One pair of tickets attracted a bid of $275,000 on eBay before the listing was removed. It was difficult to tell whether the offer was serious.
Both eBay and Craigslist took steps Monday to thwart the ticket sellers.
"eBay will not allow Michael Jackson memorial service tickets to be listed on the site," the company said in a statement. "If found, eBay will remove them from the site immediately."
By Monday afternoon the number of listings for "Michael Jackson memorial tickets" on eBay had dropped to a handful, and the site was removing them shortly after they appeared.
Craigslist allows its users to flag ads they find inappropriate, and ads receiving enough negative flags are automatically removed from the site. Many ads proffering Jackson memorial tickets were removed shortly after they were posted Monday.
Among those was a listing posted by a man who identified himself only as Peetey, 29, of Venice Beach, California. He was asking $8,000 for a single ticket; the winning bidder would accompany his girlfriend to the service, he said.
The ad was removed within 15 minutes, he said, but that was enough time for five people to call with interest.
In a CNN poll, 60% of those under 50 are MJ fans and 39% of those over 50...and that is just in the United States. The MJ Love ratio is much higher in Japan, Russia, South America and the UK. He had spent the last few years out of our country and his comeback tour was not on American soil.
There have been complaints from multiple camps that MJ is not being treated like Frank Sinatra and Elvis to which most anyone would say, none of them had been charged multiple times with child molestation and self admitted strange ideas about children. You can't divide a person. He was a musical genius and a bizarre man. We know all the words to Man In The Mirror and we have those memories of him trying to convince us that sleeping with other people's children was a normal, loving response.
Yet, there is Something inside us that makes us go a bit crazy. Have read that Elvis has made more money in death than in life - several times over. You can see where the MJ gravy train is headed. He died in the New World. The Twitter and Facebook world. It makes the world seem so much smaller and personal.
I wouldn't miss the funeral today for anything. I am going to thoroughly immerse myself in the music and ceremony. You see, we are all the man in the mirror. We all end up in the same place, facing the same future. Whether you are the King of Pop, or the Queen of Hearts, someday you will have to face the King of Kings and all the things of earth will fade away. Tomorrow, our lives will go on and most of us will not give MJ too much thought until we hear a song on the radio or news about his estate. He is Elvis to his generation and will live forever in their hearts. I know some Elvis fans, they have never forgotten him and never will. MJ fans will do the same if not more.
What does this all have to do with you and me and the Moment? Look in the mirror, realize how much you are loved and how complete you already are. Understand that we each make a mark on this world and have a posse of Love that we can count on. We are the Man in the Mirror - RIP Michael Jackson...
