iRony

I knew it wouldn't be long before silly season started after the death of Steve Jobs. I just didn't know that it would be SO soon and SO completely freaking asinine. But then again, whenever there is the possibility of the Westboro Baptist Church having anything to do with anything, I guess I can't expect a guarantee.

Shortly after the death of Steve Jobs was made known to the world, we were all privy to a tweet from the completely idiotic Margie J Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church Phelps'. These are the people (their brains likely riddled with syphilis and no longer capable of rational thought) who tend to picket the funerals of soldiers killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They also like to picket funerals of people who were gay or supported gay rights. In general, they're just a bunch of a-holes. That is most easily evidence by Margie Phelps' tweet which is seen below. Behold!


That's right. They're going to picket his funeral. Please do not let the irony of the fact that she sent this from her iPhone (which, in case you were unaware, Steve Jobs freaking invented!) escape you. And when this was pointed out to her (through a bazillion tweets in the Twitterverse), she gave just the sort of response that I would have expected would have come from someone like her. Behold!

Right. That's why you used your iPhone. Because God made it to tell us that. And look, without even challenging her beliefs, I'm just going to come right out and say that I'm pretty sure that God did not create the iPhone. The small children in China that assemble iPhones have had more of a hand in the creation process than God did. And while I'm on the subject, how is it that none of these Westboro people have been shot yet? I'm merely wondering out loud. I'm not suggesting violence by any means. (I AM a fan of about two percent vigilante justice, however. And I think that these lunatics would qualify for my system.) I'm just sayin'.

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Late To Her Own Funeral

I'm not much for dwelling on the deaths of celebrities from the days of yore. But I just learned something about Elizabeth Taylor's funeral that I found interesting and highly amusing. It's also something that I am going to implement into my own funeral service one day. (And that day will probably not ever come quick enough for me. I've thought about titling my autobiography "Sprinting Toward The Grave - The Story of Me". But, I'm sure that I'm going to live a very long life, filled to the brim with frustration and annoyance at every day occurrences, politics and bureaucracy. That would be just my luck.)

From the folks over at AOL News, we learn that Elizabeth Taylor was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery yesterday and things did not start on time. No. According to her publicist (Elizabeth Taylor still needed a publicist?), Sally Morrison, "The service began 15 minutes after its announced start time in observance of Taylor's parting wish that her funeral start late." That's right. Taylor had left instructions asking for the tardy start and had requested that someone announce, "She even wanted to be late for her own funeral," Morrison said. I find that to be just awesome. That's what I want to do. Make people laugh one last time after I'm dead. That's a true entertainer right there. Nice job.

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Whatchoo Talkin' 'Bout, Shannon? Part Deux

I was right. Shannon Price is the gift that keeps on giving. Man. Now, I really didn't mean to drag this out for three days. Why TMZ can't just put all of their footage of this whack job in one place, I don't know. But if I am to assume that this is the last of it (it being the odd, odd interview that she gave to TMZ), then TMZ saved the best for last because this stuff is pretty good.

It has become evident to me that this girl was far from intelligent. I'd call her dumb, but that just doesn't seem very nice. She appears to be under the impression that she is a hot item right about now in the aftermath of the demise of her pocket-sized husband. Yeah, she's not receiving all of this attention because we're so fascinated with her eloquence of speech. She's receiving the minimal amount of attention that she is because she has said some weird things in this interview. And none of them are what you would expect from the supposedly now grieving Widow Coleman.

Now, according to TMZ, this interview was shot the day after Gary's death. In the one part, she spends an awful lot of time discussing finances, mainly how she has none. Stick with me here and see if you can spot the irony in these segments.

"We went to Vegas a lot, 'cause I love Vegas. I love getting pampered there. I love shopping there. Obviously, I would buy the high end stuff. But...we always had to stay in Caesar's Palace, because that's where I would shop. But we always got the Bellagio fountain view room. Because we were obsessed with watching that fountain. We thought it was really cool."

