The Obligatory Two Thoughts About Michael Jackson

1.  Dude was fucked up.  From the time he was little and his dad beat the shit out of him and everyone stood back and let it happen because they didn’t want to lose their meal ticket straight on through.  So, I don’t know what to make of his music, you know.  I’d like to see it as something apart from his suffering and the suffering he allegedly inflicted on others, but I don’t know if I can, because I don’t know if that was something he did that let him transcend his humanity or if it was just what he did because it was what he did.  I don’t feel sorry or unsorry that he’s dead.  I feel weird that his whole life was about the public consumption of him and so is his death.  It feels like the polite thing to do is to just look away, to let there be some moment when he’s not a public spectacle.

2. I remember, though, when Thriller came out, because I had heart-shaped Michael Jackson earrings, which I wore every day until my ear got infected and I had to have my mom help me get the earring out.  And I remember some of the parents were concerned about all the young girls wearing t-shirts with him on it and I couldn’t understand why.  My dad said, “Because he’s black and they’re white girls.”

I was eight.  We were all only eight.

Ward Cammack, Shining Beacon of Justice

So, Ward Cammack is a Democrat running for Governor of the State of Tennessee.  He also belongs to the Belle Meade Country Club, which, for some reason can only find one black person in the whole world “right” for membership, and, fortunately, this black guy lives in Atlanta, which is four hours away, so that, if anybody hears that he’s on his way to the Club, they have time to flee if their delicate sensibilities might be offended.

There are a few things going on at different levels.  Braisted, according to Kleinheider, is insinuating that the same people who moved against Forrester for the TNDP chair are the same folks moving against Cammack.

And Cammack doesn’t have a communications guy anymore to help smooth out his “No, I’m staying in the Country Club because I can’t turn my back on the wait-staff!” message.

But here’s the thing.  When Braisted says, “First off, if it was wrong to join the club 5 years ago, it’d still be wrong even if he now dropped his membership,” I say in response, hell yes it’s wrong to join a club that doesn’t let black people in.  If you are a white Democrat, and you are somewhere and you look around the room and the only black people in it are serving you food, you don’t fucking become a member of that place.  And if you were a Republican when you joined it but switched, well, come to Jesus now, Demmie, and quit that place.

Listen, if you want to join an all-white country club in the privacy of your own life, go right ahead.  I will make fun of you, but I will respect your right to assemble with whom you like.

But if you want to run the whole State of Tennessee, you’ve got to leave this kind of foolishness behind.

It’s not right.

And it’s embarrassing to point that out to a DEMOCRAT.

But worse is this nonsense about how he will stay a member for the sake of the staff.

Don’t do regular folks the favor of putting off doing the right thing so that you can continue to let them have the privilege of serving you.

That attitude needs to be run out of the Democratic party on a rail right this second.

I Come to the Garden Alone, While the Dew is Still on the Roses

Okay, so I was not alone and I don’t have any rose blossoms left.  But Lesley and I were out in my garden, which I swear I was in very recently and noticed nothing of interest, when we looked into the cucumber plants and found…

Actual cucumbers!

That grew in my garden!  And then sat there in the dirt like happy green sausages.

So we picked the three that we could find and cut two of them up and fed them to everyone and after everyone left, I ate what was left and I thought…

Okay, I’m embarrassed to tell you what I thought.  But I’m going to anyway.

I thought, “Wow, these are just like cucumbers you would buy at the store.”