I'm looking at the man in the casket...





It's official: there will be a pubic viewing of Jackson's body at Neverland Ranch this coming Friday. Thousands of highly excitable, emotionally charged people will be descending upon the quiet Santa Barbara area countryside where they will likely scream, cry, kick and punch in order to claim a stake of ground to camp out on for "Camp Jackson".


Of course, that's just the media.


There's no telling what the fans will be like although given some of the wack-a-bee behavior demonstrated during the 2005 trail and acquittal, clearly they can out-do, out-cry and just plain out-weird any of the King of Rock and Roll's fans any day of the week.


I would love to be there with a camera and flim crew just to document the insanity that is sure to break out and make a film of it entitled "Mondo Jackson" ala the famous freak show of a film called "Mondo Elvis".


Never seen it? Oh, I recommend it highly. You can find it on Youtube. In fact, I would recommend any resident of the Neverland Ranch area to check out the film just to get a feeling of the emotional depth charge they might encounter during the turbo meltdown of Jackson's viewing and funeral.


I would assume that this public viewing will entail an open casket. This makes me wonder; what kind? A full couch? A bronze? A bronze full couch?







You realize of course that whatever model the family opts to go with, the sales of that model and any look-a-likes of it will blast thru the roof. Jackson's services may well influence future funeral services for a long time to come. We saw this after President Reagan's service, we saw this after Princess Diana's service. There is nothing like a good over the top celebrity send off to get people off their "immediate burial" and "direct cremation" tendencies. People watch the wall to wall coverage and they are touched by what they see.



Speaking of touching...I would venture to guess that the mortician that is working on Michael will be issuing a plea to the family to NOT touch Jackson's face. That nose...that nose that didn't look any too stable in life I would imagine is even more not stable in death especially after an extended stay in the cooler following a full post autopsy.

Remember, I'm just guessing here. I would give my eye teeth to be in on the procedure if only to see how one should handle an emaciated case that has undergone countless plastic surgeries.



I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the mortician has to rebuild the nose from mortuary wax. If that's the case, the family could have a say in which Michael Jackson nose they would like to see on their loved one. The "Thriller" model? The "Off the Wall" era nostrils? It's their call.


Noses are easy by the way. Seriously, I loved doing noses; got a 5 out of 5 on my noses in Mort school. My lips were fair, my ears resembled cauliflower but my noses were just spot on. Could have happily cranked out noses all day.

I remember that I used to joke that Jackson's booking photo from the last trial should be in embalming text books as an example:

"Your case should NOT look like this when you are through!"




Given the additional abuse the man put himself thru in the last few years, the mortician working on Jackson tonight could consider themselves lucky if the decedent even looked that booking photo by the time they are through.

God Speed, nameless mortician, God Speed!
























Feed the Rock Stars



On one of the local morning "news" programs today, Jacko's manager was being interviewed and made the remark that Jackson had desperately needed to gain weight before embarking on the now needless and never to happen "come-back" tour.
He said something to the effect that Jackson himself had acknowledged that in order to keep his strength on the tour, he needed to gain weight, something that Jackson was otherwise desperate to avoid.
It would seem that in a serious bid to maintain a lithe and boyish figure, Michael Jackson took only one meal a day. No one it seems told him he was fat, no one screamed at him, "Oh my God, you are such a COW, loose that fat before next week!" No, this was Jackson's own doing, his own self enforced slow starvation.
Ironic, isn't it, that the man who helped pen the words for a song to raise money for the starving in Africa in 1985 would himself be a little more than skin pulled over bones at the end.

The man on TV went on that he had encouraged a gain in weight for his client, had hoped it would happen. I should like to know just how was Team Jackson trying to go about this little project?

I would be willing to bet my own substantial weight in peanut butter cups that the chef at his rented "Norma Desmond" hacienda was of the typical LA breed. A whisper thin size zero of a person who serves spinach leaves wrapped in seaweed with one round, perfect pea on top and calls that "Fabu!"

Come on, buddy. If you all were really serious about getting your late client back into any shape other than that resembling a straw, you would have hired a cook that hailed from the Midwest, someone who could whip up dishes that would put meat on them there bones and then meat on the meat.
Someone like me!

