Beyond the universe of salacity surrounding so many aspects of Michael Jackson and his criminal trial for sexual molestation of a child, there’s a wealth of entertainment of a more intricate nature.

Case in point: The hilarious world of Jackson Family Spokespeople, a scrappy band of lawyers, appointed spokespersons, and celebrity friends who’ve juiced the past few days of verdict-watching with stupidly entertaining drama.

This week’s key yuk-providers:

Raymone Bain, "Official Spokesperson for Michael Jackson," and Jesse Jackson, the African-American reverend currently serving as Michael Jackson's spiritual advisor. (Conspicuously absent: Brian Oxman, the "Jackson Family Lawyer" who won my heart by defending Jacko's baby-dangling as "part of ancient African tradition" as displayed in The Lion Kingwith a perfectly straight face!before being unceremoniously dismissed from the criminal trail after getting into a yelling match with MJ's lead defense attorneyand legitimate lawyerThomas Mesereau.)

With Oxman gone, his patented brand of straight-faced fantasia has been taken up by Jacko spokeswoman Raymone Bain, a pretty woman in her 30s who is, unfortunately, mentally retarded.

After Ms. Bain tells the press how the entire Jackson clan is doing fine and relaxing with Michael at Neverland, father Joseph Jackson shows up at the courthouse, looking bedraggled and wandering around hollering "Where is my son??" (MJ was not due at court that day.) After Ms. Bain's shoots down any and all rumors that Michael Jackson is anything but perfectly healthy, Jacko (whose deteriorating well-being is visible to all) makes his fourth and fifth visits to the emergency roomtrips Ms. Bain then characterizes as "routine follow-up appointments," despite their occurences in the middle of the night. All of this is exacerbated by Ms. Bain's tenuous relationship to the English language, from which she launches flights of linguistic fancy that make Al Sharpton seem like Ernest Hemingway.

But perfectly illuminated by all this is the seemingly pathological dissembling that's been a key Jacksonion quirk for decadesthis surreal sense of "If I say it (or get someone else to say it), it automatically becomes true." God love Ms. Bain for tryingif there's a more soul-crushing job than maintaining a straight face while routinely defending the actions of Michael Jackson and his family as perfectly normal and healthy, I don't want to know about it.

But not getting off so easy is Jesse Jackson, who's spent the past few days reminding the world why he'll never be president. Speaking out as MJ's spiritual advisor, Rev. Jackson has recently gone completely around the bend, attempting to spin the entire investigation as a vast racist conspiracy (uh, whose race are you talking about?) and comparing last December's court-approved search of Neverland to the deadly raid on Waco's Branch Davidians.

Trapped behind all this is defense attorney Mesereau, who yesterday issued an official statement on how he'd given no one permission to speak to the public on behalf of Michael Jacksona passive-aggressive slap at Raymone Bain and Jesse Jackson that went unheeded by both: This morning, Jesse took his racist conspiracy theory on CNN, while Bain appeared outside the courthouse, where she dismissed Mesereau's court-approved statement as "rumors."

Obviously, none of this bodes well for Michael Jackson, who's surrounded himself with increasingly less reputable yes-men (and women) for years. Now his unprecedentedly intricate fantasy world is colliding with reality on all fronts, and it ain't pretty. But it's fascinating as shit.