Parcbench readers,

What are you doing to observe the anniversary of the King of Pop’s death? Are you going to bust a jig to “Smooth Criminal?” Learn how to do the Moonwalk? Drop by your local elementary school?

As long as it doesn’t involve scaring his children half to death and/or a rip-off “memorial” where you get drunk and listen to cheesy covers of MJ songs all night, then you’re good.

(Not that we mean you’re good trenchcoating. That would be very bad. As a matter of fact, pedophiles deserve to have their balls ripped off with rusty cheese graters.)

My afternoon and night will be spent watching Stephen King’s The Stand. Not only is Gary Sinise a great American and a great actor, but how can you not love an eight-hour miniseries which caps itself off with Satan kissing a nuke? At the risk of belaboring one of the most prophetic concert titles in world history, this is it for my TV.

You know why?

The answer is, quite simply put, that I just don’t care about Michael. Last year was indeed it for him, but his fans live on and gain much enjoyment from mailing freaky coffins to his estate. Who am I to say that the LAPD can’t have fun apprehending a streaker with the words “MJ I LOVE YOU” tattooed on her breasts? Let Blanket hang out of a window for old times’ sake, and I’ll choose to remember him in my own way. Which is, none at all.

Maybe that’s what’s best for the family, too. MJ’s life was crazy, and that’s putting it mildly. They – especially the Jackson kids, deserving of a far better grandfather than an expert bottom feeder/scum bag – should be able to have some sense of a normal life. Even though Michael was the last type to care about his image or privacy, let’s have some peace and quiet unless we want him to turn into the next Elvis.

Or is that asking too much?

Now that we’ve all agreed on something, possibly because we knew the media wouldn’t keep out of their lives long enough or had fears of the now-ineffectual Joe Jackson having a hand in the proceedings, let’s get to the good stuff:

The Jackson family may be planning on throwing MJ’s kids – 12 year old Prince; 11 year old Paris; 7 year old Blanket – straight into the fire of the reality show The Jacksons: A Family Dynasty. To a man who vacillated between a strong desire to keep his children hidden from the prying eyes of the world, and a strong desire to dangle them out of windows, I know not what this development would come as.

His family members should have an inkling, however. 59-year old Maureen “Rebbie” Jackson is, from what we at Parcbench have been able to gather, absolutely dead set against appearing on the show and feels Michael would “spin in his grave.”

On the other side of the coin, Jodi Gomes – the executive producer of this new clusterfrak – exclaimed last week “We have 23 cast members with the last name Jackson. They’ve done a great job opening up about losing a brother.”

Now, I may not be the only one to recoil in shock from that mix-up in priorities on the part of A&E, but are the producers of The Jacksons: A Family Dynasty as interested in the family as they were when filming first started, or in sensationalism and the last vestiges of Jacko’s death they can play on?

Why not go ahead, dredge up past instances of celebrities biting the dust, and do a reality show of Anna Nicole’s daughter eating strained peas? Because, after all, coping with the loss of a loved one is – or at least it seems that way – the new black.

Such words only confirm my long-held beliefs that most entertainment outlets – yes, regrettably, even the family ones – are more focused on death and the whirlwind of emotions following it than they are on actual entertainment. The six o’clock news has already attained a reputation for placing murders as well as other assorted criminal activity at the forefront of their local coverage, and cable news on occasion as it fits into their institutionalized ideologies: anyone remember the push for CNN to photograph the coffins of returning Soldiers?

A&E: ‘Twas a bad idea at best, to have made one of your first public statements regarding this series – whether wittingly or unwittingly – a hint that it’s there to fulfill the duty of catharsis for Jacko’s loved ones. Probably less so than MJ’s devil-may-care attitude toward hosting children in his bed: I still find it hard to believe he couldn’t have known on some level that such would net him stares and whispered invective.

As it stands, A&E is still on my good side for putting Dog Chapman back on the air.

But let’s hope The Jacksons: A Family Dynasty turns out to be more of an introduction to the family as it lives and plays behind closed doors, and not (like Growing Up Gotti) a reality-show bomb that became overshadowed by its most famous namesake.

Or, in this case, the namesake’s kids, for whom I’m holding out some expectation that A&E honors recent (at least more so than the start of this writer’s ramblings) wishes of certain family members, and doesn’t pull a one-eighty in search of ratings.