Go Straight To Hell; Do Not Pass 'Go'

Wanna make sure you go to hell? And I mean straight to hell. No passing 'Go'. No collecting $200. Just straight to hell. If so, then might I suggest purposefully going 85 mph on the freeway in the wrong direction in an attempt to kill yourself, but being unsuccessful and instead, killing a 35-year old woman (who was 4 months pregnant) and her 13-year old son. Oh, and then suing the family of the woman that you killed. Yeah, that should do it.

According to ABC News, in March of 2009, a then 16-year old Justine Winter allegedly caused the crash just an hour after breaking up with her boyfriend. As if going on a mission to kill yourself whilst driving 85 mph in the wrong direction on the freeway, she was texting as she did it. See? Texting and driving kills. Don't do it.

The prosecutors are focusing on a series of those texts that occurred right before the crash. They include sentiments such as "If I won, I would have you. And I wouldn't crash my car." And "That's why I'm going to wreck my car. Because all I can do is f*** up. Because I am a terrible person and I know it." She also made sure that her last words were not only known, but extremely significant. "Good bye ... my last words." Yeah, that seems pretty cut and dried there.

But that's only because I am a (relatively) sane individual. I am not Justine Winter, nor am I any of the adults who are representing her. They are all, clearly, horrible individuals. They have sued the deceased woman's (Erin Thompson) estate, "...with her husband Jason Thompson as a representative, as well as three businesses that operate and provide services on Highway 93." Yeah, she's saying that the businesses failed "...to properly maintain the highway, which was under construction at the time." Well, it is hard to maintain something that isn't going to allow a crash to happen when some idiot is going in the wrong direction, let alone 85 mph in the wrong direction.

The suit actually has the balls to claim that "...Winter suffered permanent injuries in the crash and a "loss of capacity to enjoy life." She is also claiming future loss of income as well as past, present and future medical expenses." Oh, I might just twist off right now. Yep. Here I go.

Are you freaking kidding me?! SHE has a loss of capacity to enjoy life? WHY?! Because she's in jail where she belongs?! I'm sure she did suffer permanent injuries in the crash that she caused! That was her goal! To cause herself injury! Injury resulting in death!! And future loss of income?! Please. Like this chick had the mental faculties to even earn any income. She sounds like a complete moron. A complete, self-centered moron. Besides, if all goes the way that it should go, she won't have to worry about future loss of income OR any medical expenses, as I'm sure that they'll all be taken care of by the penal system that she will hopefully be incarcerated in for the rest of whatever.

The lawsuit accuses Mrs. Thompson "...of causing the accident through "negligent driving." Right. Because a woman who is four months pregnant and has her teenage son in the car with her would be driving negligently. I'm not saying that it's never happened. I'm just saying that it didn't happen in this case. How this woman's husband has not snapped in two and strangled someone at this point is beyond me.

Naturally, after filing this lawsuit, "No one from the Winter or Thompson families could be reached for comment. Winter's attorneys, David Stufft and Maxwell Battle Jr., also did not return repeated calls for comment." David Stufft and Maxwell Battle Jr. Please remember those names. If you ever come across either of these individuals, do whatever comes natural. (What? I wasn't suggesting anything untoward. I could have meant something like shaking their hand. Or not.) As far as the response from the prosecution's side, "Flathead County Attorney Ed Corrigan, who is leading the criminal case against Winter, said he was concerned the lawsuit would "inflame the public". Really? Suing the family of the people that you killed could "inflame the public"? In what way?

Apparently, Justine will be going on trial, as she has been charged with two counts of deliberate homicide. (That seems about right.) The preliminary trial resulted in the judge deciding that she should be tried as an adult. Naturally, her lawyers have appealed that decision, so who knows when this is going to get underway. Oh, but it is cases like these where I wish that there were a "skip the trial" option and we just toss her behind bars and move on with our lives. Some will move on easier than others, of course. But it would likely save everyone a whole lot of grief, as if the her attorneys are willing to file suit against the victim's family, Lord only knows what their courtroom defense will end up being (other than abhorrent, of course).

