I Hate the Bizarre Media Circus Surrounding the Sad Creepy Man who Cut Up His Own Face

This has to stop. The man was sad, creepy and weird, and that he cut up his own face.

I liked the guy. He was a talented performer, a great dancer, and a consumate entertainer. I hope he's in a better place now.

But why did he do that to his own face?

Here is the BEFORE photo, what he USED to look like:


He was a good looking guy. A normal, average-looking dude with some sex appeal and a wicked-awesome afro that white guys like me can only envy.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the face in the above photo. MJ looks great. He could go his whole life looking like that and everyone would love him.

Instead, he chose to become this AFTER photo:


He was hideous. I cannot look at his mutilated face without wanting to vomit. It is utterly horrific, what he did to his face.

And he did it on purpose.

The man cut up his face.

I don't care what excuses anyone serves up to explain this away. "He never had a normal childhood." Waa. "He had 'Daddy issues.'" Boo hoo.

It does not change the horrific fact that he

Cut.

Up.

His.

Face.

Let's not kid ourselves. He is not an "icon." He is sad, creepy and weird.

The fact that Jesse Jackson Al Sharpton are boostering a man who so obviously wanted to disown his Black heritage is beyond parody. Everything about MJ's funeral is beyond parody. You couldn't make fun of it if you tried.

And, believe me, I've tried.

But Michael Jackson is dead now, and he should be left to lie in peace. Remember him, if you will, as he was before he lost control. Or else, remember him as a cautionary tale of what you do not want to become when fame threatens to eat your soul alive. But do not remember him as an icon. He certainly was not that.

If you absolutely need a fallen hero to worship, there are plenty of normal ones to go around.

Elvis is Everywhere

Elvis is in second century AD Rome.

UPDATE!

I found the Mojo Nixon song I was thinking of when I wrote the title to this post:



Mojo Nixon sings the truth!

Sanjaya Continues to Soar Above the Rest!

Tonight is results night on American Idol! It's gonna be another big night for the Unstoppable Sanjaya Juggernaut!

I didn't actually see his performance yesterday, so I have no idea whether he did good, bad or whatever.

Here's what happened: I was watching the show last night, but Sanjaya didn't sing until the very end. Just before he was about to go on, the phone rang. So I hit the remote control button that did the "Pause Live Television" thing, and I answered the phone. Then, when I got off the phone, I hit the button that I thought was supposed to resume paused TV, but instead, it flipped the channel to Bill O'Reilly's pugly face yammering about something stupid like Anna Nicole's baby or Don Imus or something.

So I switched back to American Idol, but Sanjaya's song was almost over, and the Windows Media Center does not store paused TV in its memory if you flip the channel while it's paused. So I only caught the last couple notes of him singing some song I don't know and didn't even understand the words to.

Dammit, Bill O'Reilly. This is your fault.

Anyway, not having heard Sanjaya's performance, I had to use my imagination as to what it must have been like. Then I edited up a Sanjaya picture in MS Paint in order to create a visual representation of what I envisioned in my mind.

It came out something like this:

That rules! If I knew I was going to imagine something as awesome as that, I totally would have voted for him while the polls were open last night!

Sanjaya's Star Burns Brighter than Ever!

Well, just as I predicted yesterday, Sanjaya has sailed through to the next round on American Idol. I didn't see the results show, but fortunately Drudge linked to an informative New York Post article. with the headline, FANS STILL 'IDOL'IZE SANJAYA.

Who is the idiot who writes headlines at the NY Post? I ask because I am genuinely puzzled at the Post's use of Pun Quotes around the word "IDOL" as though it is a clever word play to point out that Sanjaya is an "idol" who--coincidentally--appears on a show that has the word "idol" in its title.

The word "idol" is defined: "somebody or something greatly admired or loved, often to excess." This is what "idol" means in the title of the TV show, American Idol, and it is the same meaning of the word (in verb form) as used in the sentence, "Fans still idolize Sanjaya."

That is not a pun. That is a word used twice to mean the same thing. Why are Pun Quotes put around the second word use?

A pun would be a play on something like the homophones "idle" and "idol." You could say, "Sanjaya's career stalled when he 'idoled' it for too long." That is a pun. It is not a pun to say, "Sanjaya is an idol who sings on American 'Idol'," which is essentially what the NY Post did. That would be like me saying, "I watched American Idol, and also, I'm an 'American'."

Modern society uses Pun Quotes either way too much or way too little. I'm going to say that they're used way too "little." We need to use "quotation marks" much more often and for "no" apparant reason, "people." Nothing "spices up" an English sentence quite like "the" frequent and ind"is"criminant use of Pun Quotes!

I have one "last" point I feel "obligated" to make today since a couple days ago I linked to a story about "Belgians" taxing barbeque cookouts: There is an "UPDATE" to that "interesting" article.

Basically, it turns out that whole thing was nothing but "lies."

It's Sanjaya's Time to Shine!

According to Ken Warwick, executive producer for American Idol, Sanjaya is not expected to win this year despite fans' earnest efforts to keep him on the show.

It is not clear how Warwick could possibly know this unless he had some kind of special knowledge, like access to secret vote tallys that the rest of us are not privy to. I think Warwick's full of it.

So wax up your Sanjaya Mohawk and get out there and vote for our boy!

No One Rocks Harder than REO Speedwagon

Not Foreigner, not Fleetwood Mac, not even Boston. REO Speedwagon belongs in a category all its own, head and shoulders above the rest.


Remember when the '80's were coming to a close? It seemed as though you couldn't turn on a television or radio without some clueless talking head proclaiming that REO Speedwagon's best days were behind them, that REO Speedwagon just wouldn't last in the '90's. How wrong they were. The '90's proved to be some of REO Speedwagon's most fertile years where they released their most vital and most timely compilations of their previous hits.

Be assured, REO Speedwagon shows no signs of slowing down or resting on their laurels. Even today they are continuing to re-release their hits from the '70's and the '80's for brand new compilations and "best of" albums. And their fame continues to skyrocket apace. Who could have guessed that REO Speedwagon, after its humble start playing bars across the Midwest would today be playing venues as big as state fairs, casinos and cruise ships?

It's success well deserved for REO Speedwagon. No one rocks harder, thrashes louder or pounds out more musical agression than REO Speedwagon.

And the Winner is . . . !

A big "Congratulations" are in order for Pat Johnson, Gerry Kelly, Vicki Kirchner, Colleen Pettit, and Lorena Soloranza! (Click on image to enlarge)

We all have dreams, and these girls reached for the stars! Look at where they are now today! Thanks to these priceless locks of Donny Osmond's hair, each of these girls grew up to form the singing sensation group, the Pussycat Dolls!

Okay, I can't vouch for certain that these girls are actually pubescent versions of the actual Pussycat Dolls. For one thing, I don't think the Pussycat Dolls could have been 11-14 years of age in the mid-seventies when this contest had to have taken place.

So my second guess would be the Spice Girls. In fact, that sounds like a much better guess. I'm almost positive that one of the Spice Girl's real name was "Gerry Kelly." That couldn't be just a coincidence, right?

So if Gerry Spice was 14 in, we'll say, 1977, that would make her... 27 in 1990...

Hmm... Gosh, that doesn't seem quite right either. I'm not entirely sure when the Spice Girls album came out, but 1990 seems a little early, and 27 is pushing the age boundry.

Rats. Well, I hope these girls eventually got together and did something great. It's hard to believe all of them had locks of Donny's hair and nothing came of it.