Jacko in the box

Hi I'm back, employment ain't what its cracked up to be.

In all the brouhaha over the deaths of Billy Mays and Gale Storm I missed an event that went unnoticed by the media. Pop icon, accused pedophile and endless source of morbid media curiosity Michael Jackson, seen here shortly after his death, passed away on June 25th to an out pouring of grief unseen since the death of Princess Diana, another denizen of tabloid Valhalla.

Mr Jackson will be sourly missed, he gave us many fine examples of pop anthems to unrequited teen love, a piquant outlook on child molestation and terrifying bits of terpsichorean excess that in a lesser human would have prompted a diagnosis of shaking palsy. Would any one today be moon walking or rhythmically grabbing their crotch without the pioneering choreography of Michael Jackson. Step back Jerome Robbins, Balanchine, Hermes Pan, Agnes DeMille, Martha Grahm (She also invented a popular cracker), Isadora Duncan (She worked for Telefunken.),Ted Shawn, Ruth St. Denis, Bob Fosse and Deney Terrio, step way back, a new Colossus has joined the pantheon.

Sadly we at PODM must raise a few quibbles. (Actually it was Senior Editor Emeritus Franklin Erasmus Buzzkill, address all complaints to him at: PODM World Headquarters in Kitschaskiny Florida.) In the past we have lost more than a few immortals of Pop, two Beatles, God knows how many Beach Boys, Janis Joplin, Jimmy Hendricks, Jim Morrison all exited in interesting and untimely manners. Lets face it Cass Eliot, Karen Carpenter and Michael Hutchence departed this vale of tears in a manner less mundane than heart failure. Bobby Fuller inhaled gasoline and Lynard Skinner died in a plane wreck. (Plane crashes are a fairly common cause of Rock and Roll deaths but I included them to give my spell checker a work out.) I could go on but I'll let these guys do it.

Of course Michael Jackson was no ordinary Pop star despite Mr. Buzzkill's curmudgeonly complaints and the tributes continue to pour in: Wal*mart has declared that in Jackson's honor they will have little boys pants half off this month (I know its an old one but when are we going to get to use it again?) and from beyond the grave Farah Fawcett claims she asked Saint Peter to help young boys everywhere, so he killed Jacko. Reggie Jackson (No relation) has claimed he was honoring Michael while playing right field because both Jackson(Michael) and Jackson (Reggie) wore a single glove for no apparent reason.( Yeah, I know its another old one but again, when are we going to get to use it in the future?)

Fortunately Mr. Jackson's legacy is in the capable hands of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson (no relation) so we can rest assured nothing exploitative or self serving will occur. Time has stopped at Neverland, fortunately not at bed time which we are reliably informed is when the big hand touches the little hand. So until we find the stone rolled back from Mr. Jackson's tomb and he moon walks across the reflective pool, farewell Michael farewell.

Other members of the Jackson family, Stonewall Jackson(No relation), Shoeless Joe Jackson(No relation), Andrew Jackson(No relation), Jackson Browne(No relation), Kate Jackson(No relation), Samuel L. Jackson(No relation), Phil Jackson(No relation), Shirley Jackson(No relation), Milt Jackson(No relation), Jackson Pollock(No relation), Randy Jackson(No relation), Glenda Jackson (No relation) and Henry "Scoop" Jackson(No relation) could not be reached for comment.

No word yet if Jackson will be buried beside long time companion Bubbles.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Porlock

On the advice of counsel I am pausing posting on PODM, or as he said, "Some things are better left unsaid". I am actually going to earn a living although that depends on what your definition of "earn" is. In the meantime I'll be working on several unfinished projects in my Porlock File, things currently incomplete because of unwanted, irritating and trivial interruptions such as visits from bill collectors, the death of bizarre cultural icons (?) and opium salesmen. Okay some weren't that unwanted.

I grow old... I grow old...
Do I dare to take a stroll,

In rooms where women come and go talking of former DHS secretary Thomas Ridge,
Who went visiting Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

A Walk in the Park

The other day I posted a comment on Mark Sanford's alleged gambol in Appalachia, it was full of brilliant snarky comments about this tempest in a tea pot. In light of recent developments (He was in Argentina with a girl.) I attempted to up date the post including comments like "The Bull of the Pampas" and "In Patagonia, Mark Sanford a stately pleasure dome decreed..." and in a move characteristic of the staff here at PODM, promptly lost it.

