I Have A Question

I have a question.  Several, actually, but I'm going to try to whittle it down a bit.  I've been logging a little bit of time with some of the various hoarding shows on cable TV.  I don't remember if it was regular Hoarders or Extreme Hoarders or All-American Hoarders or what, but it was one of those.  For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, well, I envy you.  But it's basically what it sounds like.  It's a show about people who hoard things.  Not obsessively collecting things.  No, hoarding.  Hoarding is like collecting, only it's with  completely useless crap.  And sometimes, the word 'crap' is used literally.  I'll wait while you ponder that.  Got it?  Let's move on. 

So the person is usually essentially trapped in their house because of all of their hoarding.  It starts with the show spending the first bit of time kind of getting to know the person and examining their situation.  Then comes the part that I really don't understand.  The voice over says something about how they're going to bring in a consultant to help the hoarder with their problem.   

A consultant?!  What the hell is there to consult about?!  "Your place is a mess.  What say you clean it up?"  There!  I just consulted with every single person that has been featured on every single show.  A consultant?!  "Hey, Jim.  I've noticed that you're kind of up to your neck in feces and newspapers over here.  Um, what say we tidy up a little bit and throw this crap out?"  Was that so  hard?!  A consultant?!  Are you kidding me?! 

I guess that they have to call it something.  Everyone needs a title or something like that?  I just find the idea of an actual consultant to be highly amusing.  OK, I think I'm done here.

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No Need For Questions

Did you hear about the guy down on Florida who was all hopped up on some sort of wacky new drug (bath salts, I believe) and ate a homeless guy's face clean off? If you haven't heard about it, it's just exactly what it sounds like it is.  Florida is really trying hard to solidify its status as America's wackiest state.  And with this little incident, I don't think that they have anything to worry about.  The title is safely in the hands of its people.

And of course, what do you think happened after the guy was shot dead right in the middle of all of the face eating (also known as cannibalism)?  That's right.  Members of his family and people who knew him were interviewed.  Do you think that their answers differed from other times that people have done horrible things and people who knew them are asked about their character?  (As if it would even matter at that point.  I don't care if someone was a freaking Boy Scout for his entire life.  If you eat off someone's face, every good thing that you'd accomplished prior to your meal is irrelevant.)  Of course they didn't. 

It's not even just the interviews that are asinine.  Here's a headline from the Miami Herald: "Questions remain about why naked man on Miami causeway tried to rip flesh off another man's face". Questions remain?  Well, of course questions remain!  He ate the guy's face, for cryin' out loud!  It's not easily explained!  And really, what if it was?  Is an explanation going to make people think, "Ohhhh.  So that's why.  Oh, well, that makes sense!  OK.  I was confused before I heard the explanation.  But now that it's been explained, it's all good."  Does that EVER happen? I don't think it does. 


And why can't the "explanation" ever just be something simple.  eg, Hey, the guy was nutty as a fruit bat.  He was also high as a freaking kite.  Why isn't something like that ever given as the "explanation"?  Why does there always have to be some sort of deep seeded meaning in these things?  Crazy is a highly underrated rationale for many, many behaviors.  I wish people would realize that more and act accordingly.  Then again, it helps if the person being asked these questions isn't a little bit crazy themselves, as seems to be the case with his girlfriend. 

See, the girlfriend was asked for her thoughts on the matter and she came up with a couple of really great possibilities.  The first was that he "...was drugged unknowingly."  Because of course, that's the sort of thing that happens all the time.  One minute you're fine and the next minute, you're drugged unknowingly and gnawing someone's face off.  It's either that or "The only other explanation, she said, was supernatural — that someone put a voodoo curse on him. The girlfriend...said she has never believed in voodoo, until now."  Right.  That's the only other explanation.  Voodoo.  A voodoo curse.  Because again, it's the sort of thing that happens all the time.  The ol' voodoo curse.  The ol' VDC.   Naturally.  Because according to her ""I don't know how else to explain this."  Yep.  Because it's either a voodoo curse or nothing.  All rightee then.  I think I'm done here.


Shouldn't that answer alone be reason enough to stop asking people their opinions on things like this?  Then again, maybe that answer alone is exactly the reason why people keep getting asked their opinions on things like that.  Voodoo curse is a pretty amusing answer.  And it definitely gives me a look inside of a cage at the human zoo that I didn't know was there.  OK, I'm convinced.  We should keep these sorts of interviews around.  I can't believe my mind was so easily swayed.  Do you think it was a voodoo curse?  I don't know how else to explain it. 

