. Just ask any of our clueless politicians. Like they say back home, "dey talk, dey talk, dey don't say nudding." Can I get an "Amen" to that?

According to the million or so "close personal friends" of the late Michael Jackson who have crawled out of the woodwork since his death, he was either:

• in the best shape of his life and at the top of his game or
• a near-invalid, 98-pound bag of bones on his death-bed,
• looking forward to his upcoming concert tour or
• unable to function due to anxiety,
• a health nut who was concerned about nutrition or
• a junkie with only pills in his stomach at the autopsy,
• a straight arrow who never abused prescription medications or
• a drugged-out zombie who used several different aliases to get oxycodone, vicodin, Preparation H, etc.,
• like a little boy or
• liked little boys (really, really liked little boys),
• a genius whose music will live on forever or
• a dead guy who is going to make a lot of people rich when they write their books, their magazine articles, sell their pictures, sell their bobblehead dolls, etc. ad nauseum.

Apparently, since they were all so close to him, he was all of the above at the same time. And that feat alone should be enough to make him famous. Then, again, so should going from this:

To this:

And he did it all in the same lifetime, no less!

Michael Jackson had innumerable plastic surgery procedures, most notably, nose jobs. Or what used to pass for his nose. Until the unthinkable happened one fateful day at a press conference in October, 2007:

During the frenetic ambulance ride to the hospital, EMTs were unable to revive the lifeless body of Michael Jackson. Dr. Conrad Murray, Jackson's personal cardiologist, did, however, detect a weak pulse in Jackson's nose, but physicians at the UCLA Medical Center were not equipped to perform an emergency nose-ectomy and the oft-maligned proboscis was pronounced dead at 5:15 PM, nearly three hours after Jackson's official time of death.

Concern for Jackson's three children--Prince I, Princess and Prince II--is mounting. His official will calls for guardianship to be provided by Jackson's mother, 79-year old Katherine. In the event, she cannot assume that role, Diana Ross is to be given custody. The will states that if Ms. Ross is unable or unwilling to take legal guardianship, then the responsibility for the nurturing and the well-being of the children is to be given to this close family friend:

Family patriarch, Joe Jackson, is already angling to cash in on the wave of sympathy for his deceased son. Michael Jackson's upcoming concert tour was to be called "THIS IS IT." The elder Jackson is negotiating with concert promoters AEG to produce a retrospective of Michael Jackson's career entitled "THAT WAS IT."

The Jackson family, for whatever reason, has had a second autopsy done by a disinterested third party. During that private autopsy, it was discovered that Michael Jackson took to his grave his most shocking personal transformation yet:

"The Lady In My Life?"

Indeed.