You wanna gain weight in a hurry? I'm your girl. We can do this one of many ways. If you'd like a little finesse to your weight gain, I can whip up a platter of a beautiful milanesas.
A specialty of Argentina, milanesas are fillets of razor thin beef which has been dunked in a bath of eggs and parsley and then covered in a heaping pile of seasoned bread crumbs to which pressed garlic has been added.




One at a time, the freshly breaded fillets are fried in a pan of shallow oil, gently turned one side to the other and then carefully placed on a platter and covered. When all of the fillets have been fried, the platter is then taken to the table to join the garlic mashed potatoes whipped with half and half and real butter, and the tender green beans that have been co-mingling with chunks of bacon or better yet, pistachio ham.

A bowl of lemon wedges should be offered in which to christen the milanesa in a fine spray of tarty juice. Take the first cut and hold it in your mouth; breath deeply to take in the intense flavors of garlic, lemmon, and spices. Let the breaded meat slide back on your tongue.

Swallow. Savor. Bang the table with your hand and make "mmmmm" noises.

Repeat, over and over.
A platter of milanesas will send your taste buds to heaven and your weight just as sky high in only one sitting.

If you don't care how the pounds pack on then I would advise pure Midwest fare and none is more Midwest than the traditional Tater-tot Casserole.

Also known as "Tater-tot Hot-dish" in Minnesota, (because they can't spell "casserole"), this unholy combo of seasoned browned hamburger meat, green beans from a can and frozen tater-tots is held together by a thick glue of Cream of Mushroom soup. Slosh the whole thing together in a Pyrex baking bowl and bake at 350 degrees for about an hour or until contents are boiling and the taters are brown.
Serve with hot beaten biscuits or corn bread slathered in honey butter for maximum poundage effect. I was going to say that one could always serve this over mashed potatoes but that would be overdoing it a bit. Save the mashed potatoes for your chicken and noodles instead.
(You know, it wasn't until I met my CA reared hubby that I came to know that chicky-noodles over mashed was NOT a good thing. DH was fairly horrified upon his first offering of the dish and sat me down to go over why this should not be served together anymore.
"Come on, think about it!" he cautioned, "NOODLES over mashed POTATOES!"
I stared back blankly.
"NOODLES and POTATOES are..."
"Good?"
"NNOOOO!!"
The answer he clearly wanted was "starches" but to my church basement casseroled mind naught but good could ever come from the two mixed together.)
But I digress.
The food is only half the battle. In a case like Jackson's, presentation of the food would have also played a key role. I would have insisted that Jackson dine "en famille". No taking a tray in one's room, no phone calls, texting, no shop talk. Just Michael and his children at a small kitchen table.
Should there not have been such an item in the place, I would have shopped for one. A simple Formica topped kitchen table with metal legs and a covering of checked oil cloth on which rests a plastic napkin holder with matching salt and pepper shakers. Some of you know what I'm talking about. In fact, you can likely see it right now in your mind's eye can't you; your Mother's kitchen table.
If they wanted seconds, great! Help yourselves! The bowls are all right there. You want to stage a food fight at the end? Go ahead but you all are going to clean it up!
To follow, I would have sought out what could have best passed for a back porch in that over-priced rented pile of bricks and served up, warming and steaming from the oven, home made cherry pie ala mode.
There is nothing quite like a back porch, a summer evening and pie to bring out stories, good conversation and simple contentment. If I could have imported fire flies from the Midwest, I would have if only to make the illusion of "home" complete.
Two weeks of this and I could have delivered unto his managers a well fed and well minded Michael Jackson.
There are those of course who would say, "Oh get real! The man was an anorexic! All your mila this and tater-tot that would have been floating to the LA river within the hour!"
Likely this would have been so. But let me dream, won't you? Let me dream of what could have been had the hangers on around this lost soul ever really truly cared enough to have gotten him the help he so painfully needed.
Let me dream about what difference a few fire flies and a slice of homemade pie might have made.

Let us dress like tramps in the house of the Lord



SO there I was last night, getting ready for Saturday night mass and I start to pull together an outfit based around leggings.
(in case some of you haven't noticed, leggings are back, better than ever)

Leggings.
For church.

