RIP 1983

I had planned not to post any RIPs for a while. There for a good bit, it was all I posted and I was getting sick of it. There's still a dead folk moratorium in place, but I think I can relax my rule this one time for the sake of the little girl that still resides in my head that gets the odd urge to listen to Thriller from time to time.

Michael Jackson died today. If you're a young person (loosely defined for the sake of this post as someone who was born after the Berlin Wall came down, or someone who has never been alive at a time when Law and Order wasn't on the air) or possibly an older person who wasn't big on pop music back in the day (eg: my dad), you only know Michael Jackson as that progressively whiter kiddie diddler who wasn't quite right in the head. Points 1 and 3-I'll allow that. Speaking as someone who usually is the first one to assume the worst about a person, even I'm a little skeptical of point 2. Personally I think he was just a woefully naive and damaged man that never had a chance to grow up and was taken advantage of by everyone who came into contact with him.

Maybe I'm biased-I'm not post-L&O or my dad, I'm old (or young) enough to have experienced the whole Jackson juggernaut. When I was about seven years old, I had Thriller on constant rotation (even had the damn thing on an 8-Track) and had a poster of him up on the wall. I remember walking around with a big boom box on the playground at school during recess in the second grade with my friends, "Beat It" blasting for anyone within earshot. And we all loved it. Time passed and we moved on to the next thing. The poster came down and Thriller moved to the back of the cassette caddy. Never gave him anymore than a passing thought after that except when he eventually started popping up on the news instead of MTV. Maybe it was because of that brief period of time back in 1983 when I was in the second grade, but while I didn't like him anymore as a performer, the passing thoughts I had while watching the news weren't judgmental, they were feelings of pity.

That's what I felt today after hearing about the last newsworthy thing he'll ever do: pity. Not pity for his death, but for his life. I think this guy, who entertained countless people of a certain age, got royally screwed for his troubles. He became a physically warped and mentally unstable punchline as a result. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe he did molest those boys. If so, I think karma hit him ten times over and it's not my place to carry any hate for the man.


So it goes...


RIP Michael Jackson.

The Return of the Not-So Magnificent One

Well hello there. Remember me? She of the red hair and smart of mouth? Yeah I didn't think so.

Oh, I joke to hide the pain.

Sorry for the lack of posts. I've been busy with things and I've also been too busy stewing in my own brain juice to deal with the things with which I'm supposed to have been busy. (That may have been more grammatically correct than ending the sentence with a preposition, but it was painful to write.) My briny mind goo is still in a state of flux, so I can't say I'll be posting regularly again any time soon. However, I'm having a decent enough afternoon that I thought it might be nice to stop by and scoot the dead people posts further down on the page.

I suppose I should have actually come up with something to say before I decided to do this...

Wait. I've got it. A game, let's play a game. Okay. Now. Here's two photos. One of these is the dear departed Pepper McQueen Ross. The other is her youngest daughter, Pickles. See who can be the first to tell me which is which:





I am not a professional scientist, so I'm afraid I cannot offer to clone any of your pets for you. I just got lucky, if not a little creeped out.

Well, that wasn't as substantial as I'd originally thought it would be. Hmm. Okay, how about this, I'll give you a couple of links to poke at and ponder and/or discuss at your leisure? Does that work? It's been so long, I've forgotten how to behave on my own blog. SAD.

Topic 1-Yes, there is such a thing as a stupid question.

Topic 2-Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.

Dammit. Dammitdammitdammit.

Beatrice Arthur, the tall, deep-voiced actress whose razor-sharp delivery of comedy lines made her a TV star in the hit shows "Maude" and "The Golden Girls" and who won a Tony Award for the musical "Mame," died Saturday. She was 86.

Arthur died peacefully at her Los Angeles home with her family at her side, family spokesman Dan Watt said. She had cancer, Watt said, declining to give further details.

"She was a brilliant and witty woman," said Watt, who was Arthur's personal assistant for six years. "Bea will always have a special place in my heart."

Arthur first appeared in the landmark comedy series "All in the Family" as Edith Bunker's loudly outspoken, liberal cousin, Maude Finley. She proved a perfect foil for blue-collar bigot Archie Bunker (Carroll O'Connor), and their blistering exchanges were so entertaining that producer Norman Lear fashioned Arthur's own series...

Cont.

Luke, Does This Robe Make Me Look Fat?

This morning I dragged my ass out of bed at 7am so that I could get myself and my offspring ready for the Passion Play at her church (she goes with my dad on wedensdays and sundays-I, being an amoral heathen, do not attend services.) H was in the play, she got to wear a robe and one of those Iron Sheik looking doohickeys on her head and wave a palm frond around and she did fabulously, of course. I'm very proud of her.

As for me, I actually enjoyed myself, which is a rare occurrence as far as me in church is concerned. But I did, I truly did. Saw some old friends, some current friends, managed to successfully dodge the nosy old church ladies and had a couple of laughs.

On the subject of laughs, I DID almost have an embarrassing moment at what would have been the most inappropriate time EVER. I'm sitting in of those torturous pews watching the play and it's at the part where Jesus is carrying the cross on his back and the Roman soldiers are poking at him with spears and he's miserable and all. It took forever so I start looking around and I notice the tomb that he's gonna pop out of later and there's a big-ass boulder in front of it. For most people this wouldn't prompt laughter, but for me, it almost did.

My mind is an overflowing fount of useless tv and movie trivia. I honestly don't watch much tv now, but I did when I was younger and even now when I see something, it only takes one time and it's lodged in my head forever. I'm not bragging, in fact I'm kind of shamed by it. Not like big, huge shame or anything, more of a "Great, if people didn't think I was a dork BEFORE they will now" kinda shame. No big deal, I guess it's just my cross to bear.

ZING!

But I digress. Anyhoot, I'm sitting there watching Jesus slouch to his doom, see the tomb and I remembered a bit by David Cross when he was on Dr. Katz like 15 years ago. It was a 90 second or so riff on Jesus and of all the times I could have regurgitated it up in my head, it had to happen at THAT MOMENT.

Thankfully somehow, I managed to stifle the laugh-didn't even snort (which would have been worse)-and another cringe inducing interlude in a life filled with such was averted. And THAT my friends, is a real Easter miracle.

Dr. Katz
DVD Exclusive - David Cross on Jesus
comedycentral.com
Joke of the Day Stand-Up Comedy Free Online Games

Oh I Just Bet You Have, Hot Stuff

Sorry for the lack of posts-I got stuff going on, in reality and in my own head. I'll be back eventually, I'm sure. 'Til then, enjoy this. God knows I did...