Michael Jackson showed up in court fashionably late in unfashionable sunglasses.

The judge, grandly named Melville, seemed to need to cut the great entertainer down to courtroom size. The NYT reports:

"Mr. Jackson, you have started out on the wrong foot with me," Judge Melville told the defendant, who wore oversized aviator-style sunglasses and a silver arm band. "I want to advise you that I will not put up with that. It's an insult to the court. You must be on time. Do you understand that?"

But how can you tell if you've intimidated a man who "whispers" "Yes,sir," when that man has always whispered and has always adopted a deferential manner? Here, respectful speech cannot demonstrate appropriate submission to the Leviathan.

Judge Melville seemed to switch tactics. When Jackson's lawyer requested a break "as a personal courtesy," the judge spoke plainly:

"I assume Mr. Jackson has to go to the bathroom. So do I."

He added, "I understand when you have to go you have to go," but then warned Mr. Geragos to tell his client to restrict his "liquid intake" before court.

Outside the courtroom, Jackson resumed his Artist of the Millennium dimension, by leaping onto an SUV and dancing for the assembled idolators, then inviting them to Neverland.