12 Things I Learned From Michael Jackson's Memorial Service

1) Michael Jackson taught the world how to love.
According to the Reverend Al Sharpton, Michael Jackson literally taught the world how to love. That's right, nobody in the world knew how to love before Michael Jackson - b. 1958 - taught us.

2) Michael never let the world turn him around from his dreams.
No, but he did let the world turn him around from reality.

3) Michael refused to let people decide his boundaries.
Um . . . wasn't that sort of a bad thing? Don't you think that if he had let more people 'decide his boundaries,' he wouldn't have found himself in so much legal trouble over the last twenty years of his life?

4) He put on one glove, pulled up his pants, and tore down the color curtain.
Michael didn't start the fire. Jesse Owens, Jack Johnson, Dorothy Dandridge, Jackie Robinson, Louis Armstrong, Bill Cosby, Muhammed Ali, James Brown, Richard Pryor, Sidney Poitier, and the entire Motown label all did as much or more than Jackson, and they got there years before. Tearing down the 'color barrier' on a one year-old television station specializing in music videos is an accomplishment, but was far from being his biggest accomplishment as an entertainer. Jackson was never about race while he was alive, as far as I could tell. Does anybody have any evidence to the contrary?

5) Seeing Michael Jackson on MTV as children prepared a generation of people to accept Oprah Winfrey on television and Tiger Woods on a golf course, and for people to feel comfortable voting for President Obama.
If this isn't the most revisionist piece of history you hear in the next five years outside of a Bill Kristol interview, I'll eat my hat. Michael Jackson made those things possible? It wasn't Oprah's acting career and likeability, or Tiger's talent, work ethic, and superhuman focus, or President Obama's intelligence, charisma, wisdom, and breadth of knowledge that made all of those things possible?

6) Michael Jackson moonwalked so that Barack Obama could run.
(TM, Melanie) He didn't really say this, but wouldn't it have been awesome if he did?

6) Every time he got knocked down, he got back up.
Except for the 20 years he spent in reclusion? Or are those included?

7) Michael never stopped. Michael never stopped. Michael never stopped.
Except that he only released one album of new material in the past 18 years because the public turned against him and he was ashamed to come out in public?

8) "I want his three children to know: wasn't nothin' strange about your daddy."
Except for the fact that he - allegedly - invited little boys over and consumed alcohol and pornography with them in the company of a chimpanzee. That was pretty weird. Paris, Prince Michael, and Blanket, listen to your Uncle Terry - the fact that your daddy's casket was serenaded by Mariah Carey in front of 10,000 people while Usher and Magic Johnson looked on is pretty good evidence that there was something strange about your daddy. Heck, the very fact that Al Sharpton is eulogizing your daddy means there was something strange about your daddy.

9) The color black is enough to turn even a shiny dress with a plunging neckline into appropriate funeral attire.
Who knew?

10) Its possible for Usher to keep his shirt on in front of a crowd of people for more than ten minutes.
Who knew?

11) Having an eleven year-old girl address an audience of millions while her aunts and uncles surround her like the disco secret service is a good way to show her that she's loved.
Paris' words were devastating, but I think it was a terrible decision to make her go on stage in front of all of those people in the first place, and nobody can convince me otherwise. Does anybody really believe that his children would not have preferred to say goodbye to him in private? I'm baffled.

12) As always, nobody does it better than The Hater.