Prince Tabloid Junkie II

My ardor for the Michael Jackson mysteries continues, but I must admit, Joe Jackson repulses me. His eyes and face are just really, really scary and I can't really explain why. This latest revelation about a mysterious possible fourth Michael Jackson child is odd enough, but Joe's response to the rumor took it to a whole new level of creepy.

Along with the rest of the world, I'm also getting tired of waiting for the toxicology results. What is up?

This whole situation also has some bizarre parallels to the Anna Nicole Smith situation.

• Mysterious death of a middle-aged celebrity:
• Death occurs at rented housing, not celebrity's own home.
  
• Shadowy members of the celebrity's entourage are present at time of death, leading to suspicions about their motives and their power over the decedent.
  
• Celebrity's actual condition at time of 9-1-1 call is not clear.
  
• Suspicion of abnormal prescription drug use by celebrity.
  
• Celebrity had access to doctors willing to prescribe such drugs.
  
• Orphaned children of mysterious parentage whose custody arrangement is not immediately resolved.
  
• Media feeding frenzy.

I could probably think of more, but that Martin Bashir documentary is on MSNBC again....

Summer Holidays

Melrose and Mr. Magoo have developed this interesting, and often hilarious, habit of spontaneously and simultaneously bursting into song. This usually occurs when we're riding in the car, and I've somehow gotten them to stop chattering and listen to the radio. One time they both started singing the backup vocals of a Snow Patrol song, and another time it was the chorus of "Just Dance." We've also had some Sara Bareilles, Katy Perry, Kelly Clarkson, and that "I Like to Move It, Move It" song.

It always entertains me when my kids know songs that I didn't teach them. They've been in daycare/school since they were very small. Oftentimes they'll learn songs as part of a holiday (both those we celebrate and those we don't), or because their teachers play a certain song every day at clean-up time, or because some lady with a guitar comes in and has music hour"with them every week. Sometimes I get a performance of these numbers, but I always suspect they know more. And you get some interesting surprises, i.e. to heck with that wussy "Clean Up, Clean Up" song! Didn't you know that Shania Twain's "Man, I Feel Like a Woman" and Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" are the best clean-up songs?

The other day, a long-concealed set of Play Doh was unearthed by our babysitter as a consolation prize for Mr. Magoo, who for reasons of blatant gender bias was left out of an all-girls pool party Melrose was attending. DH was out of town, and I was on lifeguard duty, so out came the Play Doh. Magoo was overjoyed. So was Melrose, when she got home and saw it.

I don't normally let the kids play with Play Doh much because it inevitably ends up ground into my carpet and/or tracked all over the house. Also, Astro likes to eat dropped clumps of it, which you might not notice at the time, but becomes evident the next day when you look in the back yard. People give it to us as birthday gifts, and it inevitably gets opened before I can stash it away in the recycled-gift pile to torture some other family with. I can't throw it out without guilt, so it stays and is kept hidden most of the time, and comes out only on special occasions.

Yes, I am mean. Alas, my dislike of fluorescent globs of goo embedded in the rugs usually trumps my children's desire for creative self-expression and tactile stimulation. I'm sure this will come up in therapy someday.

Despite my efforts to monitor the glob-containment situation the following afternoon, some of it did get squished into the family room carpet. I immediately banished the little darlings and their creations to the kitchen table until I could chip it all out with a metal spatula. As I chipped away, the kids chattered to each other about what they were making with their Doh. A dog. A flower. A meatball.

The next thing I know, they're both singing, in sync, with perfect pitch,

"Dreidel dreidel dreidel, I made it out of clay...."

Tabloid Junkie

So Michael Jackson has been dead almost 3 weeks now, and it's still a top headline. I know this should be deeply disturbing to me. Why are all the networks covering this crazy (and now dead) guy when soldiers are dying in Afghanistan and Kim Jong Il has cancer and Obama just went to Africa and Bernie Madoff is off to the slammer and the Episcopal Church is finally taking a stand on the "gay issue"? (AMEN to this last development- it's about time!). Can't they just drop it until there's some real development, like when the toxicology results come back, or they finally bury him somewhere permanent, or the judge awards custody of his kids to someone?

But here's the thing: nobody in the media is ready to let this go, because nobody wants to get scooped on the latest twist in MJ's long and twisted and media-profitable story. Even I am not ready to let it go. I am not a tabloid-follower most of the time, but I've been looking incessantly at internet coverage and even print tabloids for any new tidbits.

