I'm not one for conspiracies -- I think they're cool and everything, but there's nothing more I can add that Smoking Gun or the X-Files hasn't already covered. The Kennedy assassination has been done to death (no pun intended), the moon landing was probably faked, and I doubt aliens would land on Earth, let alone Roswell.
And then I started thinking of my own, involving the Pepsi incident of the '80s. I'm so vainly fascinated by the potential reality of my theory that I can't bring myself to google or snopes it to see if anyone else shares my kookie idea.
Michael Jackson is dead.
He has been dead for over 20 years. Now here's where things are going to get fast and furious.
Go listen to Thriller and, for extra credit, Off the Wall. I categorically refuse to believe that that young man, the one-gloved one, could turn into such a goblin.
Even look at his early photos and listen to his soft-spoken voice -- he's a cutie! A very talented young man. Sure he was a bit eccentric -- he grew up in a boy band and was an instant star before he was ten, won a gajillion Grammies, and his big brother is named Tito (okay, I won't make too many Tito jokes, I swear). The boy was bound to get fucked up.
So when you're uber famous, selling billions of records all over the planet, you're going to get offered a deal to push some product to the kids. Michael Jackson's job was to push some Pepsi around. But in order to do that, Pepsi demands that all its slaves, er, spokesmodels, make an elaborate TV commercial/music video (see Madonna [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi-koOafKOk], Britny Spears [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EEZLYKN8Fo&feature=related], or Shakira [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ql43igg1M&feature=related])
It was in the making of this video, a reworking of the "Billy Jean" lyrics, that the Incident happened: pyrotechnics caught onto MJ's heavily hairsprayed coif and it set him ablaze.
Now everybody knows he lived and everything turned out okay (more or less). Sure he wears a wig, but things could have been a lot worse. But what if he hadn't been okay? What if his star fizzled out too soon and he ended up in one of those Chris Consani paintings with Elvis and Marilyn Monroe? It goes without saying that celebrities are bigger in death than in life, and MJ's entire life in the '80s and early '90s was huge.
But supposing his fame was too big and the contract with Pepsi was like signing a deal with the devil, and Jackson's character is enslaved by the cola giant forever (or until the campaign is kaput) -- who will fill in for Michael?
There's only one other Jackson who looks as much as Michael, sounds like Michael, and has the most time to impersonate Michael.
It's La Toya of course.
If she's so individually different, why do they look so similar?
Huh? Huh? This switcheroo explains "Michael's" constant and terribly done surgeries, making "him" look more and more feminine; the turkey baster pregnancy with womb donor Debbie Rowe; you never see Michael and La Toya in the same place at once; and the complete fuck-up of Michael's legacy.
La Toya's just a patsy, not a shrewd business man or talented performer.
Why wouldn't they just hire an impersonator, you ask? Outsiders leak information. The Jackson family is a very tight-lipped group -- they may have witnessed the Kennedy assassination, but they'll never tell. And they certainly won't admit to the charade of La Toya masquerading as her dead brother for Pepsi money. Or will they? Hmm...?
Or am I just completely off the wall?
(For curious readers, here is the aforementioned commercial/music video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd15YVb2M6M)
**If you can't open the links, just youtube the descriptions, folks.
