Still Not The Last Michael Jackson Chapter

The day finally arrived! And it's now thankfully over! Almost 70 days after he died, Michael Jackson was finally buried. Or interred. Or something. Either way, he won't be moving again any time soon.

Jacko was laid to rest at Forest Lawn Cemetery. Everything I've read about this so far always includes something of the following effect: "Jackson was interred in the cemetery’s Great Mausoleum, a voluminous building that also houses the remains of Clark Gable, W.C. Fields and Carole Lombard." Um, Carole Lombard? W.C. Fields? OK, I am optimistic that a fair number of people know who those folks are, but do we care? I don't think we do! I know I don't. It's not like Jacko moved into the same retirement community with these folks and we can look forward to paparazzi shots of all of them playing shuffleboard in Arizona somewhere. So who cares? The press, that's who.

The service was scheduled to start at 7:00pm, but it was delayed until around 8:30pm because Jacko's parents were late. Now, just to be clear, they live 20 minutes away from the cemetery. To keep around 200 guests waiting for at least an hour and a half at your own son's funeral is a little bit more than just being late, don't you think? That's not just late, that's "I don't give a crap" late, especially when you live only 20 minutes away. And it's not like the guests can get up and start milling around, maybe grab some cocktail weenies (can I say "grab some cocktail weenies" at Michael Jackson's funeral?), a glass of wine and mingle amongst themselves. No, they're stuck sitting there until someone gets this show on the road. Poor Elizabeth Taylor, sitting out there in the smoky heat, all old and large and without even Bubbles the chimp to keep her company. (Probably a good thing that Bubbles wasn't there. Chimps can get testy and after waiting for 90 minutes, he might have started throwing feces. Then things might have gotten awkward.)


But when they do show up, they show up in this thing. Behold!

Oh, what the hell is that? It appears to be a very large, fairly lavish RV (either that or the travelling Liberace museum) which is being driven by an equally large, yet less lavish man and accompanied by a well dressed co-pilot of some sort. What is with the giant RV? It's rather dark outside which makes it hard to tell exactly what we have on our hands here, but it would appear to be gold in color. A gold RV? Um, yeah. OK.


I also kept reading that it was a "star studded affair". And that's kind of true. There were some stars. It was an affair. I don't know about studded. Maybe hit by the Bedazzler, but studded? Not so much. It wasn't a red carpet event, let me just put it that way.

Here we have Corey Feldman and his wife leaving the service. Feldman apparently opting to NOT dress LIKE Michael Jackson they way that he did at the memorial service. I think I've mentioned before that I've been to plenty of funerals and not once, not ONE time did any of the guests dress like the deceased individual. NEVER. Thus, I find it odd. But what I found odder was this next picture of Feldman and his wife that I saw. Behold!

Who the hell is that?! What's with the suddenly materialized little blonde head there? Did they steal a child from the funeral? I don't think you're supposed to do that!

Speaking of strange goings on with the guests, there was this next photo of some family members leaving the service. How nice that they hired an Emmanuel Lewis look alike to attend with them.
There was Macaulay Culkin and his current girlfriend Mila Kunis. Somewhere in there was Lisa Marie Presley. Al Sharpton was there, guarding against any sort of perceived racism, I would imagine. Either that or looking for lawsuit material. Barry Bonds was there for some reason. And Chris Tucker from the Rush Hour movies. See what I mean about the lack of stars and studs? Over 200 guests and only 6 "stars" offhand that are named. (And that 6 becomes three if you don't count Barry Bonds, Chris Tucker and Al Sharpton. "Stars" is stretching it just a bit, don't you think?)

And of course, there were the fans. I don't know how I feel about fans at a funeral, but that's not going to stop them from showing up, obviously. Behold!

A report from the BBC quoted a one Kevin Harris who said he thought "...people should have skipped work to come and pay their respects and was disappointed more did not." Really? Why...why would that be? It's unfortunate that the reporter didn't ask this guy if he skipped work or even actually had a job. After all, the thing wasn't supposed to start until 6pm, so I'm not sure why you'd need to "skip work" to attend something that started an hour after the traditional work day has ended at 5pm. Then again, I'm not sure why you'd attend , especially just to loiter by the gates and speak to British reporters.

Here's License Plate Guy outside of the interment service.

