Tomorrow, August 29th, may be the date that would have been Michael Jackson's 52nd birthday, but two San Francisco party promoters & fans of the late, great pop star are celebrating a day early with MJ themed parties in both SF and the Midwest. The ever-successful traveling and San Francisco founded mash-up party Bootie will be celebrating tonight with an MJ themed mash-up event at the DNA Lounge! The playlist will include the mash-up of Michael Jackson and Nirvana -- "Smells Like Rockin Robin." Bootie begins at 9pm tonight at the DNA Lounge. First 100 get a free MJ CD. Click here for all the info!

Meanwhile, BOMB HIp-Hop's Dave Paul, who has been throwing his Prince vs Michael Jackson parties for over seven years now, will travel all the way to Chicago tonight for his MJ birthday themed Prince vs MJ party. Booked at the Windy City's Beauty Bar, Paul will be getting busy mixing album cuts, remixes, rare tracks and classics from his extensive Prince and Michael Jackson music collection. The party starts at 9pm tonight at the Beauty Bar. Click here for more info.

On paper it may not seem like it would work, but in reality (on audio and video) the melding of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" with Michael Jackson's hit version of the Bobby Day popular single "Rockin Robin" works like a charm. The unlikely mashup mix was recently done by the UK's Mark Vidler for Go Home Productions.

Today -- the one year anniversary of Michael Jackson's death -- there is no shortage of scheduled tributes to the King of Pop, especially on TV, with ABC, NBC, CNN, VH1, MTV, BET, E!, Fuse, and even the TV Guide Network all airing MJ related specials today, as well as over the weekend. There are also some new MJ themed books published today or this week. And today, diehard fans of MJ around the globe are planning a simultaneous vigil called World Cry 2010. For this ambitious global event, which is synchronized for between 2:30pm and 3pm (PST), organizers hope to have over a million MJ fans, with candles and the lyrics to MJ's song "Cry" in hand, "Lighting up the world in honor of Michael Jackson's visions and memory!" Each major city is planning certain meeting points for MJ fans to congregate, sing, and honor their hero. For more World Cry 2010 info click here.

Today the new MJ book Thriller: The Musical Life of Michael Jackson, published by De Capo and penned by Nelson George, arrives on bookshelves. Michael Jackson: The Magic, the Madness, the Whole Story by J. Randy Taraborrelli (Grand Central Publishing), which is for now only available in hardcover, is another example of a brand new book about MJ. You can also pick up the recently revised version of Taraborrelli’s 2004 Michael Jackson biography, now including details of Jackson’s final years and the aftermath of his death. Then there is the new satirical book about MJ, Simon Crump's Neverland: The Unreal Michael Jackson Story from Old Street Publishing. Yet another new MJ book published this week is Katherine Jackson's Never Can Say Goodbye which features photos and text by the woman named the guardian of the King of Pop’s three children after his death last summer.

Paul McCartney, Justin Bieber, and Game each share the experience of having been the targets of fake death hoaxes. Early this Monday morning rumors began circulating on various websites that rap star Game (pictured left & formerly known as The Game) had been shot and killed. In actuality, he hadn't, but these false rumors spread so rapidly that within hours the rapper's management had to issue a statement to dispel the untrue report. So, too, did the very much alive and well rap artist, who was in Sacramento Monday, when he tweeted, "If u gone [sic] spread rumors, b more creative. Say, I had a fight wit the Toy Story cast or sumn & it turned fatal ha ha.." But the ever shrewd rapper took it a step further by utilizing the incident as a prime opportunity to promote his forthcoming album. "My funeral is 8-24-10 @ da nearest Best Buy," he tweeted @ihategame.

While Game had one rumor of his apparent death, pop star Justin Bieber has been plagued by them. The sixteen year old Canadian singing sensation has been falsely pronounced dead a total of five times in the past year (all internet generated hoaxes), most recently on June 10th. 

The famous, urban legend scale "Paul is dead" celebrity death hoax about the supposed passing of Paul McCartney, began in 1969 with a claim that the Beatle had died a few years earlier in a car crash and had been replaced by a sound-alike/look-alike. Proof of his passing supposedly could be found by playing certain Beatles records backwards or analyzing various Beatles album art. "Paul is dead" was not only one of the most well constructed death hoaxes but also one of the most widely repeated (and believed) hoaxes in pop history.