on the recent death of Michael Jackson

So the wheels have been turning since Thursday, when Farrah Fawcett died and then of course, some guy named Michael Jackson. I was sitting on the bus, coming home from my mother's house in the suburbs when my mother called saying that MJ is either dead or on his death bed. With Farrah, it was expected--with Michael, it wasn't. I talked to the bus driver before I got off at Hazel and we were both shocked to hear that he had died. Text messaging ensued. First with Yvvone, then phone calls from Shelley. Wow. MJ is gone.

True to form, Americans have made MJ a top seller on iTunes, sharing the spotlight only with that of The Black Eyed Peas. To those people, I say this: Put down the music, walk away. You didn't realize what you had until it was gone. Fuck off. Unless you're doing it to help pay off Jackson's 457 million dollars in debt, then fine. But you're holding onto something that you gave up on many years ago. As soon as Jacko starting showing issues of being "weird" or "unorthodox" you bolted. Fuck off. You didn't deserve him.

This is not to say that I was a die hard fan. I liked some tunes--I won't lie. And when MJ came over the speakers, I would certainly head out to the dance floor. I had a Michael Jackson doll when I was a little girl and the making of the Thriller video casette (directed by John Landis, no doubt). And while I am sad for the music communities loss, and my heart goes out to his family and his children, you will not find me taking quizzes on facebook about "Which Michael Jackson song are you?" or running out to buy his CDs. I am old enough to remember what it was like when Kurt Cobain died. How every music special on MTV was about Nirvana and we were so inundated with reports, music videos, MTV News, Unplugged...and my sister and I ate it up. We were holding onto someone because the loss was sudden--but it made it seem like he wasn't really dead, because he was everywhere. Finally, four months after that April...while watching "Heart Shaped Box" on MTV, it finally sunk in. Kurt was dead. And this is all I have left.

I still listen to Nirvana occasionally and when I do, a feeling flows through my veins of being young, confused, and utterly spent at trying to figure this world out. Those memories of my youth. I wouldn't change them for the world. And I suppose that is what the rest of these people are doing--holding on to something they were once, before they had to grow up and get responsible. Before they were to lose themselves in taxes, elections, world relations and complicated marriages/divorces. Before kids, before government bailouts, before George W. Bush.
Something from your childhood is dead, I get that. But that is no way to move forward.

I wonder what this world would be like if we mourned every soldier who has died in Iraq/Afghanistan the way we've mourned Michael Jackson. Just sayin'.

Tweet Tweet Tweetle Dee Dee

I'm on twitter now...though I'm not exactly sure as to why...more on that later.

Candide? Can-do-it already.

After a grueling second semester at Chicago's Roosevelt University, I was ready to enjoy a laundry list of books I had been compiling since I had started my Junior year. Although I had read a number of books over Christmas break (gasp! I mean Winter Break!), I knew which ones I was ready to tackle and which ones I would wait until next winter to read.

First on my list was Scott Blackwood's We Agreed to Meet Just Here. Blackwood heads up the MFA program at Roosevelt and I've met him a few times. I liked his book--though I can't really tell you why, nor can I really tell you what it is about. It mixes some actual events with Jonestown with mythology and stream of consciousness in an interesting way. I will definitely have to read it once more before school starts again.

Next on the list was Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. Bottom line--really drawn out sentences, great imagery, all within the classification of modern writing. I do prefer Woolf's criticism--probably because she makes reference of James Joyce and let's face it--anytime Joyce is mentioned, I have to swoon. And yet, swooning at Woolf's affection of Joyce's work is rather odd in itself.