Our regular readers may find our usual incompetent hijinks risible but the uninformed may go huh, especially if they bother reading any of my other posts. Sadly it was choke full of the sort of witticisms and libelous fun PODM is known for, if any litigators or aggrieved parties actually downloaded a copy please forward it wrapped around one of the bricks you throw through the stately smoked glass doors of the PODM International Building in Whitlow Minesota.

FTC you later

The usually serene Little Miss Attila seems a bit shupoofed about the proposal to have the Blogosphere regulated by the alert, competent and efficient folks at the FTC. This is reasonable as she blogs regularly and is trying to make a living at it, we at PODM have a different view and look forward to being edited by the same folks that write those griping government publications overseen by the lawyers at the FTC. This is sound allocation of resources by an agency that was able to track down Bernie Madoff after mere years of being told about his operation by a succession of snitches and handled ENRON so well.

Who hasn't stayed up all night with some government page turner like Social Networking Sites: Safety Tips for Tweens and Teens , How To Protect Kids' Privacy Online: A Guide For Teachers or the ever popular quarterly Litigation Status Report . I'm sure they will improve the quality of discourse on the web especially at PODM where we are only doing this because its part of the terms of our parole.

This regulation is desperately needed to prevent the tens of dollars consumers spend on the blogs they read from being siphoned off by unscrupulous sites. Remember free speech is a right only if no one is willing to pay for it.

Not a cough in a car load

All the talk about health care has caused me to investigate taking up smoking again. If seventy percent of my income is going to go to pay for a bloated universal heath bureaucracy I want to get my monies worth.

I always enjoyed smoking, it was one thing I was truly good at. It helped me concentrate, gave me something to do with my hands and made me look grown up, best of all it provided me with an impetus to get out of bed while I hacked the tar out of my lungs. I, of course, abandoned my carcinogenic friends for health reasons but if the government is picking up the tab, who cares?

I went to the CVS drug store (How ironic yet disturbingly apropos.) to purchase a deck of tobaccoy goodness and discovered that buying cigarettes these days is quite the adventure. Back when I was introduced to the leaf by a young Marine stationed in Subic Bay, (Ahh to be young and foolish with 30% of my lung capacity intact again.) smokes came in two varieties toxic and and extra toxic. My brand of choice was Camels, lung cookies the way God intended, unfiltered and liberally dosed with added nicotine.

These days Camels come in a bewildering number of styles and flavors, some with filters, some in tins like Altoids, some mentholated and with all sorts of names. Here's a list I cribbed from Wikipedia:Camel Filters, Camel Filters 99's, Camel Lights,Camel Lights 99's, Camel Menthol,Camel Menthol Lights,Camel No. 9,Camel No. 9 100's,Camel No. 9 Menthe,Camel No. 9 Menthe 100's,Camel Regular,Camel Special Lights,Camel Signature Infused,Camel Signature Robust,Camel Signature Frost,Camel Signature Mellow,Camel Turkish Gold,Camel Turkish Royal,Camel Turkish Silver,Camel Turkish Jade,Camel Ultra Lights,Camel Ultra Lights 99's,Camel Wides,Camel Wides,Lights,Camel Wides Menthol,Camel Wides Menthol Lights,Kamel Red,Kamel Red Lights,Kamel Red Menthol,Kamel Red Menthol Lights and others.

Marlboro's were less daunting but still came in an impressive variety of types. Marlboro was always a favorite of mine because I rather fancied myself as a cowpoke that needed oxygen.

I finally chose Marlboro Mediums, so named I gather because they help you get closer to dead people.

PODM does not believe in tears

No crying over this slice of The Onion. Apparently the good people at The Onion have been reading PODM! While the person profiled is fictitious I think they've grasped the fundamental editorial philosophy we embrace here. In the words of Emma Lazarus, "give us your tired, your poor and we at PODM will mock, ridicule and trivialize everything they believe in, hold sacred or love. It is gratifying to see our work appreciated by one of the top 500 or so humor sites on this back water we call the web.