And here's License Plate Guy inside of the memorial service. License Plate Guy is a one Demarco DeLeon and seems to be a very consistent fan of Jacko's. Well, I guess everyone's gotta have a hobby. Attending the funerals and memorials of pop stars is his apparently.


Outside of the family home in Encino was a one Svenja Maniak from Berlin, Germany. Why she was waiting outside of their home I do not know. Why she is sporting a big ol' MJ tattoo on her back I do not know. However, both of those things together are not all that normal, that I do know.

Finally! I was afraid there weren't going to be any Homemade Poster People there! Fortunately, there's a shot of this in all of its glory. Behold!


Well, and it's the thought, not the punctuation, that counts.

If you're interested (for whatever reason and I don't think I really want to know) in visiting Jacko's grave, good freaking luck. It's apparently not for tourists. The News Tribune says that "...the closest the public will be able to get to Jackson's vault is a portion of the mausoleum that displays "The Last Supper Window," a life-size stained-glass re-creation of Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece." Um, what? I guess I understand that's the closest you can get, but is there some sort of a significance to that particular attraction? What if I told you that "Several 10-minute presentations about the window are held regularly 365 days a year, but most of the building is restricted."? Huh?! Now what do you think? Still weird? Yeah, it is! It's a window, for cryin' out loud. They're giving 10-minute presentations on a window? Yep! And the Forest Lawn website isn't much help, either. I wonder if after the 10-minute presentations on the window if they give a 10-minute presentation on the curtains that cover it in between presentations?

Now with Jacko's death only recently being ruled a homicide, this thing isn't over yet. There will be more to come from beyond the grave with Jacko and this story. But I imagine that it will be more exciting than the 10-minute window presentation. I mean, if my predictions hold up, we're going to see either another low-speed chase down a freeway somewhere with Dr. Conrad Murray in a white Bronco OR we're going to see the frantic search for Dr. Murray who has probably skipped town as of a week ago. But stay tuned nonetheless!

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17...18...19?

Are you familiar with the Duggar family? They're the folks over in Arkansas who have a rather large family. We're not talking Brady Bunch or Eight is Enough or anything that amateurish. No, the Duggars would be more like Eighteen is Enough. Only it isn't. Enough, that is.

Meet Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar. Jim Bob, 44, and Michelle, 43, live in Arkansas and are the parents of eighteen children. On purpose. I don't know why exactly. Something about blessings and gifts from God or something like that. I don't quite get how being the host to an alien creature living in your body for nine months before it forcefully expels itself through your uterus in a process akin to that of shoving a pot roast through your nostril can be called "a blessing", but to each their own? I guess? (Why are God's "gifts" always children? Why can't God's "gifts" be regular gifts? Like iPods and Playstation 3s?)

While I can't imagine that it's the best thing in the world to have a family that large, I can't imagine it's the worst thing in the world, either. On top of that, the Duggars are totally self sufficient and do not rely on any sort of assistance from any governmental or charitable entity. And while I may hate to admit it, aside from the prairie-dress fashion that they seem to sport, they seem rather normal. As normal as you can be when you're living a life that's quite similar to that of being permanently assigned to a dorm or barrack, that is.

So Michelle gave birth to Jordyn-Grace on December 18, 2008, an appropriate date for the eighteenth child of the family. (Eighteen. Good Lord.) Most people who have heard of these folks had probably just barely started to wrap their head around THAT concept when BAM! Next thing you know, number 19 is on the way. Wait. What?

Correct. Michelle Duggar is now pregnant with number 19, now a mere 9 months after shooting out number 18. She is apparently due in March of 2010 (which is the next time that I go to the dentist. See the difference here? Yeah.) OK, so...let's see...had the 18th in December....due in March....9 months gestation...subtract the 2...carry the one....June! They did it in June! SIX months after giving birth, she's pregnant again. AND is happy about it. Most folks? Ready to hurl themselves off of a cliff, that would be correct. But not these folks. Nope. Happy. Go figure.

Man, Jim Bob must have sperm that are like the Michael Phelps of the reproductive world. (Why, yes, I do picture them with little goggles and swim caps. Why?) And Michelle's eggs must make for easy targets. As big as barn doors from the perspective of the begoggled spermatozoas, that is.

