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It was back when he wasn’t too big a deal. After the Jackson 5 had kind of cooled off and before Michael’s career as a solo artist really took off. It must have been 1974.
My family was on vacation at Disney World, we were staying in the Royal Palace Hotel. Michael and at least some of his brothers were also staying there. We wouls see them by the pool. One evening my sister and I, being bored with the pool, ventured into the game room to see what was going on. This was before video games, so about all there were pinball machines and a Foosball table.
There were a few other kids around. All of us wet from the pool and undoubtedly overstimulated from our day at the theme park. There was one kid who was taller than the rest of us, other than that, he seemed just like the rest of us. Just another kid passing some time in the game room with the other kids. He asked if anybody wanted to play Foosball.
Several of us gathered around and we played a couple of games. Nothing special. I knew who he was. I’d seen him on TV and even had a couple of his records. One kid did ask if he was Michael Jackson, he said yes, and everyone left it at that. I think it was because we were in the realm of kids. You know, away from adults, going by the unspoken, but well understood rules, of kids gathered together. We were playing and that’s all.
After a couple of games, Michael left. He thanked us for playing with him and he was off.
Nothing was said among us kids after he left. We just kept playing Foosball.
Not long after this Michael Jackson would become the pop icon everybody is remembering today. All the fame, all the craziness, an existence beyond the imagining of most of us.
I was only a casual fan of his music. I appreciate good pop, but it’s just not my thing. When I would see him on television, especially in recent years, with all the surgery, all the strangeness, I would wonder what exactly happened. He really was, at least sometimes, very much like a normal person once.
Today I’m remebering the kid I played foosball with. He was alright.
Thought I’d share this with you guys. Very well worth reading.
The National Council for Adoption: Mothers, Money, Marketing, and Madness, Part 1 – DivineCaroline
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In my neck of the woods folks used to say, “I saw your name in the paper..” when you had got in trouble for something. A speeding ticket, owing back property taxes, receiving an honor from a church or organization of which they weren’t a member, etc. All that changed in the 1980’s when we finally got cable TV. From then on it was, “I saw your name on the cable.”
It was a wondrous thing when my town finally got cable, it changed everything. Up until that time there was only one channel that would come in reliably. You might be able to get 2 or 3 more if you had the giant tower with the giant antennae with a rotor, sometimes, but not always. At best recetion was snowy and went in and out.
Oh course we lived a few miles from town so we didn’t get cable. We would eventually have a giant sattilite dish, but that was years away. I loved going to my friends houses and watching TV. I could finally tell what the cast of Saturday Night Live really looked like, and they had 8 channels, all perfectly clear. That’s right, 8 channels, including HBO. One was the public access channel where you could see funeral notices, the weather, community events, and who owed back taxes.
My town’s cable system has not changed much over the years. I think they are up to 13 or 14 channels. They did eventually run the cable out by my folks house, and they have it. It doesn’t much matter because almost everybody here has 100’s of channels on their satellite TV anyway.
The access channel is still there, unchanged. You can still see the same things there. Yesterday my dad told me that he had seen my name on there. My first thought was, “Oh what the fuck now?’ Oh course he couldn’t remember what my name was on there for.
Ever since my town has decided to give failed sheriff’s candidates gainful employment as “code enforcement officers” my only contact with city government has been with the never ending line of blowhards who occupy this position, before they are fired for carrying a sidearm and threatening someone with it, knocking on my door and telling me I have to move a junky car or mow my yard. I had a feeling my name on the cable channel wasn’t good news.
So I called city hall and explained that my dad (I didn’t have to tell him who he was, surprise, surprise) had seen my name on the cable and I wondered what it was about. The clerk said, “Well we don’t have any code violators or anybody owing back taxes on there now, I’m not sure.” (she knew who I was too). ”It’s on here, let me see what it is when it comes around. There is funeral notices on there now, that wouldn’t be you.” Obviously.
I wait, try to make small talk, “How’s that new code enforcement officer working out? You know he ran for sheriff in the next county over last election?” She knew that.
Then she says, “Here it is….you were the Project Pride house of the week.”
I ask, “What is Project Pride?”
“It’s were we recognize people who have really nice yards.”
“Oh..Ok, well thank you.”
Maybe I’m moving up in the world.
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Also check out Worst Person In The World…
And this...Free Whores In Missouri
Now why would I post this?
I’ll let you figure it out for yourself.
The New York Post has reported that it cost Madonna 19 million dollars to get the go ahead to adopt Chifundo “Mercy” James.
19 million dollars.
Do you know what you can get for 19 million dollars?
