Reports coming in from all over that people are Buttercup (you precious flowers, you) and several Vizzinis, which is kind of scary (not that there's anything wrong with that). Kudos to those brave soldiers, or flowers, who fessed up right here in public. You've proved that it does mean something to be Inigo Montoya. Or Terza Rima. Or whatever. Although, I still can't remember who Valerie is...

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So. Michael Jackson aka Wacko Jacko aka Glove Monster.

If you missed "Living With Michael Jackson" last night, you missed a seminal pop culture moment. The moment when the first artificial lifeform was revealed to having been living among us for decades--and releasing hit singles!

Those of you that did miss it, or who had to turn away early on, for instance at the first appearance of the black umbrella of death and the mention of sun-avoidance disease ("It burns! It burns!") and the "Giving Tree," I understand. These things are not for the faint-hearted or those with lesser amounts of intestinal fortitude. You can read the highlights here, though the halting cadence and computer child voice will be missing, nowhere the fuzzy precious moments eyes in all the blown-up and airbrushed-within-an-inch-of-impressionism portraits in the background behind that face made of triangles surrounding eyes that are actually dead black pinpricks. But, you can confirm the gist: he's inhuman.

Yes, inhuman. Not a crazy person, not a damaged human being. But an actual Something Else.

Michael Jackson may have existed once upon a time, may have climbed a tree without steps made for him, maybe made up songs that he didn't think came from on high. But that entity has been destroyed and replaced by the Glove Monster Construct. Yes, a construct. An artificial being with a dose of chaos thrown in to ensure entertainment value. It's really the only explanation that makes sense.

All the excess in our culture, all the worst kinds of self-involvement and becoming-a-vulture and showing off to avoid being alone and of never, never, never wanting to get old and of never, never, never facing up to the fact that certain parts of reality are not subjective have joined together in the union of this creature who has no inkling of what is inappropriate. And for shame, it is allowed and reveled in. No one in his entourage gives him a good lick upside the head when he calls his child "Blanket" or calls the cops when he's alone in the upstairs bedroom with a pre-teen boy. Martin Beshir said in the after interview with 48 Hours that "he's a law unto himself." And we let him be and we watch. While those kids wear masks. While other people's kids sleep in his bed. He is our worst ambassador, proof that spectacle is sometimes more important than humanity, these days.

Maybe I'm overstating, but I believe that the attention we pay this character belies the fact that he has a cultural meaning and it ain't pretty. He is denial of life made proof. Because that's what being a child forever is: denying life. Denying what you've learned or experienced or endured.

And the platform the man-boy is built on is that he refuses to realize that he will die. Michael Jackson will die, but he'll never believe it. No matter how much plastic surgery he does, at some point there will be wrinkles. Becoming a plastic creature will not prevent aging. And yet, he will never believe that death is coming for him. When you can deny that, deny life and deny death, then everything else is just trimming, isn't it? No wonder he says these things and doesn't inkle that they are wrong. He is a construct now, not a human.

And we are human because we keep paying attention to this train wreck, this worst case scenario come to life. Or rather, avoiding life.

It's because we're not empty, that we see that the Glove Monster is.

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Perhaps even more disturbing than the fact of the creature himself are all the fanatics they showed chasing him in Germany. Begging him for a hug. Collapsing into tears at a touch from his ET-like fingers.

Who the hell are these people? Where are their friends?

What the hell are they thinking? I say we send them all to an island. But it would just end up being an island with really bad taste in pop music.

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So, there's that. Also, rats are prairie dog killers. Stone cold.