Gene Simmons to Michael Jackson's Corpse: Guilty!

Gene Simmons when talking about KISS is rarely very surprising - he's always pimping the band, his TV show etc. He's got a limited tome of soundbites and he (and Paul Stanley) bang the drum loudly and frequently, staying on message throughout.

So when Gene steps outside of his usual talking points, sometimes it gets interesting as he minces no words and calls it as he sees it.

I stayed out of the whole Michael Jackson pedophile thing because the dude's life seemed like such a train wreck fantasy land that it made total sense that people would make up stories to get money out of him. Those suing him seemed as crazy as he was but then he sort of damned himself with his own words and actions during the trial, so who knows?

Anyway, Gene talked about it with Classic Rock Magazine. Check it out:

I knew Michael. I ran into him a few times. I met him the first time before he became the superstar, when he was sort of teenagey, when he was still a Jackson Five. But as time moved on, and no matter what my fond memories and fond images of Michael were, with one allegation of paedophilia after another and another and another... oh dear.

I knew some of the musicians he toured with, and specifically one who quit because of seeing boys coming out of the hotel rooms. And then you factor in that his travel agent was put on the stand and in court said that she was authorised to fly to Brazil and bring boys back to America for him...Well, you know, where there's smoke there's fire. There's no question in my mind he molested those kids. Not a doubt.

There's never been a single female of any age that I've ever known about who has ever made a claim that she has had a physical relationship with Michael, ever.In fact, while he was alive, I never heard about mature men ever making that claim either - and believe me, you can't keep it a secret. If you're a celebrity, somebody somewhere will say, 'Oh yeah, I shagged him'. The only sexual references ever made about Michael Jackson that were made by anyone, anywhere around the world, have always been made by kids, and specifically males usually ten to fourteen years of age; never females, that age or older, and never grown men.

I guess it doesn't matter now, and I'd personally hate to be convicted by hearsay, but I gotta admit he makes some good points.

Toxicology Reports Show How Michael Jackson Died...

..and it's now how you think. Check out the below to find out what REALLY happened.

Michael Jackson Death Brings Down The Internet

You would have had to have been off the grid hiking in the Appalachians or hooking up with your Argentinian mistress if you had not heard that Michael Jackson the "king of pop" died yesterday of heart failure.

I was never a big fan, so this news isn't devastating me like it would if this were, say Neil Young or Geddy Lee. I mean, Jackson hasn't really been significantly creatively active in the last couple of decades if I recall, and that whole pedophile thing doesn't sit too well.

But I am clearly in the minority on this, and I fully expect to be inundated by Michael Jackson for the next few weeks. I am ready. Bring it on.

The one interesting side-product tidbit is that so many people were freaking out about Jackson's death yesterday that the Internet almost ground to a halt.

Gotta give the guy some credit for being that big of a deal to that many people. CNN posted a comprehensive story on what happened here. Excerpt:

"Between approximately 2:40 p.m. PDT and 3:15 p.m. PDT today, some Google News users experienced difficulty accessing search results for queries related to Michael Jackson," a Google spokesman told CNET, which also reported that Google News users complained that the service was inaccessible for a time. At its peak, Google Trends rated the Jackson story as "volcanic."

As sites fell, users raced to other sites: TechCrunch reported that TMZ, which broke the story, had several outages; users then switched to Perez Hilton's blog, which also struggled to deal with the requests it received.

CNN reported a fivefold rise in traffic and visitors in just over an hour, receiving 20 million page views in the hour the story broke.