1900 diamond encrusted pointy bras from Harry Winston
3,800,000 bottles of Miss Clairol Sunny Blonde
1,900,000 books about Kaballah from Amazon
190,000 limo rides with full entourage and security
12,666 nights at the Grosvenor House in Dubai
8,236,452 “special” spa treatments for “exhaustion”
289,193 chef’s table dinners at Ramsey’s in London
12,360,458 airings of your new record on corporate radio stations
63,333 Crocodile Hermes Birkin hand bags
1 major role in a motion picture released by a name studio, if your name is Madonna.
So nobody tell me that Madge didn’t give up a great deal for her new adopted daughter. She did. Just look at the above list. That money could have kept her going for at least 6 months. I sure hope that little Mercy understands the lengths her new mother went to.
As an adoptee I sure wouldn’t want to have that kind of pressure. Can you imagine knowing that you were worth the grand total of the contests of your mother’s closet? That your mother could have loosed the ultimate evil of another starring film role on the world, but adopted you instead?
I wonder how Mercy will feel one day when she is aware of this? Will she be grateful? Will she take the humanitarian view and know that she at least saved the public from 19 million dollars worth of her mother’s talent? Will this occur to her at all?
Considering that children of celebrities have what seems to be about a 30% chance of turning out anything like normal, adopted or not. I’m hoping that she will decide to honor her own adoption by spending an amount equivalent to the cost of her adoption establishing a breed of glow in the dark llamas to make her designer line of sweaters out of. It would make about as much sense as anything in her life has to this point.
Most adoptees have been asked, always indelicately, how much they cost. It just seems to be something that comes up when you find yourself discussing adoption with some idiot. I didn’t cost much. I’m from the days when paperwork was kept to a minimum and babies didn’t cost much. I think I came in around the $300 dollar mark. Heck they were practically giving babies away.
Things have changed since then. I read somewhere that the average cost of an adoption is around $30,000 these days. Imagine telling someone that.
Now imgaine this…
The New York Post has reported that it cost Madonna 19 million dollars to get the go ahead to adopt Chifundo “Mercy” James.
19 million dollars.
Do you know what you can get for 19 million dollars?
1900 diamond encrusted pointy bras from Harry Winston
3,800,000 bottles of Miss Clairol Sunny Blonde
1,900,000 books about Kaballah from Amazon
190,000 limo rides with full entourage and security
12,666 nights at the Grosvenor House in Dubai
8,236,452 “special” spa treatments for “exhaustion”
289,193 chef’s table dinners at Ramsey’s in London
12,360,458 airings of your new record on corporate radio stations
63,333 Crocodile Hermes Birkin hand bags
1 major role in a motion picture released by a name studio, if your name is Madonna.
So nobody tell me that Madge didn’t give up a great deal for her new adopted daughter. She did. Just look at the above list. That money could have kept her going for at least 6 months. I sure hope that little Mercy understands the lengths her new mother went to.
As an adoptee I sure wouldn’t want to have that kind of pressure. Can you imagine knowing that you were worth the grand total of the contests of your mother’s closet? That your mother could have loosed the ultimate evil of another starring film role on the world, but adopted you instead?
I wonder how Mercy will feel one day when she is aware of this? Will she be grateful? Or will she just pull another bottle of Cristol out of her Hermes Birkin and belch when asked? Will she take the humanitarian view and know that she at least saved the public from 19 million dollars worth of her mother’s talent? Will this occur to her at all?
Considering that children of celebrities have what seems to be about a 30% chance of turning out anything like normal, adopted or not. I’m hoping that she will decide to honor her own adoption by spending an amount equivalent to the cost of her adoption establishing a breed of glow in the dark llamas to make her designer line of sweaters out of. It would make about as much sense as anything in her life has to this point.
This post firast appeared at..
Here I’ve gone and wandered off again. For those of you who know me, I’m sure you are not surprised. If you want to read about my further adventures in Adopteeland you can check me out here.
Yeah, yeah, I know, thew place is lousy with adoptive parents. Relax, Claudia is over there too. Please direct all complaints to the comments section where they will be ignored.
I’ll still be here. Let’s face it, there are just somethings that I can’t really say anywhere else.
Like this…
Somebody told me that I didn’t look like an adoptee the other day.
What the heck is an adoptee supposed to look like?
I have a feeling I know.
I think I don’t look like an adoptee because I’m much too tall. We are supposed to be big eyed waifs looking up to the world for help. Like this…
Well we are not supposed to be so furry, but you get it.
You will notice that the kitten isn’t very tall and could easily be trod upon.
Once you look like it might be a problem to squash, you no longer look like an adoptee.
I’m thinking about that one.
Monday was a bad day. I lost my faithful Buster Cat, drove over 400 miles, and saw a really sucky concert. I don’t want to repeat anything like that again, ever.