Happy Birthday To Me....

All right, this is going to have to suffice for today, as I am now :::sniff::: too damn old and will be spending the rest of the day curled up in a ball in a corner somewhere, weeping softly and waiting for sweet, sweet death to take me away.

Who am I kidding? I'm too drunk to write much more than this. Woo-hoo! Happy Birthday to Me!

Actually, I've done a bit of reading about August 2nd. If you go by the annals of history it would appear that August 2nd is just ripe for war and death and destruction. I'm not quite sure if I'm supposed to work on changing that or just go with the flow. Changing it seems like too much work and I'm old and tired. Status quo it is then.

• 1990 - Iraq invades Kuwait
  
• 1985 - Delta Flight 191 crashes in Dallas, killing 137
  
• 1980 - A bomb explodes at a train station in Italy, killing 85 and wounding more than 200
  
• 1973 - A flash fire in the Isle of Man at the Summerland amusement park kills 51
  
• 1968 - On the very day and very year that I was born, the Casiguran Earthquake strikes the Philippines and kills more than 270 and wounds 261. It's as if someone said to me, "Welcome to the world. You're going to die a violent and horrific death."
  
  

It only gets worse before 1968. More war. More troops. More death. It's a wonder half of us were even born at all, if you think about it. Oh, here are some other glorious highlights of this day:

• Albert Einstein writes a letter to FDR in 1939 urging him to develop a nuclear weapon


• The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 passes, rendering marijuana illegal in the US (This really had no effect on me at all. Especially in college.)
  
• Albert Einstein urges all scientists to refuse military work in 1931



• The first US Census is conducted in 1790
  
• And my personal favorite: In 1934, Adolf Hitler becomes Fuhrer of Germany. Ach!
  
  
  

Nice. No marijuana but plenty of Nazis on this day. Grand. There isn't really anyone all that interesting born on this day (other than myself and that's questionable. The interesting part, that is. I'm relatively sure I entered on the 2nd.) There are a few that...well...someone might know who they are, though. Maybe. With hints.

• Mary-Louise Parker, born in 1964 (You know, the actress chick. She was in...um, well...oh! Weeds. There it is. Yeah, her.)
  
  
• Wes Craven, born in 1939 (The director guy who makes creepy movies like Hellraiser.)
  
  
• Carroll O'Connor, born in 1924 (Yes. Archie Bunker. Great.)



• Lance Ito, born in 1950 (Judge Ito! From the OJ trial! Right on! At least it wasn't that crying Seidlin guy from the Anna Nicole custody hearings.)
  
  
  

That's who was born. Now, who died? (I swear, I better not be on this list.)

• Warren G. Harding in 1923 (29th President of the US)
  
  
• Shari Lewis in 1998 (The puppeteer who always had her hand up Lambchop's ass.)
  
  
  
• Alexander Graham Bell in 1922 (Made us all want to reach out and touch someone. With or without a phone.)
  
  
• Wild Bill Hickok in 1876 (Shot in the back of the head while playing poker. As an avid poker player, that's not overly comforting.)

Well, it's a pretty mello day for those being born or those croaking on this day. Not so mello for the death and destruction aspect of it all. But the rest? Fairly calm and boring.

Oh, and Happy 18th Birthday to my cousin, whose birthday also happens to be today. And Happy Birthday to Renee, because about 10 years ago, I told you that, since we had the same birthday, you'd always know that at least one other person was thinking about you on that day, even if you felt like no one gave a fat rat's ass. (Incidentally, I'll be doing the same thing.)

So let's see if I can go the rest of the day without adding to the list of death and destruction that occurs on this day. If this blog abruptly stops, you know that I was largely unsuccessful. Now...where's my beer?

Still Dead!

