Mothers Call Michael Jackson a Regular Bloke
By Chip Hilton

SANTA MARIA, Calif. - As reporters covering Michael Jackson's mother of all molestation trials exchanged sidelong glances, two mothers testified yesterday that the embattled King of Pop "is just a regular bloke."

Their testimony might have been more credible had Jackson not been sitting in court bigger than spit wearing red lipstick, ghoulish makeup, and a resplendent waistcoat from the Oscar Wilde collection.

"If that's normal," the reporters seemed to be saying, "then Paris Hilton's a virgin."

Michael Jackson has been called many things—from Whacko Jacko to Ronald McFondle—but regular bloke has never been one of them, at least not in this country. In the Land Down Under, apparently, that's how he would be seen.

"What Michael did was nothing unusual where I come from," said Karlee Barnes, who had come from her home in Melbourne to testify on Jackson's behalf. "It's no big thing for a gentleman star to take young men under his wing to protect them from the vile elements in show business who are always waiting to take advantage of them. That's why we weren't concerned when Michael offered to sleep with my brother."

According to Barnes, her younger brother Brett, now 23, began sleeping with Jackson at the age of ten.

"All your big Australian actors—from Russell Crowe through Heath Ledger—did what we call 'sleepabouts' with big time stars," she continued. "Nobody would call those actors homos."

Under rigorous cross-examination, Brett Barnes, who works as a casino dealer in Australia, did admit that he spent many nights at Neverland "all snockered up" on Thunder Bird wine, Doritos, and Thai sticks the size of bananas.

"I'll tell you what," said Barnes, "my parents knew about it, and they approved. Back home in Australia people who show an interest in entertainment like I did are often 'adopted' by an older patron who introduces them to smoking and drinking in a cultured, civilized environment. Would you rather have your son getting wasted in Michael Jackson's king-size bed or in the back of a van somewhere?"

Barnes' countryman Wade Robson, now 22, said it was "not a problem" to his parents when, at the age of seven, he began sleeping with Jackson. Robson, a dancer and film director, first caught Jackson's eye after winning a dance contest by imitating Jackson's moonwalk.

Robson's mother, Joy, later testified that her only moment's concern during her son's travels with Jackson was the time Wade went missing for three days.

"But boys will be boys," she said. "I really wasn't that worried, and I tried to explain to the police that Michael had 'quote-unquote' special friends and that his running off with Wade simply meant that Michael considered Wade more special than most."

Mrs. Robson did admit that she worried about jealousy arising among Jackson's special friends as they fell in or out of specialness with him.

"Any decent parent would have worried," she declared, "but now that I look back on it, I think it's probably normal among children who are sleeping with pop stars. After all, there's only so much room in a bed, and who wants to end up sleeping with some roadie no one's ever heard of?"

In related news, several residents of the Burned Out Child Stars halfway house in Santa Barbara, California, had to be restrained yesterday after a fight had broken out during a group therapy session. According to witnesses, the fight began when Corey Haim, 33, and Macaulay Culkin, 24, got into a nasty argument over which of them Jackson had preferred in bed. Culkin flew into a rage when Haim said Jackson used to refer to Culkin as 'butt breath.'"