I’m from the Beatles generation. I still remember hearing the news on my radio as I was moving into a new apartment in San Francisco that John Lennon had been murdered, and sobbing uncontrollably (and he wasn’t even my favorite Beatle). I cried when George Harrison died too. As for Michael Jackson, he was clearly an awesome entertainer, but he was my junior by a decade and I just never paid much attention to his music. But I will admit that I’ve shed a few tears for him also.

What I did notice about Michael Jackson, like most people, was his escalating weirdness over the years. The skin bleaching, the nose shrinking, the single glove and eccentric clothes, his alleged dalliances with children, the crotch grabbing, his unlikely marriages and the methods he chose to have his own kids, the amusement park/zoo called Neverland—it all added up to one heck of a strange life, even for someone in show biz. Recently added to the weirdness was his long-term drug abuse, which was what probably killed him.

The pedophilia accusations always seemed contrived to me. I think Michael was taken advantage of by a few greedy, opportunistic parents who lusted after his wealth. Clearly he shouldn’t have been having sleepovers with kids at his age, but he was probably quite innocent of sexual misbehavior with them. For many years I assumed he was gay because of his appearance and mannerisms, but now I believe Michael Jackson was at heart asexual, a boy-man, as Paul McCartney called him. He undoubtedly went through the motions of sex with his wives, but I suspect with little enthusiasm. I don't think it was something that he could relate to.

We're told that Michael's favorite thing was to climb trees. Michael was an eternal kid who had never had a childhood, pure and innocent and tragically divorced from reality because his notoriety and talent never allowed him to experience something most of us take for granted every day, while wishing we were rich and famous: a normal life.

What a pity that his tree-climbing days are over.