The one year anniversary of Michael Jackson's death was Friday and it was, in keeping with the theme of his life, a little weird. Let me just say that there are a lot of people out there who really need hobbies. Or jobs. It's kind of hard to tell, but I'm guessing that the latter would mostly be the case.

I'm going to start over there at Forest Lawn Cemetery where Jacko is entombed. They have him in some drawer in one of the crypt walls over there. I don't know exactly how it all works, but I do know that it seems like the reason for that sort of interment was to avoid having his location become a constant freak show. This way, it's inside a building and you need some sort of permission or sparkly glove or small child in order to get in.

Now, the media was treating this like it was going to be some sort of big event. And considering there was a substantial article over there at the still going strong LA Times (nice job, guys!), I was under the impression that there would be some hooplah. Yeah, not so much. According to the article, "About 30 fans lined up early Friday morning outside Forest Lawn cemetery in Glendale to visit Michael Jackson's grave site on the one-year anniversary of his death." Thirty? And what purpose were they serving by lining up early? It's not like he's going anywhere. How early? Why, 3am, of course! If you are lining up at three in the morning so that you can wait until eight in the morning before you can get into a cemetery and not see someone that you never met (and now never will), you need to check yourself. Seriously. You people know that there aren't iPhones in there, right?

After reading the article in the LA Times I was really wanting to know one thing: What were those people expecting to happen? They seemed to be surprised and not all that impressed with the nothing that was made available to them. "After the gates opened, fans were granted limited access at the mausoleum where Jackson is buried...As they passed, they were permitted to hand flowers and cards to cemetery personnel. Once they passed that point, they were asked to move along. Some said they were disappointed at the level of access." Did anyone tell them that he was still dead?

I don't think that they did. One crazy person fan, had asked an attendant, "This is it?" (Probably no pun intended there.) "This is terrible." I'm failing to understand what it is that's so terrible for this woman. The woman said "...she has traveled to the cemetery six times from her home in Atlanta." SIX times?! The man has only been dead a year! And I think that he's only been in the mausoleum for 11 months! She's traveled the equivalent of once every other month from clear across the country? For what exactly? I have no clue. "As she walked through the line, she said Jackson was actually on the opposite side of the mausoleum." Well, I guess that the lady who has been there six times in less than a year would probably know. But she expressed her expectations when she said "I was hoping we would get to go in and see Michael." ::: blink ::: ::: blink ::: I don't think he's seeing visitors today. Perhaps come back another time...not that he'll be any less dead.

Another unbalanced individual, a one Irene Childs from the Bay Area, "...said she was unhappy with the security personnel at the cemetery. "They were too pushy. There should have been more viewing time." What exactly was she viewing? It's not like they wheeled his corpse out there for everyone to gawk at. What was she hoping for, exactly? A meet and greet?

But the winner for the individual who could probably benefit the most from a little time on a shrink's couch would be a one 31-year old (and in need of growing up) Tallora Digirolami, who came all the way from freaking Australia because "I couldn't be here last year, so I had to be here this year." Couldn't be there when he died, so you had to be there a year later? You know, if you couldn't have made it this year, you would have had many opportunities to show up on the anniversary of his death, as I anticipate him being dead for quite some time now!

And of course, there were people dressed AS Michael Jackson. Why do people do that? They did it at the memorial service as well. People showed up dressed like Jacko. I've been to a lot of funerals in my time. I've visited a lot of cemeteries on the anniversary of someone's death before as well. I have never attended either function dressed as the deceased. It's never even crossed my mind to do so! It's a little weird if you're asking me. When I go down to check on my Dad's gravesite, I don't don a bolo tie, coke bottle glasses and a wide brimmed hat! Why are people dressed like Jacko?

In Tokyo, a fan appears to have brought a picnic basket to some big wall painting of Jacko and is taking her (I think it's a her) picture in front of it. She's kind of striking that same Jacko pose, but the lime green cover on the picnic basket really detracts from that. There's also the fact that she looks nothing like him, but don't ever expect logic or reality to deter Michael Jackson fanatics.