Obviously she would be the high end stuff? Because Gary Coleman was such a big celebrity, he just had cash oozing everywhere, is that it? Tell me again why it is that I would have cared where you stayed? Or shopped, for that matter. Good for you? I don't rightly know what to say to all of that. But I DO know what to say after her next little bit.

"Um, you know, our life together has not always been the best...financially. And right now...I'm struggling. You know, to, to, to figure out what I'm going to do for funeral costs. And I don't know how I'm going to survive. You know. It's been a really rough while because Gary hasn't had much work because of his health."

Soooo...let me get this straight. You bought all of the high end stuff in Vegas where, according to your own admission, went "a lot". And less than a minute after bragging about all of your high falutin' ways (I have no idea how to spell falutin', so I guessed), you're telling me you don't know what you're going to do about funeral costs? I find that hard to believe, ma'am. Very hard to believe indeed. Tell me some more tales.

OK, then. She goes on to whine that "Our finances were great when I met him. I mean, we had, we had...he had fantastic...he had a lot of work and was doing a lot of projects and stuff, but, um...now...I basically have nothing. I mean, you know, I mean he was never able to have life insurance because of his renal failure. Because of his kidney disease. He was never able to get that. (long pause) Which is SAD because, you know, that could have helped with funeral costs and everything else. Soooo, I'm just wishing and hoping that people will pour out to us and really show their compassion like they have...have been sending the letters and the emails."

Again, let me get this straight. You brag about spending money in Vegas all of the time. Next thing out of your mouth is how you hope that people will (and I'm using your words here, cupcake) "pour out to us" just like they've been doing when they send "the letters and the emails". Are you dry shaving me? You piss away all of the money and now you want people to not just help you out, you want them to pour money to you? I don't think that's such a good idea. Tell me something, didn't it cross your teeny, tiny little brain that if Gary couldn't get life insurance, then there should be some sort of ::: gasp! ::: saving going on over there? You know...saving? It's where you don't spend!!

And it's probably not a real good idea to get me started on funeral costs. For those of you kind enough to have followed this blog after the predictable demise of Corey Haim, I pointed out that you don't need a lot of money to bury someone. A little cremation and an urn can be had for under $1,000. And you can get a swell cremains plot (still oogs me out that they call them that) for under $1,000 as well. Don't be spouting off that you need thousands and thousand of dollars for burial costs. That's just a bunch of crap right there.

In another part of the interview, she begins to wax poetic about...something. It's very odd. You know how you can put your iPod on "Shuffle" and it just plays songs at random? I think that she put her vocabulary on "Shuffle" because she was just spouting word salad there for about a minute and a half. It begins...like this...

"I mean (puts her head down like she dropped a quarter or something), I mean, I feel bad you know, for Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan because they're so under the microscope. But, you know, I mean at the same time, I don't have any remorse for Lindsay. She parties all the time, you know? She's the one who makes herself look bad. You know, I...I...I used to really respect her because she had red hair and she was so cute in "Parent Trap" and stuff like that." Um...what now?

She feels bad. No, wait! She doesn't feel bad. But she...wait. She used to respect Lindsay Lohan because she had red hair? Did I hear that correctly? You base your respect of people based on hair color? Man, you must idolize Carrot Top. Seriously, what in the hell was she talking about. What do Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears have to do with her husband falling down and cracking open his dome?

"But like I said, I think that Gary would have been a good role model. Because he's not into drugs. He wasn't seeny like that. (Yes, I know I typed "seeny". I listened to it four times. She said "seeny". Not "seedy". Seeny. Clearly, her linguistic abilities did not play much of a part in why he married her.) He would go out to restaurants and, you know, do his thing. (He would go to restaurants and do his thing? What sort of a thing was that? Eat? That's my thing when I go to restaurants. I eat.) You know, and live his life. But he didn't want to be a part of...he didn't want to be friends with celebrities. He told me that. He was like I don't want to be in Hollywood."

