What's the deal with the cats, Mr. Jackson?

I was messing around on Google and eBay trying to track down various Michael Jackson items (some that I'd lost...my copy of Mark Bego's Michael Jackson biography for example) and some completely new to me (The This is It merchandise. There is a T-shirt in particular, that I love, that has the cat/lynx beastie Michael changed into at the beginning of the Thriller video). While I was doing this, I noticed something kind of odd...In the Michael's Pets stuffed toy line...there is no cat, no tiger, no lion, nothing of that type...Why? I think it's because he associated cats with adult themed things...



Think about it, whenever you see anything like a cat or catlike with/about him, it's either associated with sex or violence or both. I think the first time you get an inkling of this is not so much inside the Thriller album foldout, but in the Billie Jean video. In the Thriller video, it's right in your face (I don't know who started calling this thing a werewolf, but it looks kind of like lynx to me, but the eyes are wrong for it to be a werelynx. Whatever it was howled too. I guess cats howl, but I don't think it sounds like a wolf's howl... (Been reading too much Anita Blake I guess.). Since it's coming from someone's (or maybe a lot of brainstorming someones in plural) creative imagination(s))...I can let my nitpicking slide. The changing from a panther and back again at the end of Black or White...The way Michael Jackson is depicted on the cover of the Ghosts programme and DVD. Then, while I was looking around eBay this weekend, I saw a sepia toned picture of Michael Jackson with his hair in a ponytail, and he's looking off to the side at something the viewer can't see, with a slight smile on his face. In the picture, he's wearing a leopard print button-down shirt.


I don't know that he would have given me a straight answer, but this is definitely something that I would've loved to have asked him about, if I'd ever gotten a chance.




Justin Moyer who reviewed J. Randy Taraborrelli's updated book on Michael Jackson complained that the book had tense errors (I think that was either laziness or carelessness, or both on Taraborrelli's part ), didn't tell us anything new about Michael, or offer much insight on him as a person. He also said that the book lacked imagination...If a reliable source, that was close to Michael could shed any light on my abovementioned musings...I'd by that book in a New York second (Yeah, I know what the original saying is, and I still mean second).