It all started a week ago Tuesday. My big Buster Cat spent the day under the bed. We didn’t think too much about it. It had stormed that day and even at almost 30 libs., he was frightened by thunder, and the vacuum cleaner. these were fears he shared with his mother Rochelle, who was 5 lbs. of badass when it came to anything but thunder and vacuum cleaners.
I did have a cat once who showed no fear of the Hoover, she would to the awe 0f the other cats even take a swipe at the machine when you came too close. for this she was considered a minor Goddess in the cat world.
But back to Buster, he wasn’t an adoptee. He was an orphan, but not an adoptee. His dad didn’t stick around and his mother being a sesible cat deposited herself on our doorstep ready to be an indoor cat when she found out that she was pregnant. So Buster Cat knew the joy of biological attachment. Anyway, we didn’t get concerned until he didn’t come out from under the bad the next day.
I got Buster to the local vet, who in all his wisdom, declared that he was sick, gave him some pink stuff, and left on vacation for a week. This was about what I expected, that seems to be what he always does. Usually the pink stuff helps. It didn’t this time.
By last Friday we knew we had to do something. So we took him to a new vet, about 20 miles away, that did run some tests and gave him a new prescription. Buster got worse over the weekend. I made him an appointment for Monday. I was pretty sure I knew what was going to happen.
There just wasn’t anymore to do for Buster. He had an autoimmune disease the wasn’t any treatment for. He was suffering. I said my goodbyes. I took him home in a box.
We buried him beside his mother.
I miss him. Buster was always calm in the storm that is my house full 4 of cats. He was the one that always slept with us and was there with us for morning coffee. He was my sense of home. I always thought of Buster beside me purring when I was too long at work, or too far away from home. He was wise and calm and my center. I don’t now what I’ll do without him.
He was the skinniest runtyest kitten in that litter. All legs and tail. We told him that he was going to have to do a lot of growing if he was going to fit in all those stripes. He did. He was a huge cat, and not at all heavy until the last couple of years. At his best, he weighed 25 lbs. and was hard as a brick. People would be amazed when they saw him. They would even bring people over to see him. Buster took this in stride, more loving for him, seemed to be his attitude.
Now I have 3 cats.
I don’t know what I’ll do without my Buster Cat.
Joy’s post about foster care got me thinking. I was in foster care too, but I was with my adoptive parents. I was about 2 weeks old when they took me home from the hospital on a trail basis.
I had known that I was a ward of the state until my adoption was finalized when I was 2, but I had not known it was a “trail adoption” until recently when my a-mother mentioned it.
What the fuck is a trail adoption?
A-mom really didn’t know. That’s just what the social worker had told them. They were pretty much under the impression that I was with them to stay.
I don’t know the date of my relinquishment. All I have are my adoption papers and they only mention that my first mother had given up parental rights at an earlier date. Not what date.
What the hell was going on for those 2 years?
Had I been relinquished immediately after I born? Was I not relinquished until later? Was my relinquishment voluntary? Was I removed from my first mother because she was judged to be incapable of caring for me?
Were the concerns with my adoptive parents? Had they not decided if they wanted to adopt me? Did the state have concerns about their fitness as adoptive parents?
Was there some concern for my health? Were there questions about my mental fitness? What?
I’d really like to know.
If the state hadn’t placed me, and I had grown up in foster care, I would be able to know these things. But since I turned out to be a healthy little thing that somebody decided to keep, they won’t tell me. As far as the state is concerned I’m a different person than the baby they were responsible for. The foster child ceased to exist when I was adopted.
I ceased to exist. I didn’t die. I didn’t change. I just ceased to exist.
That’s a pretty good trick, being able to make a person disappear. Anything at all could have happened, then it’s all just gone. Like it never happened.
But it did happen. It happened to me.
As you know I spend a great deal of my time being annoyed. It is a hobby. Lately I have noticed there are a lot of brand new ways to be annoying, especially online.
Want to piss me off? Tweet what you had for breakfast. Let me give you a clue here, nobody gives a good goddamn how yummy you think scrambled eggs are. We just don’t. Unless you have substituted live spiders for the bananas in your Cheerios, just spare us.
Having a cup of coffee isn’t that interesting either. Do you really expect folks to get all excited when you let us know about your latte on facebook? You are not sending these dispatches out to a remote uninhabited island. Most folks with a computer are familiar with both Starbucks and the intricate workings of Mr. Coffee.
You exercised? Wow. That’s great. Good for you. I’m sure everybody on your list now has an image of you as fit and athletic. That’s impressive. The thing is if Jennifer Lopez is not in your yoga class nobody cares. Exercise is every bit as boring to hear about as it is to actually do.
You are working on a blog post? Everybody kind of already figures that you work on them before you post them. We are all onto that. But thanks for letting us know.
