I'm Back!

There have been so many happenings in the past two years and eight months that I've been away.  One thing led to another thing to another thing and so on and so on and I never could get back to this blog which I love so much.  So what if no one reads it, I love reading how I felt about something or someone in the moment.

The thing that brought me back to this blog is the death of a man at the hands (or wheels) of the notorious Suge Knight, a former record producer who intimidated his way to the top.  Anyway on January 29, 2015 Suge ran over the head of a man named Terry Carter who was 55 years old and somehow got involved in a fight that Suge was having with an old-time associate of his named Cle Bones Sloan, a Blood-turned-actor who evidently doesn't like Suge.  I want to attend the trial and report on it on YouTube.  CAH thinks it's not a good idea but I have a curiosity on the minute details on this case and the only way I can find out is if I'm there.  I have no idea if I will even be allowed in the courtroom but I'm going to make press credentials in case I need to justify to the authorities why I'm there.  We will see.

Rodney King, Your Name Will Always Be Remembered

Wow!!  Rodney King died at 47 years old, looking like he was pushing sixty!  Rodney's bad habits and poor decisions gave him a beating far worse than the one that placed him in history in 1991.

<=== In this picture,  Rodney looked like he had been chain-smoking Newports and blounts made with crack cocaine everyday for the last thirty years.  He looked like he ate fast-food morning, noon and night and washed it down with forty-ounces or half-gallon-size soda drinks.

He looked toxic.  He looked like he sweated all the time.  He looked like he had gallons of tar in his lungs.  He looked malnourished, rundown, unhealthy, beatdown.  He looked oxygen-deprived from all the cholesterol blocking his arteries.  He looked like he had hypertension.  He looked like a heart-attack waiting to happen.

When I think of Rodney King, I sometimes think of Dr. Martin Luther King and the coincidence of their last name, a name meaning leadership.  I think about their slight physical resemblance.

I think about how their lives and achievements were extreme opposites and yet they will be remembered for watershed moments in the civil rights history of the United States.  Of course, Rodney King will not be remembered as a hero or for receiving the Nobel Peace prize or for changing the course of American history.  Instead, Rodney King will be remembered as a hapless young black man who was driving while drunk, wouldn't stop when the police tried to pull him over and eventually was beaten by five LAPD, while a dozen watched.   His vicious beating served as the spark that ignited riots in South Los Angeles in protest of LAPD brutality.

King got lucky because someone was taping and sent it to the news where it eventually  became international.  He thus became a symbol for victims who get brutalized by law enforcement everyday and no one knows about it.  And he received $3.8 million dollars (he probably only got 60% of that with attorney fees and all) for his pain and suffering, from the city of Los Angeles.  Again, something most beating victims never get: monetary compensation.

But then Rodney King's luck ran out.  Unfortunately,  he was unable to live a consistent life.  He was a slave to alcohol and drugs.  He got arrested for drunk driving, domestic abuse.  He drove into a brick wall and someone's house.  He was shot in the arm, face and back by unknown assailants when he was riding a bike.  He ran red lights and stop signs and STILL would not stop for cops.

Rodney King
1965 - 2012  

Tiger Woods is Weird

Tiger Woods is like an automaton whose only emotion is meaness. He has the social skills of a rock and I apologize to rocks everywhere. There is a book coming out about him written by coach of six years. The wooden (pun intended) athlete claimed that he learned in rehab that he should have feelings for a woman if he plans on having a sexual relationship. Whaaat? Does that mean he didn't have "feelings" (much less love) for his former wife? Probably.

Then, the book goes on to say that this piece of stone told his wife that there will be no parties, celebrations, fist-pumping, or smiling when he wins a tournament because it is expected that he will always win and it's all in a day's work. What a fun guy.

He has no friends, plays military video games all days, doesn't offer his guests any of the snacks that he eats and has an x-rated sense of humor.

The book comes out in a couple of weeks and I will do a full review - I'm on the waiting list at the library.

