Mike

Everything that BET did wrong... AEG did right.
While reading posts on sites like Stormfront, many comments were made concerning how tacky anything having to do with the Jackson family would turn out.
Red-Neck please... This was the service you wish you could have.
Maybe they expected something as "classy" as the Elvis Presley ceremony.

I had to listen to racist cousins asking, "Why are all those white people there?".
Really?
Mike didn't care about race. His kids are probably white.
John Meyer and Brooke Shields were there because they belonged.
They weren't the tokens as was Jeremy Piven at the BET awards.

Even the Reverend Al delivered.
Well... he more than delivered - he was the ish.
During the BET awards - Al seemed to lack any sense of rhythm.
But after dancing with Spike earlier in the week, and making possibly the most quoted eulogy of the entire ceremony ("There is nothing strange about your daddy...") -
I'm no fan of Al - But Al was the shit.

I've been going to funerals since I was one.
My father died when I was that age.
When I was five - a playmate who lived next door died from choking on a balloon with which he was playing.
The next year - my father's brother died from complications after an auto accident when the white hospitals refused service to him based on his race.
Throughout childhood and adolescence - funerals became something of the norm.
I've been in more funerals than I've been in weddings. And I've been in a lot of weddings.
But the thing that always gets me is when the young children of the deceased react to their parent's passing. Maybe I feel as though I can relate.

Maybe that's when a funeral for a guy I never met suddenly became personal.
Whether the three were Mike's kid's genetically or not - Mike was their father.
And being the only father they've ever known - Paris, Prince and Blanket will miss out on the relationship that is so important in anyone's life.

Did Mike like little boys a little too much? I don't know.
Did Mike have a little bit too much work done to change his appearance? Maybe, but I don't care.
But will Mike be missed?
Definitely, yes.