WILL HE OR WON’T HE: Thank God for Michael Jackson. If not for the recent death of this tragic diva, we’d be forced to talk about boring things like Sacramento’s budget meltdown, the Iraq War, or the economy. In the meantime, Michael Jackson will remain in death what he was in life — an inscrutable cipher eluding all attempts at explanation.

For those of us without the heart to pursue our own dream, or even the imagination to have one, Jackson provides cold reassurance. If someone so rich, so famous, and so hugely adored could wind up so agonizingly wretched, maybe the moral of the story is that one’s bliss was never meant to be followed. Or perhaps it’s that for a black man to succeed as a crossover artist in America in the 1980s, he had to become a white woman first. Or maybe it’s simply that nobody in their right mind should have been born Joe Jackson’s son. When asked whether he beat Michael with a belt, Joe Jackson clarified that one used a belt to administer a whipping, but for a proper beating, one used a stick. As a father, the King of Pop would neither beat nor whip his sons. But by naming them Prince Michael I and Prince Michael II, he made sure they’d always know their place.

Michael’s final resting place has become the subject of considerable agitation here in Santa Barbara County, where a few years ago he was arrested, strip-searched, jailed, tried, and found not guilty on child molestation charges. There’s talk that the Jackson family might seek to bury Michael at the Neverland Ranch, Jackson’s extravagant celebration of arrested development and the childhood he never had, located on Figueroa Mountain Road in the Santa Ynez Valley. There’s also talk — unconfirmed as of deadline — that the Jackson family will organize a 30-car caravan to drive Michael’s body, carried in a glass coffin, from Los Angeles to Neverland this Thursday, host a public viewing of the body on Friday, and hold a private memorial service on Sunday. Given the intense global fixation with all matters Michael, traffic engineers are projecting a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam of 125 miles. On any weekend, this would pose monumental logistical challenges. But on narrow winding roads on the 4th of July weekend?

This past Tuesday, a coterie of key county executives from law enforcement, public works, fire protection, public health, planning, emergency response, and communications spent the better part of the day shuttling from one emergency meeting to the next, trying to figure out what was real and what to do about it. No less than five employees of the Sheriff’s Department spent their day fielding calls from media outlets around the world. Associated Press dispatched a reporter to stake out the County Administration Building all day. By 7 p.m., Tuesday, no actual communication had taken place between county government and the Jackson camp. Instead, Sheriff’s officials relied upon contacts they have with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department for whatever vague rumors and rumblings they could get. Somehow through this opaque and osmotic chain of communication, county officials are hoping to persuade the Jackson clan to call it off, if in fact it was they who started something in the first place.

Some in the Sheriff’s Department expressed confidence that the whole thing has been an exceptionally expensive and elaborate fire drill. Personally, I like the idea that the whole thing is a big fake-out, an angry practical joke on the county that prosecuted Jackson. When Paul McCartney’s former wife, Linda McCartney, died several years ago, I remember how rumors were strategically planted that she died in Santa Barbara County. In fact, she did not. The County Coroner complained he spent so much time fielding media calls that he couldn’t get any work done. Cadavers, he said, were piling up in his coolers like firewood. Ultimately, we would discover the whole thing was an elaborate dodge so that the McCartney clan could grieve unmolested by the paparazzi. But not before Santa Barbarans — ever willing to embrace the rich and famous, even if they never lived here — held a solemn and tearful candlelight vigil at the County Courthouse’s Sunken Gardens.

Where Jackson’s fans are concerned, if you bury him, they will come. It’s a law of physics. And even if you don’t — but they think you might — they’ll show up anyway. And in overwhelming numbers. Already, county officials are posting so many “no parking” signs along the road to Neverland that it will be physically impossible to veer off the shoulder. Public Works crews have been cutting back vegetation on both sides of the road lest some imbecile toss a cigarette butt out the window. At another time of year, this might have been a boon for business, but given this is the 4th of July weekend, most motels and hotels already are booked. As a result, county officials are desperately trying to locate a large parcel of nearby land where Jackson pilgrims can make like the Woodstock Nation and camp out under the stars.

The long-term fear, of course, is that Jackson will be buried at Neverland. As a strictly business proposition, Elvis in death far eclipsed Elvis in life. By that token, Michael Jackson promises to be much bigger postmortem than 100 Chumash casinos combined. Little wonder 3rd District Supervisor Doreen Farr’s Solvang office reportedly is fielding calls from persnickety Santa Ynez residents upset at the prospect of intergalactic hordes of Jackson worshippers traipsing around their beloved backyard. Even worse, county officials worry that Jackson may be buried at Neverland without the proper and all-but-impossible-to-secure permits. If so, would the county order Jackson’s body disinterred? People pay millions of dollars to avoid that kind of publicity, and for good reason.

I never was the biggest fan of Jackson’s music, but I love the way he danced. He moved like a mix between Fred Astaire and James Brown. And when that meaty bass intro to “Billie Jean” starts pushing the air, it makes us all think we can move like James Brown and Fred Astaire. Who knows; maybe we can. Or maybe we just move like ourselves. Either way, we’re still moving. And that beats the alternative. Just ask Michael Jackson.

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