The Duggars have two sets of twins in that mix: 19-year olds Jana and John-David and 10-year olds Jedidiah and Jeremiah. (Did I mention that all 18 of the kids have names that start with the letter "J"? I didn't? They do. All of them. Joshua, 21; Jill, 18; Jessa, 16; Jinger, 15; Joseph, 14; Josiah, 13; Joy-Anna, 11; Jason, 9; James, 8; Justin, 6; Jackson, 5; Johanna, 3; Jennifer, 2, and Jordyn-Grace, 8 months.) So that means that with the 18 kids, she's only been pregnant 14 times. That's a total of 126 months!

That's twelve and a half years!

Holy canoli! That's a ridiculously long time to be pregnant! But then I started thinking about it and what if Michelle Duggar wasn't human (and after 19 pregnancies, I realize that one could actually wonder, but we have to assume that she is). And with a little help from MSN Encarta, I've realized it would be a frightening, not to mention crowded, scenario. But if she were the right kind of animal, it could definitely free up some space over there.

A few of the animals that have much longer gestation periods than humans are the the Asian elephant (645 days), the sperm whale (490 days), the giraffe (430 days), and the Bactrian camel (410 days). So she'd only have about 6 Asian elephant children right now and around 8 sperm whale children not to mention about 9 giraffe kids and 9 Bactrian camels. Get that woman an ark! NOW!

But the problem would arise if she were an animal with a much, much, MUCH shorter gestation period than the nine months that humans have. What if she were a finch? A finch has a gestation period of only ELEVEN days. ELEVEN! That's not even TWO weeks! The Olympics lasts longer than a finch pregnancy! You can't even get through the song "The 12 Days of Christmas" if you're a pregnant finch! You would have NO drummers drumming!

A cryin' shame that would be. It would also be about 415 finches! It would be almost an equal number of opossums as well, as their gestation period is 12 days. Mice incubate other mice for between 19 and 21 days, which would produce 228 mice, almost 13 for every Duggar child. And that same amount of time could see the production of 218 chipmunks, 152 rabbits, 130 squirrels and 108 kangaroos! (Kangaroos only have a 42 day pregnancy. 42 days! I'm guessing it has something to do with the pouch, but I'm not sure what exactly. Maybe after 42 days just the head pokes out and the rest keeps on growing in the pouch? Yes, I'm totally speculating! I know nothing!) There could also be 72 raccoons, 71 wolves, 65 mink and 51 pumas. You're gonna need another ark.

All I can say really is that as long as the Duggars can support themselves, so be it. Enjoy! Have a good time! I can't remember what it is exactly that they do for their money, but they seem to have enough of it to raise their 18 kids. Maybe they need some sort of a family business. Something all of the kids could participate in. Maybe like a Starbucks or something. First, they're going to need a location with a lot of traffic. Hey, I know! Michelle's uterus.

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Food: The Key to Understanding Kidnapping Rapists

To understand how CNN, the once revered, now bungling, semi-news network, found itself in the position that it is currently in (that being one of a cable news network whose participants seem to merely phone it in every day) one needs look no further than The Larry King Show. I'm all for any iconic newsman continuing to "report" the "news", but when an interviewer's questions begin to sound more like some of the blather that you'd hear coming out of Grandpa Simpson, you kind of have to wonder if someone is going to point this out to them or if they're going to just wait until the person ends up following Dan Rather out the door.

Larry King interviewed a woman named Katie Callaway Hall. Ms. Hall was the first victim of perverted rapist and child kidnapper Phillip Garrido. Basically, back in 1976, Ms. Hall gave A-Hole Garrido a ride and he, in turn, forced her to drive across statelines from California to Nevada and to a storage shed that he had set up as a sexual perversion emporium and proceeded to rape her for the next eight hours until she was rescued. A-Hole Garrido was convicted, sentenced to 50 years in one case and 5 to life in another and manged to get out of prison within 11 years. Then he proceeded to kidnap 11-year old Jaycee Dugard and hold her for 18 years and father two children with her beginning when she was 14. Oh, yeah, he's a piece of work.

So Larry King has Ms. Hall on his show. First of all, she came forward after learning that the pig who raped her and imprisoned her was the same guy who had abducted Jaycee Dugard. She wanted people to know what kind of an effing monster this guy is. And I think that's awesome that she did come forward to tell her story, especially since it's not exactly the stuff that bedtime stories are made out of. So with a story like this, you'd expect questions that went somewhere along the lines of the crime, her feelings then, her feelings now, the trial, etc. Basically, all things that are RELEVANT to the story. But Larry must have had different thoughts on that matter.

