I’ve been bending over backwards, trying to be positive about Michael Jackson all week. I’ll continue my positivity towards Michael as I offer my daily odes (2 more days to go).

However, Joe Jackson is testing my patience.

joeMichael1Facts about Mr. Jackson:

a. Michael said that the reason he and his siblings call their father Joe is because Mr. Jackson would not allow them to call them “daddy”.

Pause.

Huh?

Sounds like a disassociation to me. A serious detachment. How can a man sire 9 children (10 actually, if you include the one he created out of wedlock) and not want any of them to call him “daddy?”

b. All the Jackson boys admit to being beaten regularly by Mr. Jackson. To be honest with you, those Jackson males are so well behaved and soft spoken that I don’t believe that they needed all those whippings. I really don’t. Marlon said that he was beaten every other day and even Michael discussed how Marlon was regularly beaten by that distant father of theirs.

c. I won’t even get into the horrifying accusations that LaToya Jackson made against her father when she was out of control and living with her abusive husband that her father had introduced her to—primarily because I choose not to believe her. But I’ve never actually gotten those accusations out of my head. I’ll give Joe the benefit of the doubt on that one, though.

This leads me to the last 72 hours.

a. During an interview, Joe said that the world is grieving the world’s greatest superstar. Sounds cold for a father to refer to his recently deceased son that way.

It was not until the next day—after someone apparently said something to him, that he referred to Michael as his son.

b. Oddly, while on the red carpet at BET, he started bragging about a record label that he and a pal have started. HUH! Very inappropriate! He is 80 years old so I don’t anticipate a change. He mentioned that his tears are in his heart rather than in his eyes. Okay, I’ll take that.

In any event, something is strange and unusual about that man. That’s all I’ll say out of respect for the grieving Jacksons and the memory of Michael whom I loved.joejackson