And in India, a bunch of young fans apparently lit birthday candles around what appears to be some sort of decorative sheet or banner emblazoned with images of Jacko while they all knelt and prayed. Upon closer examination of the photo, I hope that they are praying for some sort of solid flooring, as those candles are just stuck upright directly into the ground.

I still feel just as cheated today as I felt a year ago. Those concerts of his were going to be the gift that kept on giving. I could feel it! I was practically guaranteed to have awesome blog material for months on end. And what did I get? Nothing. Oh, don't get me wrong. The folks showing up at Forest Lawn hoping for a chance to see Jacko are amusing. But they're nothing even close to what those concerts would have been. Not even close.

Jacko's Last Day

Well, we finally know how Michael Jackson spent his last day on this earth. I kind of thought that we knew the basics already, but apparently CBS News felt the need to re-hash it a little bit given as how Jacko has been dead for almost a year now. (Is that really possible? Has it really been a year? I would swear to you that it was only like a month ago that my cell phone was blowing up with texts telling me he had croaked it. A year? Really?) Here's what we know (knew).

"Early in the afternoon...Michael Jackson came down the stairs of his rented mansion" and "wanted to eat something light but sustaining." It had to be both. Light but sustaining. Not just one. Not just the other. Both. Light but sustaining. He ended up with his personal chef preparing him "...seared ahi tuna with an organic salad and a glass of carrot and orange juice." Hmm. That does light but sustaining. It also sounds like his last meal.

The article says that shortly before 7pm, he left the aforementioned rented mansion and he "...traveled downtown to the Staples Center, where Jackson and his team of musicians and dancers were in final rehearsals before heading to London". So, wait a minute. It's now seven o'clock at night and all the guy has done is have breakfast? It sure wasn't a very busy last day on earth. I had busier days than that when I was 5.

"Later that night, Jackson and his dancers performed "Thriller" on stage in full costume for the first time." Tell me something. Did Michael Jackson really need any sort of costume for that show? Couldn't he have looked like a creature that was undead and not necessarily human just as he was? I'm thinking that his makeup wouldn't have required a whole lot of extra work. I mean, maybe a little extra adhesive to make sure that his nose stayed affixed in the correct position, but other than that, probably not a lot of effort.

His rehearsal ended somewhere around midnight and one of his hired, Islamic goons drove him home. "Soon after Jackson arrived home, he started complaining of fatigue and that he needed sleep." Hmm. So, it's likely after midnight and he's complaining of fatigue and needing to sleep? Is that unusual? It sounds like me...at night. I get fatigued and I decide to go to bed because I need to sleep. It's not a unique occurrence! But what happened next will shock you! And kill him!

Around 1:30am that fateful day, the now infamous Dr. Conrad Murray gave Jacko 10 milligrams of Valium. Considering that Jacko usually wanted the equivalent of a horse tranquilizer to get to sleep, that did nothing. Thus, about half an hour later, Dr. Murray gave him 2 milligrams of lorazepam (it's the same drug family as Valium) through a saline drip. It's unclear as to why the Valium was in pill form and the lorazepam was administered through a drip. It's also unclear as to why Dr. Murray (or any doctor, for that matter) would have agreed to such an arrangement.

How would you like it if that was your job? You spend all of that time going through medical school just so that you can sit in a chair and watch Michael Jackson sleep? Yes, it sounds like an incredibly easy gig. It also sounds like an incredibly boring gig. And the way that we now know that everything turned out? He probably could have had Bubbles the chimp doing what he did.

Regardless as to the amount of drugs now coursing through his veins, Jacko was still awake around 3am, so this time Dr. Murray gave him 2 milligrams of another Valium relative, this one called midazolam. By 5am, all of this had done absolutely nothing, so it was back to the lorazepam for another 2 milligrams. And by 7:30am, it was back to the midazolam for another 2 milligrams of that.

