• Actor Robert Downey Jr. is about to be in blackface in a movie, but it's totally OK because it's so meta: Downey will not wear blackface to pretend to be black; he will wear blackface to pretend to be a white actor pretending to be black. Totally different. [Film School Rejects via Digg]

Time for more Jackson Manse financial woe, only this time it in regards to the L.A. house in Encino that members of his insane family has lived in for years. Records filed with the L.A. County Recorder's Office showed Michael had "$153,910 in missed payments as of January 17 on a $4 million loan serviced by Pasadena-based mortgage lender IndyMac Bancorp." We can only pray Jackson can refinance in time, lest LaToya find herself homeless and turned out by Dr. Mustard, Ventura Blvd.'s most notorious pimp and part-time Wienerschnitzel manager. [AP]

Reports circulated earlier in the week saying Neverland Ranch, Michael Jackson's personal Touch Mahal, was in jeopardy: If the debt-ravaged superstar failed to pay the $24,525,906.61 required of him, the estate, including all "fixtures and appliances, furniture, and...merry go round type devices, any rides" on it, would be put up for auction March 19 at Santa Barbara's downtown courthouse. Now comes the happy news that the necessary financing is being drawn up, and that no auction will take place. Also, records show there was a release of lien on February 4, showing Jackson "paid off all or part of delinquent taxes to the state of California." Perhaps, finally, the rusted arms of the Great NeverClock will start up once again, the llama skulls and monkey bones will finally be cleared from the yellowed lawn, and the ghostly halls of Jackson's kiddie Valhalla will fill with the sound of children's laughter, their overjoyed host calling out, "Last one to the bottom of the IKEA ballroom in their underwear is a rotten egg!!!"

• Katie Holmes may be pregnant again. Celebrate now, there will be plenty of time to figure out which Scientology God's sperm impregnated her later. [OK!]

Admittedly, we're not finance wizards, but if Michael Jackson refinanced a $300 million loan to loosen up $25 million in cash to pay a $20 million legal debt, doesn't that still put him at negative $300 million? And that's not even including mouth-reinflation fees! [foxnews.com]

Thanks to Michael Jackson's new look, we got an answer to the question, "What would happen if a Jackie O. zombie and the hook-handed fisherman from I Know What You Did Last Summer had a secret love child who enjoyed smearing his face in honey and Corn Chex?" Now comes the answer to an even more confounding query: Why?

For those whose Michael Jackson nightmares feel a little out of date (really, there's nothing less satisfying than bolting upright in bed after an imagined encounter with last year's bogeyman),
TMZ has a photo that should provide your subconscious with all the material it needs to keep the night-terrors fresh. It seems that Jackson has added some bandages to his now-signature "noseless, alabaster ghoul" look, perhaps an attempt to cover up the shameful, freakishly normal face he recently spied on the cover of Ebony. (We've mercifully pixelated the thumbnail here so as not to disturb those disinclined to follow the link to the photo.) [TMZ]

• Remember back in 1999, when a pigtailed schoolgirl who danced provocatively but projected an essential girl-next-door wholesomeness burst onto the scene with a sugary, almost showtuneish ("still buh-LIEVE") pop song that sounded designed to appeal to little kids even while its lyrics demanded abuse? Well, Britney Spears actually lost her virginity at age 14, so that explains that dialectic. [Us Weekly]
  

Michael Jackson was in a far different place when the gates of Neverland Ranch first swung open in 1988: "Bad" had spent a record-breaking year riding the top of the charts, Captain Eo was still thrilling children who marveled at how their space-voyaging pop hero was practically reaching out to grab them, and the term "Jesus Juice" was decades away from entering the popular lexicon as a catchall term for any number of boy-plying intoxicants. Of course, all that was millions of dollars and surgeries ago, and now the fate of Jackson's prepubescent pleasuredome hangs in the balance. Despite what you're hearing, however, the Ebony cover subject won't allow a foreclosure to deprive him of his abandoned estate, even if that means sinking further into debt:

