Michael Jackson was a freak.
    
No, I'm not talking about that stuff -- having his face sculpted from man into pixie; the arrested development that led him to follow his private Tinkerbell into his own, literal Neverland; the bizarro antics ready-made for the tabloids.
     
Here's why Michael Jackson was the ultimate pop music freak: He became the King of Pop in a way no one else had before, or has since.
     
Unlike Elvis, Sinatra or Madonna, Michael the Man-Child and his music, even his fabulous dance moves, oozed all the sexual swagger of a mollusk.

With apologies to all you fellow dads, I hereby make this confession: I've always been creeped out by the 1989 film "Field of Dreams."
 
Yes, I know, "Field of Dreams" is the dad movie. It's the flick that a lot of moms will prod their kids to rent on DVD this weekend, so that the youngsters can watch it with their dads on Father's Day this Sunday.
 
Heck, "Fields of Dreams" is only the second movie in the history of the universe at which it's OK for a grown man to cry. (The other? The 1957 Walt Disney 0flick "Old Yeller").

LISTEN

Olatunji drums up "Passion"

In 1959, the American music scene brewed such works as "The Sound of Music," Bobby Darin's "Mack the Knife," Johnny Horton's "The Battle of New Orleans" and Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue."
 
Meanwhile, Nigerian-born drummer Babatunde Olatunji had taken up residence in New York City and was crafting the first album of traditional West African drumming and chant to be recorded on this continent. His album "Drums of Passion" opened the door for so-called "world music" in the United States. Olatunji would inspire, and eventually work with, John Coltrane, Carlos Santana and Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart.
     
Six years after Olatunji's passing, his bangy, clangy, joyous "Drums of Passion" has been reissued in a 2-CD, 50th anniversary legacy edition, with bonus tracks, from Columbia Records.
     
The set is, as Olatunji shouts on one track, "Oyin Momo Ado" -- "sweet as honey."

Now we know -- Pete Townshend was just kidding when he penned "Hope I die before I get old" way back in 1965. Right, Pete?
    
Back then Townshend was a 20-year-old pup of a rocker. Do the math: Pete is now past the age of eligibility to sing the Beatles' "When I'm 64."
     
Here's what Marc Tomestic, drummer with the Daytona Beach rock/ska-punk/pop-punk band Skif Dank, had to say about the "O" thing: "I have contrasting thoughts. I feel old and I am old ... there aren't many bands around here who've been together as long."
     
That was Tomestic when I interviewed him in January 2000, for a story about how Skif Dank not-so-suddenly found themselves to be THE veteran rock band on the local original music scene.
     
If band years were calculated like dog years (and they should be), then Skif Dank is now 112 years old.

My fiancee was jolted.
 
"They can't say that on TV!" she said.
 
And what was this language we had just heard on "Southland," that NBC cop drama series? Here's what: "Bleep!"
 
That's literally what we heard -- several "bleeps" coming from characters in this gritty, realistic TV drama about police officers working in South Central Los Angeles.
 
"Those were just bleeps," I said.
 
But it was obvious, Cheryl claimed, that the characters were uttering the megaton bomb of cuss words.

Dear Bono,

As a pop music writer at daily newspapers for the past 26 years, I've doled out more stars to U2 albums than are in the 12 constellations of the zodiac.

Now that "No Line on the Horizon," the new U2 album, has landed, I'm stealing 'em back.

For the first time in my life, Bono, I'm skipping a U2 tour. I won't be in the stands when you perform Oct. 9 in Tampa.

Sure, the $253.50 top ticket price had a bit to do with my decision. But really it was art, not commerce, that led to my losing my religion.
    
Your new album sucks.

Watching the movie "The Visitor," I wondered if writer-director Tom McCarthy had stolen a scene from my life.
    
"The Visitor" tells the story of college professor Walter Vale (played by Richard Jenkins). A lonely, middle-aged widower, Walter has given up learning to play piano. But Tarek, a gregarious Syrian immigrant, introduces Walter to a djembe<cm cq RdeY> -- a type of African hand drum.
     
When my fiancee gifted me a djembe six years ago, my reaction was much like Walter's -- I approached the beast timidly, as if the animal skin that covered the hollowed-out tree trunk might bite my hand off.
     
Since then, I've attended dozens and dozens of drum circles, with 40 to 60 fellow drummers pounding away in a joyous, ritualistic frenzy.
    

Finally, some good news out of this bad economy: The more the Dow and 401(k)s and the economy go down, the more cussing goes up.

That's according to Los Angeles psychotherapist Nancy Irwin in a recent MSNBC.com story by Diane Mapes.

Cussing is a quick, effective way to relieve stress and vent anger, say both Irwin and Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts psychology professor Timothy Jay. The prof should know. He wrote the book on cussing, literally -- it's titled "Cursing in America: A Psycholinguistic Study of Dirty Language in the Courts, in the Movies, in the Schoolyards and on the Streets."

But, alas, there is bad news amid this upswing in cussing.

Jay's new study, "The Utility and Ubiquity of Taboo Words," deploys such phrases as "Type A hostility," "emotion information" and "neuro-psycho-social framework." But buried beneath the psycho-speak is this bummer: "A set of 10 words that has remained stable over the past 20 years accounts for 80% of public swearing."

That is, while swearing is up, the creative use of cuss words is stagnant. George Carlin is &#@@*¢ in his @&*&# grave.

This "micro-blogging platform" continues to infest the planet. More and more celebrities, regular folks and, I assume, even chimpanzees are posting "tweets" -- messages that can't exceed 140 characters at a time.

How do we know this? We've read this news in old-school "platforms" such as newspapers, where writing that exceeds 140 characters is still cherished. (By the way, if I were tweeting this column, I would have had to stop right before the word "chimpanzees.")
    
(By the way, if I were tweeting this column, I would have used "BTW" to indicate "by the way.")

Random thoughts on motor bikes, bikers and Bike Week while pondering if Eric Von Zipper ever rode with "Then Came" Bronson ...
 
I have never driven a motorcycle, thanks to my mom and dad.
     
Growing up six years behind my older brother, I envied the Harley-Davidson 900 Sportster my parents bought him while he was still in high school.
     
By the time I grew to motorcycle age, my parents had banned bikes from the family, saying they were unsafe. And I didn't complain one bit.
     
Why? Because my teenage brain knew, subconsciously, that riding motorcycles could get you killed. How did I know this? Because our family saw "Easy Rider" at a drive-in theater in Albuquerque, N.M., in 1969, when I was 11 years old.