Thanks for letting me know you are busy today and want to get a whole lot done. I take it that posting this was one of the earth shatteringly important things you had to do? Congratulations you can check annoying the shit out of me off your list.
Good to know that your kid just did something cute. Everybody thinks kids are cute, you especially think your kid is cute. It’s just an overload of cuteness out there. You know those folks who insist on showing you every picture of their kids in their giant wallet? Well that’s you, just on a larger scale.
Having a bad day? I’m real sorry. So are the other 200 people on your list. I’m sure all the thousands of other folks, 123 of which have let us know they are having a bad day too, that all us folks connect to, are sorry too. Can you see how your bad day is contributing to a planet wide buzzkill? Think about that the next time you are feeling down.
My job sucks too. Pretty much everybody thinks their job sucks, at least some of the time. I am glad that you reminded me that I am not alone though. It makes me feel as if I am connected to a whole community. Did you not get that? OK, let me make this perfectly clear, everybody thinks their job sucks. Got it? Good.
Oh you’re birthday is coming up? Somehow you’ve just happened to mention it. Well happy birthday! I want you to know I didn’t feel a bit pressured to say that. Really. I just can’t wait for your post about all the gifts you got.
And for the love of god do not try to sell me something. Everybody is on to you. You may have found the greatest pair of sunglasses, the best face cream, or absolutely love that new movie, but I’m not going to click on your link to shameless promotion. I don’t care how many widget points you are going to get toward that big layout you’ve been promised. Actually if you do ever really have something to say, I’m probably not going to read that either for fear of being offered the lowest mortgage rate in years. I realize that you are only trying to make a buck and give about as much a shit about these wonderful new products and services as I do, but you are reminding of those Amway zombies. Just quit it.
By the way, I didn’t eat breakfast, just coffee, went to the gym, just finished up a blog post, and would really like the new blackberry for my birthday that’s coming up.
As you know I spend a great deal of my time being annoyed. It is a hobby. Lately I have noticed there are a lot of brand new ways to be annoying, especially online.
Want to piss me off? Tweet what you had for breakfast. Let me give you a clue here, nobody gives a good goddamn how yummy you think scrambled eggs are. We just don’t. Unless you have substituted live spiders for the bananas in your Cheerios, just spare us.
Having a cup of coffee isn’t that interesting either. Do you really expect folks to get all excited when you let us know about your latte on facebook? You are not sending these dispatches out to a remote uninhabited island. Most folks with a computer are familiar with both Starbucks and the intricate workings of Mr. Coffee.
You exercised? Wow. That’s great. Good for you. I’m sure everybody on your list now has an image of you as fit and athletic. That’s impressive. The thing is if Jennifer Lopez is not in your yoga class nobody cares. Exercise is every bit as boring to hear about as it is to actually do.
You are working on a blog post? Everybody kind of already figures that you work on them before you post them. We are all onto that. But thanks for letting us know.
Thanks for letting me know you are busy today and want to get a whole lot done. I take it that posting this was one of the earth shatteringly important things you had to do? Congratulations you can check annoying the shit out of me off your list.
Good to know that your kid just did something cute. Everybody thinks kids are cute, you especially think your kid is cute. It’s just an overload of cuteness out there. You know those folks who insist on showing you every picture of their kids in their giant wallet? Well that’s you, just on a larger scale.
Having a bad day? I’m real sorry. So are the other 200 people on your list. I’m sure all the thousands of other folks, 123 of which have let us know they are having a bad day too, that all us folks connect to, are sorry too. Can you see how your bad day is contributing to a planet wide buzzkill? Think about that the next time you are feeling down.
My job sucks too. Pretty much everybody thinks their job sucks, at least some of the time. I am glad that you reminded me that I am not alone though. It makes me feel as if I am connected to a whole community. Did you not get that? OK, let me make this perfectly clear, everybody thinks their job sucks. Got it? Good.
Oh you’re birthday is coming up? Somehow you’ve just happened to mention it. Well happy birthday! I want you to know I didn’t feel a bit pressured to say that. Really. I just can’t wait for your post about all the gifts you got.
And for the love of god do not try to sell me something. Everybody is on to you. You may have found the greatest pair of sunglasses, the best face cream, or absolutely love that new movie, but I’m not going to click on your link to shameless promotion. I don’t care how many widget points you are going to get toward that big layout you’ve been promised. Actually if you do ever really have something to say, I’m probably not going to read that either for fear of being offered the lowest mortgage rate in years. I realize that you are only trying to make a buck and give about as much a shit about these wonderful new products and services as I do, but you are reminding of those Amway zombies. Just quit it.
By the way, I didn’t eat breakfast, just coffee, went to the gym, just finished up a blog post, and would really like the new blackberry for my birthday that’s coming up.