Here's more from the new issue of Ebony featuring Teri Hatcher Michael Jackson on its cover: On his perceived freakishness: "In my opinion, it's ignorance. It's usually not based on fact. ... Every neighborhood has the guy who you don't see, so you gossip about him. You see those stories about him, there's the myth that he did this or he did that. People are crazy!" On what that oxygen chamber casket might be all about: "Let's face it, who wants mortality? You want what you create to live, and I give my all in my work because I want it to live." [AP]

A tip of the creepy top hat to photographer Matthew Rolston and his Ebony magazine covershoot team, who managed to give the ghoulishly pale Michael Jackson we know and fear the rich, healthy glow of a French aristocrat's wife rejuvenated from a weekend shopping excursion to St. Tropez. It's a transformation that rivals Sunset Tan's Ollie Girls' best post mortem spray-tanning work.

Thanks to Defamer commenter el smrtmnky for pointing out that the Michael Jackson Halloween mask we linked to this morning bears an uncanny resemblance to Teri Hatcher. It's a fortunate bit of happenstance for the manufacturer, who can now double their profits by re-releasing the item as part of their Stars of Desperate Housewives Do Their Own Makeup collection, which could also include the slightly pricier Nicollette Sheridan/Gollum model.

Considering your Leatherface costume ceased to be scary about eleven Halloweens ago, isn't it time to upgrade to something a little more terrifying? This Michael Jackson mask, unearthed by our friends at Boing Boing, should do the trick, inducing convincing screams from the neighborhood kids as the Kid Nation Koresh grabs his crotch in the doorway and shrieks, "HEEE-hee!," then proceeds to use the same palm to dole out handfuls of bulk Reese's Pieces. A word to the wise, however: inviting just the boy trick-or-treaters inside for an apple-bobbing contest, while true to character, might end up getting you arrested.

As Michael Jackson seeks the perfect patch of Virginia real estate upon which to mount his dream theme-park residence, Colonial Neverlandsburg, his recent past has already come back to haunt him: The Bahraini Prince who sponsored Jackson during his gender-confused time living in the Middle East is now suing Jackson. From Fox411:

As is our wont on a lazy summer Friday, when we suspect that most of you have abandoned us for the freedom of a two-and-a-half-day weekend, we'll pass along something for no better reason than it brings a small amount of joy into our dark, dark little lives. How does roughly 1,500 inmates at a Filipino prison performing a perfectly choreographed Thriller routine strike you? It strikes us as pretty f'ing amazing.

• Did Laurie David leave Larry David for the caretaker of their Martha's Vineyard mansion? Signs point to "be suspicious!" [Cindy]
  

• Remember a time when you would have been excited to see a picture of Britney Spears' naked boob? Us neither, really. [Egotastic]
  

Radar recalled that in their Summer 2005 issue, they had run photos of some of the items in the repo'd warehouse of Jackson Family memorabilia set to soon hit the auction block, including the sketch of a boy signed by Michael Jackson described in recent reports. As it turns out, it was a profile etching depicting the child from neck up, not overtly disturbing save for the sideways cone-shape of his cranium. Far more intriguing was the 14-point charter of Jackson's now-infamous prepubescent boys' club, the Rubberheads.

A massive auction in Las Vegas of Michael Jackson and Jackson 5 memorabilia is now cleared for takeoff, as the deposed pop monarch has quietly dropped his suit and settled with the collection's rightful owners.:

· We want to believe in the existence of crazy, neverending, shoot-your-wife-in-the-face love as much as the next guy, but we dunno...something about these two isn't quite right.
· That little kid is never going to learn not to wander too close to the street dancers, is he?
· The auctioning of Michael Jackson's "sex toys" sounds a little gross, until you realize they're just talking about the GI Joes and Pokemons that help get kids in the mood.
·Behold the majesty of the lambda.
·Hey, zebracorns!