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All Encompassing Government Waste

Yesterday, President Barry had a little sit down with the Internet on Facebook. I call it a "sit down". You may call it a "town hall". Whatever you call it, I'm still not really sure what the point was. I'm sure that people wanted to think that he was trying to reach out to the young and hip crowd that uses Facebook and has actually taken the time to "Like" him on Facebook. Granted, of the 19 million-plus people that "Like" him on Facebook, only about 23% are 25 and under. About that same percentage of people who "Like" him on Facebook are 45 and older. You know what that means, right? It means that people all across the age spectrum "Like" President Barry. (Translation: It doesn't make a fat rat's ass worth of difference.) Big whoop.

And look, I didn't expect any revelations to come out of this thing. But I at least thought (or maybe I just hoped) that perhaps he could have gotten past the first question before tossing out a bunch of BS, not unlike a monkey throwing his feces its a cage. I thought and/or hoped wrong. Here's how it went: The first question he was asked (and I'm paraphrasing here) was to the effect of "What cuts would you make to help out our country financially?" It's a reasonable question. So why in the hell couldn't he give a reasonable answer? I don't know either, but he didn't. Instead, he just skirted the question and went on with something else. Do you want to know what he said? Seriously? His answer to "What would you cut?" was "Government waste."

::: blink ::: ::: blink :::

Government waste? Um, was I the only one who heard that and thought, "No s***, Sherlock."? Government waste? That's the best he can come up with? He can't get ANY more specific than that? Government waste? Well, I should hope to hell that he wants to cut government waste? Who doesn't?! But that's the best answer he can give? With NO specifics? Does he mean government waste like the entire Department of Energy? Does he mean government waste like the Department of Education? (Oh, come on! Doesn't it seem a bit redundant when you consider that there are Departments of Education at the federal, state, city and county level? How many freaking departments do we need? And why do we need a federal one? For funding? Fine. Let them fund. I'm fairly certain that it doesn't need to be as gigantic as it is to just dole out funds.) Who knows?! He just said "government waste".

We're so screwed. And we're so doomed. The problem is that whenever a program or a department gets started in this country, it never goes away. The spending never stops. It doesn't matter how useless or outdated or duplicitous that it is, it will never go away. I don't know why that is. All I know is that we're scroomed.

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Michael Jackson - Still Dead

Well, so far there's been an awful lot of speculation as to what actually led to the death of Michael Jackson. And when I say 'speculation' I mean 'it was likely the prescription painkillers that he was taking for years that finally did him in, a la Elvis.'And all of that is pure extrapolation on my part, of course. (But I find it strange that a rumor such as "Jackson received an injection of Demerol before he stopped breathing" to be something that would be fabricated. That would be the thing that I would think you would want to steer clear of if it weren't true.)

Autopsy results came back today and of course they didn't show anything definitive so subsequent toxicology reports were ordered and we should have those results right about, oh, say...yeah, in about four to six weeks. Dear God.

Four to six WEEKS?! What in the hell is going to take so long?! Can't they put a rush on it or something? I'm not usually in favor of people using their social status or whatever their degree of fame may be (pop superstar, Skippy Peanut Butter commercial star, whatever) in order to get special privileges, but what say we just do it this one time in the instance of Michael Jackson's toxicology reports so that we don't have to be subjected to FOUR TO SIX WEEKS of endless blather on cable TV from the clueless (but hot) news chicks. It would definitely test our strength as a nation, that's for sure. (Seriously. I watched Larry King for the second night in a row. Tonight his guests were Miko Brando, Liza Minnelli and Usher (together in Europe for the first (and hopefully last) time!), Deepak Chopra and Mark Geragos. Talk about your celebrity salad!)

The general theme of the evening (other than that Larry King always seems like he isn't listening to any of the answers to the softball questions that he lobs at guests) attempted to center around whether or not Michael Jackson had an issue with painkillers. And by "an issue" I mean "was pretty much high 24/7 since his hair caught on fire in that Pepsi commercial fiasco back in 1984". Wait. What now? 1984? That was 25 YEARS ago? Huh. I would have thought I would have gotten more during that time. 25 years seems like plenty. What have I been doing anyway? Oh, sorry. I digress. Michael Jackson's dead!

