When my wife called me and told me that Michael Jackson had died, my first question was "Is it too soon to make jokes about it?"  Yes, she informed me sternly.

And so, as a love offering to my wife, I have waited a day and instead of jokes will offer just my unhinged observations on the whole thing:

1) He was an amazing talent, and yet I feel somehow relieved.  I suspect the next 20 years would not have been kind to him, and I believe he is in a better place (I hate that cliche).

2) Physically, creatively and reputationally he was toast.  I suspect death will redeem his reputation somewhat. 

3) You've got to know that somewhere they are already working on a major motion picture biography.  I wonder who will play him?

4) Once Janet shows her face, the question of whether they were the same person should be put to rest (pun intended).

5) Dying young and suddenly will promote MJ from a mere cultural icon, to a mythic persona in the world's consciousness, alongside Elvis, James Dean and Marilyn Monroe.  It's too late for Liz Taylor, Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney.  Gods don't become old and incontinent.

6) 200,000 people die every day on this planet and no one mourns them.  If you didn't know MJ personally and you are mourning, it is a sign that you projected onto him some degree of unlived celebrity.  When he died, that part of you died and you are actually mourning yourself.  Nothing wrong with it - just the way our psyches cope with life.

7) With regards to pedophilia, his life was a Rhorschach test.  Patron saint or Catholic priest?  We will probably never know.

8) The plastic surgury - I mean seriously, who does that to themselves?  I suspect there was serious self-loathing going on.  I feel bad for the torment that he must have felt.

9) He had the money to create a fantasy world for himself, and i suspect that as it slowly crumbled over the last decade and some part of him knew that he had a date with reality, that he may not have been able to handle that.  He may not have committed suicide, but I suspect that on some level he wanted to check out.

10) Karen Carpenter and Andy Gibb both died of heart failure, brought on by anorexia.  I don't know many 50-year olds as skinny as MJ and I suspect that some degree of self-imposed starvation contributed to a breakdown in his health.

11) Don't waste your money on hyperbaric sleep chambers - they apparently don't extend your life.

12) Boxers or briefs? (oops, that one just popped into my mind right now)

13) Magazine editors must be pulling their hair out - first they were working on their Ed McMahn retrospectives and covers, only to have a larger cultural icon in Farrah Fawcett pick this week to cash in her chips - and then no sooner had they changed everything around then perhaps the biggest cultural icon alive kicks the bucket! 

14) Michael Jackson was by far the biggest living cultural icon.  Who's next in line - I can't think of anyone close to his stature despite the fact that he's done little of note in the last 10 years.  That's saying something for what he accomplished.

15) I feel sorry for his kids.

16)  Ultimately, he was an amazing talent and a tortured soul and I believe that we'll be sifting through the detrius of his bizarre life for generations to come.