by S M Ong

MICHAEL Jackson is not dead. And neither is Elvis Presley.

The King of Pop and the King of Rock 'n' Roll are kicking it back in a secret bunker buried seven storeys under Presley's Tennessee home-cum-tourist attraction, Graceland.

So said the Daily Mail, quoting a blog called '68comeback special'.

As if citing a website named after a Presley career landmark wasn't daft enough, the UK paper also reported post-death sightings of Jackson disguised as a nun and flying to the airport using a jetpack, on his way to Greenland to live with eskimos.

No wonder he was turning himself white. He wanted to blend in with the ice.

At least nobody is saying he died on the toilet eating a burger like Presley did. Jackson was a vegetarian.

Although some also claimed that Presley was abducted by aliens, the movie Men In Black II hinted that MJ himself was an alien, which actually helped to explain a lot about Wacko Jacko.

But can we still call him Wacko Jacko? Is it being disrespectful to the recently deceased?

The producers of Sacha Baron Cohen's new comedy Bruno would probably think so.

A scene mocking former Playboy cover girl and Jackson's even wackier sister LaToya was removed from the movie at the last minute before its Los Angeles premiere.

So Cohen, who frenched his 'prostitute sister' and wrestled with his manager in the nude in his previous movie Borat, is suddenly afraid to offend because LaToya's most famous brother has just died?

Let's not forget that Michael Jackson was single-handedly (insert your own glove joke here) responsible for pop satirist 'Weird' Al Yankovic's entire career.

Yankovic first hit the charts in '80s with a parody of Jackson's classic Beat It called Eat It, accompanied by an almost exact copy of Jackson's music video but funnier.

When Jackson released the album Bad, Yankovic followed with an album called Even Worse, featuring the single Fat.

All with Jackson's approval.

Which seems to indicate that for all his eccentricities, the man at least had a sense of humour about himself.

Which is more than can be said about the other eccentric black mega-pop star of the '80s, Prince, who refused to give Yankovic permission for any parody.

Who knows? Jackson could be giggling at all this hubbub over his death in Presley's underground bunker right now. Or back on his home planet.

Farrah must be so jealous.

This article was first published in The New Paper.