At this point, he now has taken 10 milligrams of Valium, 4 milligrams of lorazepam and 4 milligrams of midazolam and the guy is still wide awake. By 10:40am, Jacko had been begging for the propofol or what he called, his "milk". Look, Jacko...it's almost eleven o'clock in the morning. You have several drugs making their way through your emaciated system. It's over. Stop trying. Just give it up and get up. You've been lying there all night. It's not like you're exhausted or anything. Yes, not sleeping sucks, but come on, man! Get over it. Get up and get yourself a light but sustaining breakfast and go about your day.

Why Dr. Murray ended up caving in is beyond me. I think by 10:40 in the morning, I would have said "Screw the propofol!" and just thwacked him over the head with a baseball bat or something. That would have knocked him out. And you'd probably only have to do it once. It wouldn't require multiple applications like that lorazepam and midazolam crap. One good "THONK!" and you're done. Or maybe suggest to him that he count sheep. Or count Macaulays. Something.

Unfortunately, I wasn't around to keep Jacko in line. Nor was I there to keep Dr. Murray in line. And Dr. Murray ended up giving him 25 mg of propofol through his drip. Now, usually propofol is used on people as they're being cut open by a surgeon. It's rarely used on reclusive pop stars, once married to Elvis Presley's daughter, who have a hard time nodding off.

What happens after that, in the end, is fairly clear. (He croaks it.) How it happens (the dying and all) isn't. Dr. Murray says that he gave him the propofol, stayed with him for 10 minutes, left for 2 minutes and came back to find him not breathing. Of course, he didn't end up calling 911 until about 12:27pm. That translates into about an hour an a half after all of the breathing stopped. He wasn't pronounced dead until 2:26pm, so that means that they were essentially trying to revive a corpse for about 2 to 2-1/2 hours. I know that it seems silly to state that it was clearly a waste of time, but I'm kind of thinking that they would have known that then as well. Wasn't he starting to get stiff by that point? You can pound on a guy's chest all you want, but once you notice that it's the equivalent of pounding on a 2x4, what say you call it a day, all right? Ok, then.

Sounds like a pretty sucky last day of life if you're asking me. I mean, at least Elvis had some stuff on his schedule before he died straining at stool in his own bathroom. He had a dental appointment at 2 in the morning. He played racquetball at midnight or something. He had lots of stuff going on. All Jacko did before 7pm was eat breakfast. A sad end to a rather sad life. I still can't believe it's been a year.

Whatchoo Talkin' 'Bout, Shannon?

Shannon Price, who was married to Gary Coleman, might just be one of those gifts that keeps on giving. Now, as Mark pointed out in yesterday's post, could "...we really expect a woman who would marry Gary Coleman to be within 5 ZIP codes of normal?" Point taken (and very well made)! Yeah, shocking that the woman who married Gary Coleman is a little strange (pun probably intended).

But strange is becoming a bit of an understatement these days. First, there was the rather odd 911 call that she made where she seemed to spend a great deal of the time telling the 911 operator what was wrong with her and what her problems were. Meanwhile, her husband lay bleeding on the floor downstairs, but she couldn't go down there because she finds blood to be icky (I'm paraphrasing, of course, but that's about the gist of it). And now there is the interview that she granted to TMZ.

I can only imagine that TMZ paid this dim, dim individual a substantial amount of money to do this interview. And when I say "substantial", I mean substantial in the terms of what someone who was married to Gary Coleman would think is substantial. I'm guessing $10k. Maybe $20k. Not more than $25k. It could be as low as $5,000. I have the feeling that any of those amounts would seem like a million to that chick.

Now, I wouldn't expect someone whose husband had just died to be doing an interview so soon. I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't expect them to be doing an interview before the deceased is even placed into the ground. (Please see below for an extremely tasteless image as to what his personalized coffin might look like. What? Too soon?) But even if one were to give such an interview, I'd expect it to have a little bit more to do with the deceased and not the person giving the interview, you know? But that could be just me.

