"The Michael Jackson Tapes" break little in the way of new ground but the book by Shmuley Boteach, based on 30 hours of taped interviews, provides firsthand detail about the performer's excesses and obsessions.

"I don't want to be seen now," Jackson confessed. "Because I am like a lizard. It is horrible."

The 50-year-old self-described "King of Pop" seemed to sense during the interviews in 2000 and 2001 that his life was winding down, Boteach said.

"I would like some way to disappear where people don't see me anymore at some point," Jackson said. "I don't want to grow old. I never want to look in the mirror and see that."

Boteach said he and Jackson recorded the tapes with the idea of giving the public a more accurate image of the reclusive entertainer. Boteach said he soured on the book _ originally slated for release in 2003 _ after Jackson failed to adhere to the recovery programs they had worked out for his public image and private self. The friendship ended with Jackson's second arrest on charges of sexually abusing a child. Boteach said he resurrected the project after Jackson died because attitudes toward him had softened.

In conversations, Jackson is quick to see himself as a victim and quick to criticize relatives _ especially his father, who, Jackson said, beat him with an electric cord.

"He was rough," Jackson says of his father. "The way he would beat you hard, you know, was hard."

Ken Sunshine, a spokesman for the Jackson family, said Friday: "We will not dignify this with a comment."

The book makes it clear Jackson was interested in women sexually but very shy. He tells Boteach he had never asked a woman out on a date, although he admitted to having sexually charged phone conversations with Madonna.

In recounting one conversation, he said: "Madonna laid down the law to me before we went out," saying, "'I am not going to Disneyland, okay? That's out.'"

When contacted Friday, Madonna's spokeswoman, Liz Rosenberg, said, "Madonna has very fond feelings for Michael Jackson, and I don't think anything in the book is going to change that."

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"I felt many things while reading this book -- which I did in one overnight sitting -- but when I reached the last page I felt only one: a tremendous respect for its author and a deep appreciation of just exactly how courageous she is to publish this book.
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