She describes how, when she decided to give Garrido a ride, she had a bunch of food in her car because she had stopped at the store and bought some things that her boyfriend had asked her to pick up. And for some inexplicable reason, Larry focuses on the food aspect! I don't know why! No one cares! And is it relevant what happened to her groceries after all of the kidnapping but before all of the raping? I don't think it is.

KING: Why did you let him in the car?

HALL: I don't know. It was the worst decision I've ever made, I think. It truly was.

KING: What happened when he got in?

HALL: When he got in, I filled his hands with a lot of food that I had in the front seat anyway -- I tried to engage him.

KING: He was holding your food?

HALL: He was. I tried to engage him in small conversation on the trip. Tried to stay on the main street....on another main street that I turned. So I took him a little further up...I just turned around the corner and pulled over, and he slammed my head into the steering wheel, and pulled out handcuffs. He took my keys out, threw them on the floor, and pulled out handcuffs, and handcuffed me, and said, 'I just want a piece of ass. If you be good, you won't get hurt.'

KING: What did he do with the food?

WTF? Are you kidding me? What did he do with the food? Who in the hell cares what he did with the food?! We have head slamming, handcuffing, key throwing and kidnapping and YOU want to know what he did with the FOOD?! WHY?!? What is wrong with you? That's not only idiotic, it's insulting. This woman is strong enough to sit there on your show and tell millions of people that she was raped and you're asking her what her rapist did with her food. What is wrong with you?

By the way, in case you were now wondering "What did he do with the food?", Ms. Hall answered (with a perplexed look on her face, as if to say "What in the hell is wrong with you?"), "He put it on the floor. I guess. I don't know." There! Put it on the floor! Thank God we know that!

That kind of journalism is just a waste of space and airtime. There's no reason for it. It's crap. If you can't think of something better to ask about than the completely irrelevant food situation, then I believe that's a pretty good indicator that your time has come to get the Hell-o Kitty outta there.

Now, I had shortened the exchange between the two for brevity here, but you can watch the interaction in the video below and see for yourself just how close we should be to planning Larry King's retirement party.

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Fantasies of Font-o-philes

It would seem as if humankind has gone over to the bad place. I think we're going to need to shut down the Internets for a couple of hours AT LEAST in order for people to find their bearings in this world again. There has been madness, madness I tell you, over the past couple of days! And why?? NO, not because of the Lockerbie terrorist guy being released. NO, not because of health care reform. NO, not because Ted Kennedy died. NO, not because Michelle Obama wore shorts. NO, not because the fifth dentist caved and now they're all recommending Trident. NONE of those. The uproar?

IKEA changed their font.

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

What now? Their font?!

Yep. Their font. Wait.

Their font? As in the style of the printing? That font?

That font. The style of their printing. It's changed. It's different. It's not the same. It's new. It's hated. It's caused turmoil and uproar. Cats and dogs, living together. Mass hysteria! Had there not been a rather extensive article in Time magazine on this, perhaps the most ridiculous thing ever for folks to get their boxers in a wad over, I might have just thought that someone had completely overblown the situation. But actually, I guess that's really kind of true. Someone HAS completely overblown the situation. That would be anyone who thinks that a font change constitutes a "situation".

For the past 60 years, Swedish chain IKEA has attracted the masses who wish to put all of their household furniture together themselves with little more than a small wrench. Thrifty, yet trendy, all in one convenient location. Since the actual physical location of an IKEA is sort of hard to come by for a lot of folks, the IKEA catalog arriving in one's mailbox each year is like welcoming home a member of your family. Until this year when that family member showed up and you discovered that they'd had a sex change without telling you.

In this case, the IKEA sex change went from being a Futura font to a Verdana font. Granted the Futura font was customized just a bit for IKEA by Microsoft, so it's not a TRUE Futura, but it was IKEA's Futura and folks liked it. I guess. I'm willing to wager that 95% of the folks who are having a cow right now had no idea what the name of the font was or even if they liked it or not. It was just there. But now it's gone.

The new, redheaded step-font, Verdana, is described by a bloke over there at crikey.com.au as "Its specific purpose is to make small text more readable on computer screens: its letters are wide, open and loosely spaced, with deliberate distinctions between similar-looking characters to help readers tell them apart. In other words, it’s meant for pixels, not print, and it looks terrible writ large on in-store signage ---or billboards."

