Yeah? Well, I love him too, but...

I suppose the death of Michael Jackson demands a big, public funeral such as the one we've witnessed, just by the nature of who he was and what he did, but I can't help but feel that this is so much a production and though necessary, it kind of takes away from the man.

I imagine that last week everybody in Hollywood was running around, A Mighty Wind-style, on their cell phones with their agents and managers trying to figure out how they could "get in on this" event, no doubt causing the delay and growth from the original service at Neverland Ranch to the current one at the Staples Center. Replace the fictional G-list celebrities with A-List real ones. Among the contrivances, Mariah Carey, at the end of her performance, whispered "we miss you" and I don't think I've ever heard emptier words exit her mouth - and I'm talking about Mariah Carey here. I understand she was ultimately just expressing everyone's feelings, but still - maybe if she hadn't whispered it. It felt so contrived.

I know it couldn't be, but in a respectful and compassionate world, it should have been a small private ceremony in Gary, Indiana, where he was born and raised. It should have been private, because Jackson never enjoyed a single, solitary moment of privacy. He was born in a room full of doctors, nurses, and his parents. He came home to a house with six siblings, which later grew to eight. With no privacy at home, he was thrust onto stage and into public life at age ten. From that moment to this one, he has never been able to have the privacy that so many of us take for granted. Yet in the midst of this lack of privacy, it was noted by a very smart person, he clearly suffered tremendous loneliness.

Undoubtedly, this, and a lack of childhood, led to the events that caused him to be accused of inappropriate contact with children along with the eccentricities we have come to witness from him. And for these reasons, and for all he did for us, we should grant him one moment of private interaction with those he loved and who loved him - I refer to his family (excluding his father) and true friends.

This, before he receives eternal privacy.