Knotty but Nice

The casual reader of PODM might think, based on recent postings, that the site was some sort snarky military misinformation center for dummies which in fact it is. We at PODM like to think we embrace the whole spectrum of human ignorance, the triumph of stupidity over the obvious and the agony of watching stunningly straight forward and easy concepts going down in flames. We don’t limit our selves to misstatements of fact, callous mockery of the wretched or flamboyant flourishes of rhetorical wreckage, sometimes we just cop a squat and crap allover something good, sound and sensible.

That said, I know nothing about military things, unless you count the Civil War, (Currently I am in a conundrum over why Lee had to be informed about the unmarked road that lead to a point on the Eleventh Corps’ right flank at Chancellorsville. They had been occupying the ground since Fredericksburg and Jackson had Jedidiah Hotchkiss mapping the Shenandoah Valley since spring 1862. Was Lee remiss in not having a thorough topographical survey done of the area behind the Rapidan River fords and does this hint at the sloppy staff work that characterized Lee’s performance at Gettysburg?.) British Naval strategy of the War of 1812 (The British severely underestimated the difficulty of maintaining sailing ships on blockade station when their bases in Bermuda and Halifax were so widely separated.) and Custer’s Last Stand (Don’t get me started). It is also clear I know nothing of composition because if I did I wouldn’t have put three lengthy parenthetical thoughts in such a short sentence.

At least that’s settled and now for sex.

The respected thespian David Carradine passed recently under circumstances that can best be described as awkward. It appears that Mr. Carradine was done in by and has done for auto erotic asphyxia what Clinton and Lewinsky did for the blow job and Anderson Cooper did for tea bagging, thrusting (perhaps an inappropriate term) an unexpected, unwanted and unnecessary subject onto the public forum for discussion.

I know nothing about auto erotic asphyxia except that Albert Dekker, also died while enjoying its lethal pleasures as did Michael Hutchence the lead singer of INXS. It is notable that these three were performers, the various authors and politicians that died in the throes of Eros had the courtesy to die while another person was present.

I for one applaud our celebrities when they pause in their effort to demonstrate the drab banality of our tepid little lives by pursuing outlandish forms of public sybaritic debauchery. By spending a quiet evening enjoying a session of vigorous masturbation that went disastrously wrong Mr. Carradine has once again confirmed to me how sheltered a life I‘ve led. I don’t know why he would do so in Bangkok where if you have American money the prime minister will bring a girl to your room but if we have learned one thing from this tragedy it’s that auto erotic asphyxia requires a spotter.

Know your knots.

Several of the Blogs I read are exorcised of the David Letterman/Sarah Palin imbroglio most contending that political family members should be off limits where smutty lewd comments are concerned. I’d like to point how much fun these folks are to ridicule. Billy Carter, Margret Truman, Lou Hoover, Lemonade Lucy Hayes and Nell, the late wife of Chester A. Arthur all provided the humorist of their time with filthy off color material. Who can forget Wilson Mizner’s immortal jibe, “That Florence Harding... What a slut!” which brought down the house where ever he played. Aren’t we risking the rich national tradition of calling our leaders’ spouses skanks, sluts and round heeled pigs that would blow a poodle for a quarter and give ten cents change?(Too much?)

Are we to forgo the hours of risible fun the Kennedy’s provide with all their associated wives, mistresses, children, cousins, in-laws and organized crime connections? How about Pat Nixon, Betty Ford or Martha Mitchell? Nancy Reagan took a few for the team and Barbra Bush was a stand up gal, even if her husband did put her portrait on the one dollar bill.

Bill Clinton of course kept the focus off Chelsea with his unprecedented string of howlers but even he gave us a stupider brother we could all laugh at. One of the Bush girls got up-skirted by the paparazzi, we haven’t seen that kind of thing since Hustler printed those shots of Jackie Onassis.

I suppose it seems unfair to go after Sarah Palin because she is so much like ourselves and unlike the pompous, self important royal families we coronate every four years. You can imagine her leaning over the back seat to give Bristol and Willow a couple of whacks when they won’t stop fighting. It’s hard to picture Lady Bird doing the same to Luci and Lynda. Also Palin has achieved the impossible, successfully balancing the demands of a career, a husband and a family, something feminism promised but couldn’t deliver. To jibe her about her family’s idiosyncrasies is a little like teasing Lance Armstrong about his testicles.

We are gambling with our entertainment future here. If we don’t want people to make fun of the relatives of the clowns we elect, maybe we shouldn’t vote for people that come from circus families.