What in heck was I thinking? I was seriously surprised that I had even considered such an outfit let alone started to put it on. If my Mother was still alive, she would have blisterd the dumb out of me with one withering look.
You see, I was born at the very tail end of the "matching shoes and purse" era. I was among the last of a generation that ever wore gloves with a hat to church or for any other event that would require our Mothers to put on their better girdles as well as their own matching hats, gloves, shoes and handbags.




We dressed up for almost everything back then. Even travel on a train or a plane, ESPECIALLY a plane required you to be turned out in a stylish and respectful outfit that let people know that you had been "fetched up right".

And here I was about to darken the Lord's door with my butt hanging out in spandex. That would have racked me up a "sin of near occasion" at the very least not to mention causing the ground around my Mother's grave to churn over.

Not that there's a dress code at our local church. Their belief is all about just getting the "asses in the pews" and the rest will follow. After all, isn't it more important that people feel free to come as they are to hear the word of the Lord rather than feeling uncomfortable at being made to dress up and then perhaps just not bothering to show up at all?

The trouble is, most of the congregation seems to be following the path of least resistance and showing up as they would for a back yard BBQ or a morning of garage sales. T-shirts emblazoned with skulls or other less than holy art work, shorts, bare legs...you get the picture.

Feeling comfortable and welcomed is one thing but how about a little respect while you're at it?
If you're going to wear a t-shirt; fine but make it a clean one and maybe not one in which the Lady of Guadalupe is depicted as a skeleton.

Underwear should not be optional. Wear it and be thankful you don't have to put a slip on under it all the way we did back in the day along with the gloves and purses that never stayed clean no matter how careful we were.


I'll be honest; I hated wearing the frilly dresses my Mom picked out for me. She'd be going all Shirley Temple at her polka-dotted, puffed sleeved best while what I really wanted was a sailor
dress like the one below. Infact I did have one and would have happily worn it all the time but Mom said that I looked like an escapee from the Von Tramp Family Singers and would hide it from time to time just to get me to vary my wardrobe.


I guess it could have been worse. I could have been a boy and then she'd really have given me something to howl about by dressing me like the poor soul pictured below:



Say, if you're wondering where I'm getting these great old catalog images, stroll over to:
and take a trip down memory lane. From the 30's to the 80's, the Christmas of your childhood dreams is on parade.
Having a fondness for dolls, of course the first section I always go to is the doll part and that's where I found this little lady:
Yes, this baby doll is ASKING you to spank her. The manufacturer has even gone as far to stitch directions for where your hand should go, right on the ol' fanny where it says, "Here".
And watch groups thought "Tickle me Elmo" promoted potential violence???
Of course I went right over to ebay to see if anyone was selling this little gem of a bygone era but so far, no luck. What a conversation piece THAT would be!
Just do me a favor; if you're thinking that an adult version of this outfit would make for a swell Holloween costume, fine! Go for it along with some gin in that baby bottle.
Just don't wear it to church.


Come Saturday Morning...

...I'm going to the local Salvation Army
to see if they have any more 36 inch Shirley Temple Playpal dolls
in their original dresses for half off the asking price like they did
last Dec. only someone got there before me and snagged her.


And, no, they didn't have any more.

Damn.

Infact the whole place was pretty well picked clean by the time we got there. You see, the last Saturday of the month, that SA store cleans out their whole stock by offering everything in the store at half off. We once got a bee-u-tee-full deep purple sectional there for only $100.00.


It was clean and in very good shape, matched our existing couch and marked the beginning of our being able to entertain more than one or two people at a time. Prior to that, we all had to sit on the couch in a row or on the floor; your pick.

So now we have a conversation "area" centered around the coffee table. Very swank.


Well we watched "Ghost Adventures" last night.



It was "ok". Zack didn't run around screaming like he used to. In the first season, so much as a moth would flutter by and Zack would leap in the air 3 feet, and run screaming down the halls like a girl all the while shouting,


"Omigod!Omigod!Omigod!

Speaking of moths, most of the "orbs" that get captured on their night vision cameras are in fact moths.

"Our camera captured this image of an orb following us" Zack will intone in voice over and from the purple couch my husband will yell;

"It's a MOTH, stupid!"

I feel sorry for the ghosts that encounter Zack. In addition to having very bad hair,




he has a very abrasive attitude towards the departed in which he'll bark out commands for them to "show themselves!"

