Michael Jackson’s Creepy Art Collection

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Around the corner from our office are a couple of antique stores that sell what I can only describe as the world’s worst kitsch. A specialty is giant garden statuary of prepubescent children doing idyllic things that no kid has done since 1897, like playing leap-frog or fishin’ with a branch. I figured the stores, which are always packed to the rafters, were some kind of money-laundering front. Now I know better. They were supplying Michael Jackson.

If you have a few minutes, go check out the auction catalogs for Jackson’s Neverland Ranch. The King of Pop, in desperate need of cash, is selling off 2,000 of his possessions. What’s up for sale is an awesomely horrible glimpse into the world of the man-child who blew his money on jaw droppingly bizarro figurines like this, which even Abe Lincoln seems disturbed by. More examples after the jump.
Chairman Mao meets the Pied Piper


Huh?


The Franklin Mint presents the Michael Jackson Messiah Collection


Bet your grandparents’ porcelain collection didn’t have anything as creepy as this.


If you listen closely, the fawn is playing “Hotel California.”

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We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

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