She doesn't specify just who Gary could have been a good role model to. I certainly can't picture him being a good role model for Lindsay, only because I really can't see the two of them hanging out long enough for him to be a role model. And how many times was it that he was arrested for assault? At least twice, right? Hmmm...so she can't mean that his temperament was good role model material. He was a mall cop for a while. Would he have been a good role model for shorter statured mall cops? Hard to say. Hard. To. Say.

Let's wrap this up here. "And...I really respect the guy that he didn't want to be friends with celebrities. (long pause) Because a lot of them have issues. I mean, they have everything in the world, but a lot of them want to commit suicide. (long pause) You know, they just have a negative outlook on a lot of things."

Wow. She has the ability to look deep within the soul of celebrities and tell the world what's really going on in there. How does she know this, exactly? She seems to have the facts skewed just a little bit. See, Gary would have liked to have stayed in Hollywood. But Hollywood sort of chewed him up and spit him out a long time ago. There's a reason the little dude was so angry all of the time and that had a lot to do with it.

If you are thinking about sending money to this nutjob or if you know someone who is thinking about sending money to this nutjob, do I have a deal for you! Since you clearly have more money than you know what to do with, I'd like to propose that you send the exact same amount to me. It'll go to good use. I promise! I mean, I'm sure that I would enjoy getting pampered in Vegas and buying all sort of high end stuff! Seriously. I don't have a really short husband with kidney failure who died after he fell and I couldn't be troubled by the mess of the blood to go downstairs and help him or anything, but I swear that I'm worth at least every penny that anyone would consider sending to Shannon Price.

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Funding Burials Through eBay

In case you haven't heard, Corey Haim is dead. In case you were like me and already thought that he was dead, he wasn't. He is now, but it's new dead, not old dead. But dead is dead. And drug addicts are drug addicts. A lot of them end up in that dead is dead category. What are you going to do? (Uhhh....stop doing drugs? Now there's an idea!)

Apparently, Mr. Haim's situation was that, because he was a difficult drug addict to work with (hard to do good work when you're not there, so I've heard) he didn't have a lot of offers pouring in. And without offers, you're without work. And when you're without work, you're without money. Now, when you die, as crazy as this may seem, folks want you to pay money to them in order to bury you. That's hard to do when you don't have any money. And it's really hard to do when you're dead. That's why the whole 'paying for your funeral thing' is left up to those who didn't ruin their lives by ingesting so many drugs that it eventually and likely played a part in their demise in a downtown LA apartment building when they were 38. (By the way, a bit of useless trivia for you: Singer and woman kidnapper Rick James died in the same apartment building whenever it was that he met his predictable demise.)

Turns out, however, that Corey Haim's mother didn't have any money either. She has apparently been battling cancer. Cancer makes it hard to work. I don't have a problem with that. (Nice job, Corey. Couldn't curtail your drug usage to the point where you wouldn't have croaked and where your cancer riddled mother wouldn't have had to deal with the death of her son. Man, Corey Feldman was right. You were just a stand up guy.) What I have a problem with is how she was raising money for her son's funeral. I mean, maybe there's something that is not weird about selling your son's belongings on eBay for funeral change, but I don't know what that something would be.

That's right. She was selling his belongings on eBay. According to the folks over there at Associated Content (they're "The people's media company" doncha know?) "...most of Haim's personal belongings are being sold on eBay in order to raise money for the funeral." Now, I don't know if I was just late to the party or what, but I while there were plenty of Corey Haim items for sale on eBay (mostly autographed photos and the odd, odd memorial T-shirts that you can whip up 45 seconds after someone dies), I didn't find a lot that were his personal belongings. I did find this lovely dress shirt which sold for $99. Behold!

And I also found this Corey Haim toothbrush with a certificate of authenticity! So that's something! Behold!

