by Thomas Hart

G21 Muckraker

AUSTIN, REPUBLIC OF TEJAS - When I let our Esteemed Editor know that I intended to do this article about Michael Jackson's arrest out in LalaLand, he e-mailed me the URL to Michael Musto's article on Jacko -- as he's called by the durn Brit tabloids -- on theVillage Voice web site. Here's Musto's deal, y'all: he thinks that Jacko has done something for America that nothing and nobody else could do. Not the threat of terrorist attacks, not John Ashcroft's calls for goose-steppin' conformity and not even The Shrub's cartoonish "The sky is fallin'" fearmongering. According to Musto, Jacko has united America.

Well, dang! I gottah agree with that one! We are all rock-solid in our conviction that Michael Jackson is one sick motherhummer and that he is definitely a durned pedophile. Michael Jackson has already been tried, judged and convicted in the court of public opinion down here in the trailer park. NO innocent man would have paid good money for a nose that looked like that, would he? The only thang left to be done is to send him off to the joint to be whacked by some convict like what happened to that danged pedophile priest Out East, far as most of us down here in Bubbaland are concerned. End of story.

One thang all of us Amurricans can get behind, after all, is when we got a Black man -- and I know I'm stretching that term "man" in Jacko's case -- dead to rights. Kindah reminds you of O.J., doesn't it? And man, we're sure as shootin' that O.J. was the slasher in that case. So why the hell is he still playin' golf out in Florida?

I gottah hand it to Musto, even if he is from New Yawk and his favorite phrase is "When is Fleet Week?", he was way ahead of me on that one.

Me, bein' the beer-guzzling Sanitation Engineer that I am, I was thinkin' more along the lines of how much fun -- if you love trash, and I know that you do! -- the danged trial was gonnah be. Ya see, y'all, I reckoned that Jackson' s lawyers only had two possible defenses they could work with:

1. That Michael cain't get a fair trial because of all the publicity and the fact that there wouldn't be a real jury of his peers, and
2. That the freak is obviously out of his mind and should be sent to an asylum instead of a jail.

Well, we all know number two wouldn't fly with any jury. Too many rich folks already used that one for us to stomach. We want to see Jacko suffer.

But when I shared number one with my buds Cleavis and Buford over a few longnecks, they just about busted they guts.

Think about it! The only jury of his peers a guy like Michael Jackson could get would have to be a bunch of freakazoid, weirdass millionaires. You really believe that any lawyers and prosecutors anywhere in America is gonnah empanel twelve of them?

No judge in the land is gonnah buy that line of defense, so Jacko's ass is -- well -- got a lawn mower?

I rest my case.

You know, fellow Sanitation Engineers, that nobody on God's green Earth loves a celebrity scandal as much as old Tabloid Hart but I gottah tell y'all that this one and all the jibby-jabbin' and mouthy-mouthin' over it kindah gets me down. And I'll tell y'all why.

That there Barbara Walters interview made it clear to me that this freak has lost all contact with reality. Dangling that kid over the balcony? That was out of a Jabba the Hut scene. Can you believe the Presley broad actually married him? Why weren't the Elephant Man's bones interred like everybody else's -- which is his last God-given right? Is Bubbles still around? And what the hell is Neverland?

Finally, in this litany of meglomaniacal weirdness, my fellow Sanitation Engineers, your ole boy down here in the Republic of Tejas has to ask this question: What kind of danged parent would leave they child in the custody of a known freak like Michael Jackson on any day of the week?

If'n I was married and my wife brought some crap like that up I would send her for a scrip of Prozac in a danged Tokyo minute!

And that would be because I'm too much of gentleman to just off and bitch-slap a female. It's no more right to hit a woman than it is to molest a child.

So does Missus Hart's boy wannah see Jacko go to jail, now that California has changed that durned law so that he cain't settle this time? Hell yeah!

Do I wannah see him killed by some convict? Not at all.

Chances are, of course, that he would be and that's wrong. He should have to live and suffer with what he thinks being rich and famous has entitled him to. He should be made to know that he puts his danged pants on one leg at a time like the rest of us and is NOT above the laws that we all have to accept.

So should The Shrub, Ashcroft, all the rest of them that believe they have some kindah noblesse oblige to run our danged lives and that our laws don't really matter. What's good for you, me, Buford, et alia, is just as good for the rich folk, as far as Tabloid Hart is concerned.

Michael Jackson doesn't get that. Neither does His Fraudulency and a lot of other rich folks in this county.

I say it's about time that they did.

And REMEMBER: It will take more than a few tornadoes to blow away all the trailer trash...

QUESTIONS? COMMENTS? E-mail Tom down in the trailer park. Go ahead!

+++ The Previous TABLOID HART +++ THE NEXT TABLOID HART +++