Then my mother swooped down and said, "Why don't you read Candide?" I looked at her with disapproving eyes. I've just finished reading T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland...and you want me to take a step backward and read Voltaire? "I can-did already," I said, quite sarcastically. And when I couldn't tell her anything I had read about it except for that it was anti-Christian, she gave me her copy and sent me on my way.
When I cracked Candide, I found it to be a very quick and easy read and basically anyone who pissed Voltaire off in his life, be it personal or professional, got a shout out in the book---and not a very positive one at that. So basically, if you pissed Mr. Voltaire off, you got killed or portrayed very stupidly in his work. Which leaves me to only one conclusion, Voltaire was a bitch. And our hero, Candide? What an idiot he turned out to be.
When I finished the story, I went back to my mother to talk about it--her plan all along, really. She does this with her own mother; my mom will watch a third rate soap opera (I won't mention the name but it rhymes with One Life To Live) just so she can have something to talk to my grandmother about. God knows they can't talk about politics because we voted for Obama and not Sarah Palin.** So it this what has become of our relationship? She wanted to talk--or she just wanted someone to converse with on Candide?
I called her on the phone. "Hey Mom," I started," I finished Candide."
"Oh, and what did you think?" she asked. "Eh--Candide was a dope." She laughed. Then I asked her some questions about some of the locations of the story--to which she replied, "Oh I don't know Chris, it's been about twelve years since I've read it." My mouth dropped.
"I thought you wanted me to read it to talk about it?" I asked. "Well, yes," she said, "but didn't you like how they made fun of the Catholic church?" There goes her chance at being canonized.

I since have moved onto Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which I am quite enjoying but also nearly finished. I'll give a proper (proper? really?) review of it later. Perhaps around the time I figure out what I'll be reading next.

**I realize that Sarah Palin was the VP candidate, not the Presidential one. But my Grandmother didn't like McCain--she loved Palin. Hence the Obama V. Palin comment. Oh, by the way, in case you didn't already guess, Obama would still win against Palin.

Envy Becomes Her

What exactly is it about women that we feel that we can never truly be happy for other women? Oh don't look at me like that. You know exactly of what I speak. It is like we're born with some naturally arched eyebrow and when we reach a certain age, we spritz ourselves with eau de jalousie, then hit the town in our stilettos and black dress--prowling for men and ready to claw out the eyes of some other bitch who steals our spotlight. Too much? Hrm. Where did I place those Lee Press-ons?

A friend, Cyndi, brought this to my attention. She got a call from an old friend of hers and this friend is getting married. An over joyous event, for certain. But she couldn't help but feel that little green monster creep up inside of her and take control. "When I got off the phone with her, I immediately started doing sit-ups" she told me over coffee at Kahawa House last Thursday. Sure, Cyndi is 35 and single--and up until then she was loving every minute of it. So what changed? One more single man off the market? Or one more single girl converting to the coveted "couplehood."

I remember watching a few Sex In The City episodes about this topic of the Singletons v. the Marrieds and with Carrie and the girls--the Singletons won out in the end. The Marrieds were envious of their former lives and of the hot and raunchy sex they assumed the Singletons were having. Apparently they forgot all about the lonely nights waiting for your buzzer to ring to signal that the Chinese delivery boy is ready with your Asian delicacies--and that you ate it all in one sitting, watching reruns of Boston Legal, wondering why you can't find your own personal Alan Shore--and then you remember that Alan is a dick and you know plenty of those. Or maybe that is just me.

The fact is that women are very catty. We want others to be jealous of us, so we have to play into the game. It's somewhat like the lottery--a very insecure lottery. And you don't even need breasts and a vagina to play--some of the men I know are some of the most manipulative and envious people out there. I'm not saying that it is wrong--and I'm not saying it is right for that matter. It is human. We want the best things for ourselves and fuck everyone else. It's the American Dream.

"So what should I do," Cyndi asks me. I sit up a bit stronger in my chair--"You go to the wedding. You let her have her day--and someday, it will be yours. And if this gives you more motivation to change the things about you that you've been wanting to deal with, then fine. But at the end of it all, she will still be married. That won't change reality." It's shiesty advice--for sure. Eau de Jalousie is an airy fragrance but it should never be traded in for it's stronger smelling stench of Hatred, Cockblocker or Regret.