She uses the same voice that she did on the 911 call. That is to say, one without urgency or feeling and completely devoid of compassion. Let's take it from the top. First, she brings up unspeculated about speculation. Apparently, she seems to think that people are/were speculating that she pushed the diminutive former child star down the stairs, causing the gash on his dome and the subsequent bleeding (which she couldn't deal with), hemorrhage and finally, death.

"And...me. I mean, I've had a lot of speculation out there. I've had a lot of people out there say, "Yeah. She pushed him. This and that." You know. People are so cruel. They don't even KNOW. I was UPSTAIRS. He was DOWNSTAIRS. How am I going to push him? You know. And that affected me more than anything because...the scrutiny that people come up with. They're just heartless. Why would I want to hurt my husband? Are you kidding?"

OK, so all about her. Let's talk about her comprehension of what Mr. Coleman's condition was at the time of his hospitalization and what his condition, perhaps, could have been if she had not made the decision to discontinue the life support methods.

"You know, the doctors told us that even if they had done surgery on him that he would have died. He would have bled to death during the surgery. And they said that even if they did take a chunk out of his brain, he would not be the same. He would basically be like Muhammad Ali. He wouldn't be...you know...I mean...he would have died sooner or later anyway from that. Because...you know, the brain...because it's so traumatic."

That statement seems a little bit rambly at best. If they did surgery, he would have died. BUT if they took a "chunk" out of his brain, he's be like Muhammad Ali. Um, last I checked, Muhammad Ali was alive. AND last I checked, Muhammad Ali had Parkinson's Disease. Is she saying that if he had the "chunk" removed from his brain, that it would have given him Parkinson's? I don't think that would have happened. I don't think that's what would have happened at all.

Then there's my favorite part. The "he would have died sooner or later anyway from that". From what, cupcake? From being like Muhammad Ali? Muhammad Ali is in his sixties. He seems to be fairly aware of what's going on around him. I don't think he speaks much, but he doesn't look miserable. But all of that is beside the point, really. The point is that you don't disconnect someone from life support because they would have died eventually. Yeah, we're all going to die eventually, that really shouldn't be a basis for deciding whether or not to remove life support.

But listen, we've talked about Gary enough in this interview. I mean, he's dead, right? Let's talk more about her and what she thinks that people think about her. (The fact that she thinks that people think about her at all shows a fair amount of delusion.)

"I don't want people to be too hard on me thinking that I had to pull the plug too early. He wouldn't have made it anyways, so his heart just would have given out. And I don't want people to sit there and think...I'm a BITCH! And that I didn't care about him. But, you know, be in my situation. I mean, look what happened with Terri Schiavo. I always think of her case. ALWAYS. When it comes to this. I mean...Gary was gone. His eyes were dilated. He wasn't...you know...he was..he was just gone."

He wouldn't have made it anyways? You know, because now it's about his heart. And for cryin' out loud, be in her situation! I mean, look what happened with Terri Schiavo, for God's sakes! She thinks about that always. ALWAYS. Wait. Always? You know how often I think of Terri Schiavo? Never. Even when her case was big in the news, it still didn't get a lot of thinking time out of me. But she thinks about her ALWAYS. OK, then. Is there more? Of course there is. Let's hear about some of her fonder memories.

"And you know, he's, he's, he's done a lot for me. He bought me a car. Which...he chose to do. Which I never asked him for. I thought was awesome. I thought it was very sweet of him to do that."

Perhaps you've noticed the absence of any sort of love in this whole thing. Perhaps you've noticed how completely detached this chick is from...well, everything. But then again, he bought her a car. That was very sweet. She didn't ask him to! That's something! Hey. Wait a minute. He bought her a car? She said in the 911 call that she didn't drive because of all of the seizures and stuff. What is with this chick? Oh, yeah. That's right. She married Gary Coleman. Enough said. For now.