That was it.

Some weeks ago, the Chikenz invested $6.00 with Foxtel in order to obtain 48 hours access to the, errm, documentary(?) "This is it" which allegedly features Michael Jackson. The Chikenz is quite fond of Michael Jackson and never tires of telling me how 'sugoi' he is.

I was in the same room as the Chikenz, reading 'Rogue Herries' by Hugh Walpole, so I was unable to avoid some degree of exposure to the documentary in question. I have some trouble labelling it as a documentary, because it seems to be more a collection of random footage taken while 'MJ' did rehearsals for what was to have been his final concert tour. As we know now, Michael Jackson was unable to complete that tour due to mobility issues. Death will do that to you.

Frankly though, I have grave reservations that he actually made it as far as "This is it" contends. Hence the 'allegedly' in the first paragraph.

It seems to me that the figure presented on my television, held out to be Michael Jackson, was a CGI. A rather poorly created one too. It looked rather like the folks that populate that movie with the blue people in it, but not quite so professionally done. In fact, as I watched further, it seemed increasingly unlikely that the figure held out to be Michael Jackson was actually a real person.

I came to suspect that Michael Jackson, shortly after the release of 'Thriller', decided that it was all a bit silly, that the joke had gone on long enough, and that he would retire to the magnificent seclusion of wherever it was he went. Meanwhile, a team of record company executives, realising that the gravy train had coagulated, decided to take matters into their own hands and started featuring a hologram of Michael Jackson in their video clips.

I further suspect that when they decided to age the hologram, they did so using a wiki method, whereby they could all have input. As wikis invariable do, this lead to a series of increasingly heated and obscure arguments that resulted in various  compromises  and an end product that was noticeably worse than it would have been had any one of the contributors been left to their individual devices.

And that was it.

Chikenz points today go to the first one to spot the tribute and name the source.