What a weird opening sentence. Unless he was planning on making a Michael Jackson joke (quick skim ~ none?) or just wanted to call attention to the "fun" point

What a weird opening sentence. Unless he was planning on making a Michael Jackson joke (quick skim ~ none?) or just wanted to call attention to the "fun" point that he has a friend named Michael Jackson, I don't see why it wouldn't be more prudent to just open with "My friend Michael..." rather than appearing to set up a Checkov's gun with no payoff (even if just a quick "(heh)" after the name). (I'm aware the gh issues discussion is the more valuable one to most, but as I don't worry about gh much I doubt my thoughts on it haven't already been covered by comments here and before)