Poor Michael Jackson had a rough 2002.  The baby dangling thing was just one more little bad thing on the tail end of it.  There was the unlikely "spider bite" incident that left him on crutches as he shows up for court.

He has apparently managed to spend himself into oblivion.  He's hawking fancy jewelry to raise operating expenses, and he can't GIVE an album away at this point.  This leads to the height of his self-destructive activities this year, involving a public relations marathon to discredit his record company, particularly by making rash charges of being a "very, very devilish" racist against Tommy Mottola in an effort to get out of a contract, tactics so ill-conceived that even Al Sharpton didn't want anything to do with them.

By December, the Globe tabloid was blairing banner headlines about how the family was getting ready to have Michael committed.  The guy really IS a couple of songs short of an album.

This was their top story when I was in Philadelphia in December '02.  The most striking segment of my visit to Philly took me to the abandoned ruins of an old state mental institution, 140 damned acres on the edge of Philadelphia smack in the middle of the nice prosperous suburbs.

The Philadelphia Hospital for the Insane, commonly known as Byberry  was built starting in 1910.  At one point at it's peak in the 1960s it had over 50 buildings designed to house 3,000 patients, but actually holding over 6,000 lost souls before being closed in 1990.

I have never felt anything quite like the waves of evil psychic energy rolling off these buildings as I snuck up to have a little walk around the back.  Not being of a religious nature and never having seen a ghost, I'll just assume for the sake of argument that this was entirely conjured up in my own mind, and not the result of any actual outside psychic forces. 

Nonetheless, the feelings of dread, despair and terror were very real.  They were only re-inforced later as I read of the goings on at the institution.  In short, they included every worst evil image of psychiatric abuse you could conjure.  There are just countless stories of decades of abuse and beatings, inmates chained to the walls, murders, rapes, suicides.  Abandon all hope, ye who enter there.

Naturally I found myself thinking of Michael Jackson as I wandered the grounds.  He's hawking jewelry to get by, so he probably really cannot afford Neverland at this point.  And the family SAID that he was going to have to head off to a nuthouse.  Well, here's one that he could probably still afford to buy.

This led naturally to a little daydream casting myself as Satan's real estate agent, pitching the place to Michael...

Good afternoon, Mr. Jackson.  I'm Al Barger, with Ol' Scratch Real Estate, and I think we've got JUST the place for you.  There's plenty of room for all your pets.  I'm sure your giraffe will love it!

What, the wolves at the door ate your giraffe?  So sorry.

Granted, it is a bit of a fixer-upper.  But the price is right.

What?  Looks like a rat trap?  Well, it's just the place to make new friends.  Remember your old bestest buddy Ben?

The upper floor windows offer a great view, just the place to give your children a good look at the city...

Trust me, only good things can come from this.  It's just the place, and it'll leave plenty of room for your family.  LaToya would surely feel right at home here.

Indeed this would be just the place to lock up, uh, I mean give a good appropriate home to pretty much everyone ever associated with you.  Liz and Liza pretty well belong here with you.  Macauley Culkin and Lisa Marie could take up residence here.  Definitely we could get your Daddy moved in here.  This would be the PERFECT place for you two to reconcile.

Oh, and through our special multi-level business connections, as an additional signing bonus we can absolutely GUARANTEE you another hit record.

So, if we could just get your signature right here...  Oh, and could we get you to sign that in blood.  Just a formality, really.

Talk back to Brother Al!

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