Like people all over the world, I've always been fascinated by MJ. I've never actually bought any of his albums, and I wouldn't call myself a fan exactly, but I was always impressed by his talent and creativity (and awesome music videos). For any of us who are part of the first generation of kids to grow up watching MTV, he is unforgettable. Even as his looks got weirder and his personal life got even weirder than his looks, there was this intrigue, and so many contradictions and questions. What goes through the mind of a guy who lives in a child's fantasyland estate surrounded by zoo animals, Hollywood memorabilia, and carnival rides? He blazed a trail for black pop musicians even as he paled to white. He went from a good-looking black man to a Jheri-curled mannequin to a pale, androgynous, almost mime-like distortion who seemed to be raceless and sexless. On one hand he wanted fame and attention, and on the other hand he wanted everyone to leave him alone. Was he a total sicko with many loose screws, or a damaged adult who had sustained a lifetime of mental and physical pain and made a lot of truly unfortunate (and very public) choices? Would he have been as famous if he'd lived a more circumspect personal life?

Regardless of whatever MJ did or didn't do with other people's kids at Neverland, and whether or not he was a druggie, and the bizarre and cringeworthy parenting choices revealed in the 2003 Martin Bashir documentary, his own kids clearly did love him. I hope and pray those three children have a good support system, and that eventually they'll be able to live quieter lives out of the spotlight. Now that their faces are no longer under wraps, I'm not sure the world will be able to leave them alone until the issue of custody is settled and, perhaps, their biological origins are made known. It's nobody's business, I know, and probably cruel to speculate about, but people will always wonder (look at Anna Nicole Smith's daughter - once they determined who her daddy was, the attention stopped). I truly hate to think of the Jackson kids becoming paparazzi bait through no fault of their own, and hope the family is set to protect them.

MJ's music has been with me since "Off the Wall" and as he progressed through the 80s and 90s, I liked some of it, hated some of it, but always found the videos impressive, and enjoyed his collaborations with other artists. Thanks to the magic of YouTube, I've been able to revisit a lot of them, none of which I've seen in the past decade. They've aged well; the genius of music, choreography, and videography is evident. There are definitely disturbing ones ("You Are Not Alone" anyone?), but I enjoyed the others.

My hands-down favorite revisit: "We Are The World". Not all his, no, but he was a core figure in the project, and though he was already into the mannequin phase, he looked so young and handsome. I also enjoyed getting some perspective on how this was accomplished. I liked the song back when it came out, but it flat-out amazes me now - all that vocal talent in one room, and nearly all of them artists I loved. Not only did they get this unbelievable array of singers, all top names and most at a high point in their careers, but they pulled this off in ONE NIGHT. And they worked all night to do it. When you look at the final video, you can tell many of them were pretty fried by the final take of their solos (Paul Simon, Tina Turner, and Billy Joel in particular look close to a collapse).

And the styles...my God, the hair! The HAIR! Daryl Hall's amazing mullet on steroids. Lindsey Buckingham's 'fro. Diana Ross' floating cloud of hair. Billy Joel with hair. I look forward to telling my kids someday that these styles didn't look all that weird to us (with our own perms, mullets, feathers, and vertical bangs) at the time. Cyndi Lauper and Tina Turner excepted. Tina's hair always looked like it was cemented in place. Cyndi's hair scared me then way more than it scares me now (the "Time After Time" video gave me more than a few bad dreams in sixth grade). Cyndi and Boy George would have made quite a pair. And Annie Lennox too. Yikes.

But getting back to MJ. Whatever further revelations emerge about him posthumously, he'll always be an icon of many things: music, dance, pop culture, the downside of success, and the pitfalls of cosmetic surgery. I hope whatever parts of him were tormented are at peace now, and that anyone victimized by him is at peace as well.

And, well, I need to go check TMZ again. MJ is hopefully resting in peace, but I've got to hear the latest La Toya-generated conspiracy theory....

High on the hog

OK, we all know I'm a dog sap, but this story was so sweet. I've never thought of Harley Davidsons and dogs as things that belong together. I think a lot of people will now. Be sure to check out the accompanying photo gallery too!

Yes, I'm still here, and I'm determined not to be a statistic in the blog graveyard. But...I just haven't had it in me to write lately. I think I'm still in recovery from the massive report I completed at the beginning of May, which was akin to writing something that is much more than a thesis but less than a dissertation. It took 3 solid months of my almost undivided attention to get together. Stressful as it was to do, having it done and off my plate leaves a weird void, like somebody scooped out part of my brain and forgot to fill in the hole.