Huh. Interesting. I'm surprised that people aren't reading that passage like they're reading the health care reform bill. That is to say, interpreting it in a way that is sure to get people all fired up. I'll show you, it's like this: Hmmm....made for pixels, not print...make small text more readable on computer screens....I know! It means that IKEA is getting rid of their printed catalog and will be online only from now on! Take it a step farther and imply that IKEA will likely close all of it's retail locations and be simply Internet based from now on and you're likely to start a world wide panic before noon. As far as it not looking good on in-store signage or in "the large", behold!

Oh, for cryin' out loud, it looks fine! Since IKEA hasn't really commented much on the issue, it's hard to say for sure why they decided upon a font change. But one Ikea spokeswoman, a one Monika Gocic, did say "It's more efficient and cost-effective. Plus, it's a simple, modern-looking typeface." OK, so let me get this straight. There's a global recession, sales are down in all sectors and perhaps IKEA was looking for a way to cut costs without cutting products or laying off employees and so they chose to go with a freely distributed font instead of one that they pay for, thus saving products and jobs all the way around. Those bastards!

Look, if you're THAT upset about a font change, you need to step away from your computer and get out of your parent's basement once in a while. And I mean all of you (because on August 26, this little to-do was "...drawing more tweets than even Ted Kennedy"! And speaking of Twitter, a few sample tweets from mental font geeks: "Ikea, stop the Verdana madness!" "Words can't describe my disgust." "Horrific." "It's a sad day." Why, yes. Yes, it is a sad day when a barely noticeable font change has the Internets all in an uproar.

Sometimes, companies make alterations in the way that they do things. It's a barely noticeable difference, for hell's sake. I can barely think of any design changes for products that were met with such fervent backlash from consumers that they went back to the old way. There was the recent Tropicana carton fiasco, but that makes sense. The new design made it look like it was a generic brand. Behold!

Yeah, that was crap. As far as product changes go, I'm sure that the biggest blunder in the history of consumer goods was the inexplicable switch to New Coke. Talk about a company underestimating it's own product. But that was different as that was the product itself. It's not as if IKEA is rolling out big and bulky furniture items that have to be delivered to your house by movers that have come to this fine nation from another land. They're changing the damn font. They even said they're changing the damn font. Of course, they didn't say it quite like that. They left out the 'damn'. And all of the other words there, but it means the same thing when they say "...the visual identity of IKEA does not rely primarily on typography." See?! The same! (Although theirs does seem to imply a sort of "get over it" at the end there.)

You know, IKEA has a specific name for every single one of the products that it sells. Sometimes they're interesting and whimsical, but for me, that's only the first time I peruse through the catalog. After that, I find it annoying. I don't feel the pressing urge to be so damned trendy that I have to make up some specific name for some specific product that, in all likelihood, already HAS a name! (Are you listening Starbucks?! I don't want a 'venti', I want a damned LARGE!) Instead of saving money on the font, would you font-o-philes want them to can the product naming people? The PNPs? Then you wouldn't have your Godmorgon, you'd just have a wall cabinet. You wouldn't have your MALM, you'd just be stuck with your three drawer chest.

I'd really like to get a quick look at some of these folks who are protesting the loudest. Are they still wearing the same style clothes that they did 20 years ago? Are the chicks still sporting the feathered Farrah hair-do? Are the guys still going with wide collared disco shirts and platform shoes? You folks need to branch out just a bit. I can't come up with a single font/logo from any company FORTY years ago that is EXACTLY the same today. There ISN'T one. INCLUDING IKEA's! Sara who blogs at her ikke tikke theo blog has posted images from a 1965 IKEA catalog. Aside from the fact that all of the items look pretty much the same that they do now (which, actually, says a lot about folks who like IKEA and folks who are all upset by the demise of their beloved Futura font), the font is clearly different. So get over it. Please.

Of course there's already an online petition to bring back the bygone font of yore (which has already garnered over 700 signatures). I'm sure there's a freaking Facebook page as well (because if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, how will it ever make it to a Facebook status update?). I'll be interested to see if the IKEA folks elaborate a bit more on their fatalistic font fix. Though I'm also eagerly awaiting for the first YouTube video of one of these font geeks having a complete meltdown. That'd be awesome. Let's find out what other minuscule details people love to freak out over and change those and THEN see what happens!

OK, now I'm going to need to step away from the Internets. But let me know if there's a meltdown in progress. I really wouldn't want to miss that.

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