Freedom In The Air But Jacko Takes The Gateau

The Age

Saturday June 18, 2005

Jonathan Green

IT WAS a week of small but perfectly formed triumphs for the jury system. Locally, Carlton hard man Dominic "Mick" Gatto was decreed the innocent though active party in the shooting death of underworld killer Andrew "Benji" Veniamin. The atmosphere inside the Victorian Supreme Court - Justice "Philip" Cummins presiding - was muted as the long-awaited verdict was presented, Gatto supporters managing to restrain themselves from actually discharging celebratory firearms or hacking the heads off waiting salamis before reaching the fresh and suddenly sweeter air of William Street. Some had even removed their sunglasses inside the gas-lit gloom of the court building in what could only be interpreted as a gesture of respect.

It was all hugs, shoulder slaps and cheek-kissing in the court precincts. Festive certainly, but a subdued affair beside the internationally telecast hoopla in Santa Maria, California, where the world's first reality TV jury had found that Michael Jackson, though quite probably a serial kiddie-fiddler in the reported view of some jurors, was nonetheless innocent of all charges brought against him. This was largely due, we would discover, to the set jurors took against the alleged abuse victim's mother.

For the Australian audience, this was just another week of intriguing exposure to the varied international experiences of legal determination. The messages were mixed. We reviled the po-faced, earnestly humourless deliberations of three Indonesian judges, and yet, when a Californian jury emerged starry-eyed and flushed in the first of what could be 15 quite substantial minutes of fame, we simply nodded our respect, never mind that a 46-year-old man whose recent private life had been one long and quietly creepy prepubescent pyjama party walked free. Strange days.

Still, in the eyes of the fans, justice had been served. Outside the court, the air filled with shrill shrieks of "Innocent!". Doves were released and confetti was flung, gestures that muddied several possible metaphors and gave as good an indication as any of the state of deep confusion that fills the hearts of the Jackson faithful.

In Melbourne, Gatto joined family and supporters for pizza and a long night of celebration at his modest Templestowe villa. At Neverland? Who knows. Presumably there was a simple thanksgiving meal of traditional party favourites: sausage rolls, fairy bread, little quarters of oranges filled with bright coloured jellies and other peeled fruits for the chimpanzees. Jackson would, however, have been well advised to avoid the cocktail frankfurts.

Attention now focused on the future career of the one-time King of Pop, a man whose stocks had surely been battered by the long months of daily public humiliation just passed . . . or had they? This was, after all, America, a place where all experience is reduced to a constant, restless and instantly forgettable data stream, a place where everything is in the moment. If Bill Clinton could be little more than a fabric stain and a damp cigar one day and a respected elder statesman the next, then anything was possible. Just look at George Michael. Actually, look away.

Melbourne turned, as ever in questions of taste, pop and sexual misadventure, to Ian "Molly" Meldrum, who offered the sober view that Jackson would need to create a "pop masterpiece", presumably recalling his own heady days as the evil genius behind Supernaut. Ian "Dicko" Dickson wondered whether anyone could ever take Jackson seriously again - his particular area of personal expertise. In an unexpected lapse in the local fourth estate's normally rigorous interrogation of the usual suspects, Lillian "Lillian" Frank's opinion was never sought.

All of which would pale beside the week's final moment of rampant celebrity oddity: the unveiling in London of a perfect replica of Sir Elton John cast in 126 kilograms of chocolate. In some way, this seemed a gesture that could go a long way towards defining our particular moment in history. We have not seen the like since grateful Soviet workers produced a tractor in the shape of Dimitri Shostakovich back in 1952.

The choc-Elton took 1000 hours to create and will be kept in a climate-controlled tent, but in no other way resembles Michael Jackson. It's brown for one thing.

© 2005 The Age

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