I'm now in a writing cycle on another project, though not as intensively, and I'm struggling with that as well. I really need some time out in the field looking at something new instead of sitting at my desk regurgitating something I researched a year ago but am only just getting to now. I've had at most 2 days in the field this entire year so far, not counting a couple of conference days. Seriously, when you'd rather be out on the mean streets of inner-city Baltimore than at your desk, you've probably been at your desk too long.

On the creative end, even if I have an inspired thought during the day, my words are gone by the time I get home, get everyone fed and in bed, and have some time to spend on blogging. I have a strict self-imposed ban on blogging at the office. No blogging, and no Facebook. Period.

I don't dare try Twittering either. I know I'd never be able to resist the tweets if I were interested enough in someone's doings to "follow" them. Status updates are fascinating little snippets, and thus a major threat to my general attention span. Also, Twittering seems like it might require me to acquire a Crackberry or some other handheld digital device, which I am resisting, because I don't want or need to be that reachable. If I'm away from e-mail for a day (or more), it doesn't faze me. Other people I know can't unplug for more than a half hour without full-bore panic on their part, or static from their clients and bosses. E-mail aside, I don't even send or receive text messages (well, except when stalked).

It amazes me sometimes to see how much things have changed in 20 years. When I was little and my parents went out without us, they would leave the name and phone number of wherever they were going for the babysitter. When I got older and had to babysit my siblings or other people's kids, I was the one entrusted with the phone numbers. I can remember occasionally needing to call my parents at a restaurant or some party they were attending, but it's amazing to think how much time people were just unreachable - in the car, on the train, in a movie theater, at an outdoor event. Your house could be burning down, and you'd be sitting there gawking at early Spielbergian special effects.

And it's equally scary to think how reachable people are now, and how imperative it is that people can always find you and communicate with you, wherever you happen to be. If you're a parent these days, not having a cell phone is bordering on irresponsible, if not downright negligent. Is it even allowed? I know on days where I've forgotten mine, I feel like one of the worst parents on earth. I have to call whomever's watching the kids to give them a land-line number of wherever I happen to be, and that commonplace task of the 1980s and earlier just seems so weird now.

running on empty

So I had my long-awaited nerve-disrupting radiofrequency procedure Monday, and I'm sincerely hoping this is the last time I need to mention my heel. It's still a little sore from the procedure (and I've developed a whole new level of needle-phobia after that joyous medical experience), but the old pain seems to be gone. I'll try speed-walking and maybe even running on it in the next few weeks to see if it really worked, but for now, I'm letting it be and enjoying the painless ride.

After over 5 months of inactivity, and trying and failing to find some way to exercise without aggravating matters (and trying the 30-Day Shred but not progressing far toward shredded-ness due to inability to do push-ups), I've become discouraged about my ability to be athletic and fit. I want to run, but I'm also not sure running is a good sport for me. I like the freedom and sense of accomplishment I get from running, and oooooh do I envy the sleek bodies most runners seem to have, but I'll never be fast, I worry about getting hurt, and that burning chest-achy knee feeling will probably never be fun. Still, I've pushed on, trying to build up distance and endurance, trying to make my body change.

Walking is pleasant but just doesn't seem like enough to make significant changes in my snail-like metabolism or overall physique. It's been tried in the past, and while enjoyable, it's never made much difference, and right now I. Need. Difference. I am desperate for difference.

I have a lovely mountain bike out in my barn, which I would love to use, but over the past few years I've become phobic about riding it, and even more phobic about dismounting. I don't think I've ever regained my pre-pregnancy center of gravity since having kids, and being on the bike literally gives me vertigo now. (note: must get over this by the time we can take family bike rides).

Swimming would be great, but we don't belong to a pool or a Y, and we're not going to be joining any until we have a better chance of actually taking advantage of our membership on a semi-regular basis. Like, maybe in a few years when the kids are at the same school again? And maybe when they finally build that Y just up the street that's been planned for over 5 years and never built?

Then again, if intrepid author Jennifer Weiner could do a sprint triathlon and the Broad Street Run and live to blog about it, there's still hope for people like me who don't have that athletic physique and have never played sports outside of required P.E. classes. She is a machine! I've fantasized in the past about Broad Street, and I had real hopes for doing it this spring after I completed a 5-miler last Thanksgiving, but right now I'd be thrilled if I could run even one measly mile without re-injury.

Just one.

I promise I'll stop whining about exercise if I can get back in the saddle and at least do that again.