Huh. The toothbrush, to my surprise, actually has one bid in on it and the bid is for $250! Who buys Corey Haim's toothbrush for $250? What are you going to do with that? See, I get buying memorabilia, but I prefer it to be relevant to the person that owned it. I mean, I would totally buy Elvis Presley's empty prescription drug bottles. Now THAT is memorabilia. I wouldn't go as seedy as to buy Bill Clinton's cigar box or anything like that. But I'd buy Whitney Houston's crack pipe. That'd be somethin'! David Carradine's belt? Sold! What can I say? I like a good conversation piece.

Side note: The personal items like the shirt are being auctioned off by a one Scott Schwartz. Apparently, the family gave the items to him to put on eBay, so it's not like he's doing it just to make money off of Corey Haim's boxer shorts or anything like that. He was a friend of Corey's. And if the name doesn't ring a bell, perhaps when I mention that he was the kid in the movie A Christmas Story who got his tongue frozen stuck on the flagpole. There's a claim to fame for you! You're known as "Tongue on the Flagpole" guy AND the merchant auctioning off Corey's Haim's dress pants on eBay. That's a job title if I've ever heard of one.

I have two points with all of this. The first point goes back to the absolutely reprehensible Corey Feldman. Dude, if you knew that your friend died broke, what say you kick in a bit and make it so that it doesn't go public, all right? If he was "your friend" and you want him to be remembered as "a legend" (he wasn't a legend, by the way, so that was never going to happen, I was just saying), what say you see if you can scrounge up some cash for his funeral and his burial? What say you ask the addle brained Larry King (whose show you're always on when one of your past cohorts kicks it)? Why don't you ask him to pony up some cash for this guy's funeral? Why don't you do anything besides shoving your face behind every microphone out there and saying how much you loved him, while at the same time, someone is auctioning his tube socks on eBay? What is wrong with you?

And my second point is more of just a point of contention. I understand that caskets and burials are expensive. I know that very well. But you know, there is an option. There is cremation. And it's a heck of a lot cheaper. Don't get me wrong. If you are planning on just burying someone in a casket and then you find out you're going to be going to cremation route, it's a bit tough to swallow at first. I don't know why. They're just as dead either way. What I'm saying is that it's not like there aren't any options if you don't have the cash for a casket. When my Dad died, I had no idea he wanted to be cremated. And learning of that desire was not exactly the easiest thing I've ever had to swallow. But the cremation by the Neptune Society was about a thousand dollars (and I'm in the heart of ridiculously expensive Silicon Valley, so don't be giving me any crap about my location or anything like that). We put him in a beautiful cherry wood container with a coastal scene engraved on it along with his name and everything for another three hundred bucks. (There was no way I was going with the stock, flimsy, fake brass container for $35!) We bought a plot for cremains (yes, that's what they're called and it oogs me out, too) in an awesome little cemetery in a tiny coastal town with massive pine trees everywhere and a view of a small ravine for $750. AND you're allowed to stack FOUR cremains in that thing! So technically, his portion of the plot was only $187.50! My Dad loved a good deal. I'm sure he was happy with it all.

So there are options. For a little over two grand, my Dad got the best burial I could have wanted for him. But beforehand, I wouldn't have known that I would have wanted that. In the end, it's all the same. He's exactly where he would have been no matter how we did it. And now he's where he is at a fraction of the cost of a full on casketed burial. I guess I'm just a little irritated that Corey Haim being penniless at death means that there needs to be thousands and thousands (the family is estimating twenty grand, by the way) of dollars raised for his burial. That's not what needs to happen. People need to stop acting like it does.

I just got done looking at a bunch of photos on Corey Haim's website. (Yes! He had a website!) Most of them were of him looking gaunt and strung out. You know, like a drug addict. But there were a bunch of them from when he was younger and before the drugs either had grabbed hold of him or before they had taken their toll. And I realize that the guy in those photos is the son that his mother lost. I'm sarcastic, I'm not heartless. My sincere condolences go out to his mom. Outliving your child does not sound like anything that anyone should have to go through. If you have a problem with whatever substance you choose, do everyone a favor and get off your drugs, try thinking about someone other than yourself for a change and edge yourself closer to making sure that you don't put your parents in the position that Corey Haim put his parents.

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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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