"Make a sound if you can hear me!"

"Make that picture come off the wall!"

"Make that light go and off!"

No one likes being barked at, not even a dead person so of course, they ignore him all the while likely giving him a ghostly finger.


The spirits however do like Aaron.


Paitent, long suffering Aaron, always so polite, so sympathic to the passed over.

"I'm sorry you had to die," he'll tell them, "I'm sorry you were stabbed, strangled, decapitated," or, as in the episode in a truly hellish prison, raped to death by other imates in the shower,

"I'm sorry you had to die like that!"

The spirits appreciate respect and so they reward Aaron with all kinds of strange sounds, knocks, bumps and harshly whispered salutations such as

"Get out!"

"I kill you!"

"Die!"

that turn up on his MP3 recorder. This may be directed towards Zack who I think is a little jealous of Aaron. This may explain why he's always such a jerk towards him. Poor Aaron will start to say something and Zack will hold up his hand and yell,

"SHUTUP!SHUTUP!SHUTUP!"

Zack will stand there poised for flight, eyes all wild, claiming that he heard something. Now, for all he knows maybe Aaron is trying to be helpful by warning him about something.

Aaron: "Hey, Zack!"

Zack: (holds hand up in dismisive nature towards Aaron)

"SHUTUP!SHUTUP!"

Aaron: "But, Zack..."

Zack, (flails arms about wildly) 'SHHHHHHH!!!"

Aaron: "Dude, your hair, it's ON FIRE!"

Zack: (flails whole body about wildly)

"ARRRGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

camera shows Zack tearing off down the hall. Camera pans back over to Aaron who looks at camera and shakes his head.

The website for the show announces that on 10/30 they will be doing a 7 hour lockdown in a horrible old state mental looney bin, the kind that makes "Cuckoos Nest" look like a day at Preschool. One can access it on the web.

7 straight hours of Zack screaming and Aaron shaking his head and getting attacked by ghosts.

Can't wait!

Well, Heck!

THAT was easy! Very easy!

Oh, what JOY! DH, (Dear Husband), will be so pleased...it's not like I'm online most of the time as it is...now I can be on even more. He'll be thrilled!

(not)



So....so....ah. Hmmm....can't think of a thing to say now that I have the floor all to myself...

Jacko is room temp! Oh, you all knew that, huh?



What's the little video thingy do up in the toolbar? Let's check that out....



Ok, let's try it again...

Well, it's doing something....damn this is sloooowww tonight. Anyone else with slow internet tonight?

If I had known it would take this long....

Still waiting....it's gonna be time to go soon. "Ghost Adventures" starts soon. We love that show if only to see two things:

1) how bad Zack's hair looks

2) to see how high he'll jump and how loud he'll scream. Man screams like a girl.

Seriously, I cannot get over how the hair person on set does his hair! It sticks out all over like a cartoon characters. Sometimes it looks like that spikes in the statue of liberty's crown.

Keep telling DH that one day when we get a video camera, we need to film a take off on the show with him as Zack. We'd be a Youtube hit.

AHA! Finally! Long day 'mong all, the vid is up!

Ok, that's enough blogg blah for one day. Let's post the puppy and see if it bites.






I don't actually have anything to rant about just now...I'm just going along here, trying to figure this out, see if it works and all.


Took all of 15 minutes to come up with the name. You see, I wanted a cool name, one that stood out. Some of my favorite blogs like "Thorn in a Pew" or "The Crescat" or "Ask Sister MaryMartha" (life is tough, nuns are tougher), have such unique and interesting titles for their little virtual world.






However, I figured that Google may not allow some of my ...some of my....ok now I DO have something to rant about; I wanted the pic of the globe down after the word, "world". I can't even get it to delete! WTH??

Ok, went to delete the pic and now the whole POST is gone! What the????




AHA! I see how this works now....let me add that globe back in....ok that worked. Anyway, I figured such snappy catch titles like "Bitch in a Box" or even my old nickname of "Bagpipe Bitch" would not be welcomed. I mean my family might one day read this hot mess and the last thing I need is disapproving looks via email.
(Or even Sister MaryMartha might venture on here! One shouldn't piss off nuns!)
Alright, let's post this puppy and see how it looks!