Liza Minnelli started out by saying that when the toxicology reports come back that "all hell will break loose". Meaning that she has known that he's been a walking pharmaceutical time bomb for years. (I'll go on record right now and surmise that those reports will show that there were no less than four different drugs that had been coursing through his veins right up until the unfortunate incident known as his death.) But by the end of the show she was practically berating Larry for talking about it at all. Usher uttered a similar sentiment, saying something to the effect of "It's unfortunate that on the eve of his death we're here talking about addictions." Why, yes! YES you are! Why do you think that is, Usher? Could it possibly be that (shakes Magic 8 Ball) "All signs point to YES" that his addiction to prescription drugs killed him? (Man, if everyone enabled him the way that comment from Usher enabled/justified/ignored a main aspect of this story, then it's no wonder that he was able to keep himself nice and high for 25 years.)

And I didn't expect TONS of new information to come out yesterday. It hadn't even been 48 hours. But I was kind of hoping that some of my general questions about his life could be answered through the various news outlets talking with...well...with anyone who had the ability to speak. They didn't seem to be all that discriminate about their interview subjects. But none of them told me stuff I kind of wanted to know. Things like:

What branch of the military did he actually serve in? Clearly from the uniforms he always wore, he was some sort of a really sparkly Admiral or something, but it's hard to tell. Upon further reflection of this topic, I'd also like to know if some of those jackets were borrowed from Captain Crunch. They seem to have a similar style to them.

And what is up with that Say Say Say video he did with Paul McCartney? I would really love it if some historian could explain why it was that when music videos were first being made it didn't matter what the video was about and artists could make up any little three or four minute skit about anything and act that out to their song and voila! They made absolutely no sense at all. You know how if you're watching a movie on TV at home and when the credits roll at the end they cut to a half screen and lower the volume of that credit music and start showing a commercial for something else? You can still hear the credit music and you're not paying attention to the credits (because who does when they're at home) and you're watching the commercial instead? That music doesn't match that Tide commercial! It's the same with 80s music videos. Only without the Tide. Usually.

When I saw that video yesterday, I found it odd that in a couple of the 'scenes' it appeared as if Michael Jackson was sort of trying out his Thriller look. He looks SO out of place and you wonder if someone spliced the film and just grabbed the wrong strand there or what. But it's very Thriller-esque. And SO odd.

What'd I tell you? Verrrrrrrrrrry similar.

As far as the theme for that particular video goes, I guess Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson were these two snake oil salesmen turned miscreant vaudevillian performers who ended up on the run and trying to escape from...people? WTH? Who was it they were running from again? Oh, that's right! Probably all of the creditors and one legged ex-wives right? I thought so! It's very strange.

And I'd really like to know what it is about what would seem to have been his fondness for much older "servants" and "artificial companionship". He had several full-sized, wax statues of people throughout his Neverland mansion. Some are very real looking and not creepy at all. Others would be the opposite of "not creepy at all." You decide. Behold!

See what I mean? Is that Agatha Christie? She looks very pleasant and all, but why is she there? I'm assuming just so he could feel like there were people around him. And really, if you're Michael Jackson, people made out of wax could end up being the best friends you could ever have or even worse, ever hope for. And why is his chauffeur giving him his glitter glove on a tray? Does he need the glitter glove to sit in the back of his limo? How come it's on one of those trays that they serve food on in cartoons? It's not a sparkly snack is it?

You can click on the photo below and it should make it larger. She seems like a kindly old white woman servant with a lovely tatted lace hair/hat piece there. I don't know why the auction folks put her next to a grand piano. Maybe she was there to dust the keys.

And I also really appreciate his sense of humor with this lady/fellow below. It kind of reminds me of the crazy aunt that snuck out of the attic to steal teabags from the kitchen.

But the question that I really want to know the answer to is Who the heck is Greg?

It seems that over there at Julien's Auctions they're having a little auction consisting of 928 celebrity items, less than twenty of which were Michael Jackson's. Item Number 324 is described as "MICHAEL JACKSON HANDWRITTEN LETTER", the description of which reads "A single sheet of paper from the Pan Am in-flight duty free shop with a note written with black ink in the hand of Michael Jackson on verso, reading in full [sic]:

'Greg thanks for a magic moment in my life, I hope it was the same for you, please come to visit me at Neverland. Lets hope this is the beginning of a long friendship and never lose your boyish spirit its imortal. Love always M. Jackson.'

8 1/2 by 11 inches PROVENANCE The Collection of David Gest.

Behold!

Seriously. Greg who? Louganis? Brady? That's all I've got. Actually, on second thought, maybe I don't want to know. That whole "magic moment" sentiment there kind of oog-ed me out, you know what I mean? Perhaps it's better if I just forget about it and not wonder who Magic Moment Greg is. Perhaps somethings are better left unsaid or unknown? Sure. That's it.

Who am I kidding? WHO THE HECK IS GREG??

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