Bye, Beautiful

Whitney Houston died today. Officially at 3:55 pm but she was probably dead long before that. In more ways than one. It's like she sputtered out. When she started out she was so fresh, so delectable, so young. And now that seems so long ago, so in another time and place. Whitney today is no more. Her body lies at the Los Angeles City Morgue, waiting to (or perhaps, already have) undergo(ne) an autopsy as I sit here and write this.

The greatest singer of my time has died. I don't know what drove Whitney to do what she did with her life. I have no idea why she couldn't overcome whatever she needed to overcome or what her daily environment was like. Was she hooked on pills? That seems to be the most deadly high for celebrities. Or did her heart just give out from all the years of cigarette and crack smoke? I guess it doesn't matter what made her die she is gone and it's another, new, reality without her.

Beyonce Does Everything Right!

Beyonce is perfect. I can't imagine any fault she might have. She seems like the nicest, most poised, most relaxed, most patient individual, much less superstar, ever. She always smiles for the paparazzi. She is never involved in an "incident." She dated her super-star, mogul husband for years before marrying him in a private wedding right under the media's nose. Now, she's just had the most beautiful, perfect-looking baby girl ever. The baby has a full head of head and has the most beautul face and expression. Her eyebrows are noticeably perfect. She is the perfect baby for the perfect superstar. I look forward to watching her, Blue Ivy Carter, grow up!

Stephen Ira, Have Some Respect!

Just because you went to the Buckley School and have a superior education than most of us doesn't give you the right to talk a bunch of gibberish that only makes sense to you and your fellow school mates (and maybe not even them). How dare you at 19 years old talk down to Chaz Bono,who, at 42, a whole generation older than you, has endured ridicule, insults, mockery !! You don't know the half of what Chaz has gone through so that kids like you can be understood!

Here is that gobbly-gook you said to Chaz:

"Chaz is a misogynist...This man doesn't represent our community. He especially does not represent those of us who are non-binary, non-op, women, or feminist men. Chaz needs to do some hard thinking about what it means to appoint oneself representative of a whole group without considering the desires of all the group's members."

All Chaz said was that he felt his vagina was a birth defect that he wanted corrected. Stephen got his panties in a bunch and felt that Chaz was misrepresenting this tiny sliver of a transgender subgroup - "the non-binary" [neither female or male, neither 1 or 2] that evidently wanted to be male but with vaginas. I'm not certain what he meant, I was just disturbed by the slight disrespect for a civil rights pioneer.

What Happened, Oprah!!??

Oh my!! I caught a glimpse of Oprah accepting her Oscar for humanitarian work and I couldn't believe what I was seeing - a non-glamorous Oprah! The last time I saw her image was when she had the finale to her 25-year talk show. She looked fabulous, heavier but very shapely and her hair was immaculately styled, of course, and her makeup impeccable, as usual.

That was six months ago and within the last six months she has gone from immaculately groomed to, well, frumpy. She looked very overweight, unhappy, and tired. She even broke down and cried.

Come on, Oprah, this network thing may not be worth it. You have nothing to prove, you've been to the mountain top! I want to see you looking like this:

or this:

Steve Jobs' Last Words - Oh Wow!

Steve Jobs' sister said that his last words before losing consciousness were "Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow." There was something his eyes fixated on that only he could see when he said it. Those words are chilling to me, in a good way because his last words have given us a glimpse in the other side.

I was by both of my parents' side when they died twenty years apart, both in home hospice. My father, dying of lung cancer and medicated on morphine said one day, in his haze, that he was "drinking some wine," with a smile and a small laugh. Knowing that he was having sweet dreams was very comforting to me. His last words were his mother's name. It took him a lot of effort but he said his mother's maiden name when he overheard us filling out his death certificate. I believe he was seeing his mother who was there to greet him on the other side. That was comforting.

My mother, at age 93 was suffering from dementia and was on her death bed, said "Mommy?!" and died that night. She sounded so happy.

Sam Kinison's last words were chilling and left a big impression on me . He died differently than Steve Jobs and my parents, who died slowly and knew they were dying. Instead Kinison was in a head-on car collision and had no idea he was about to die. He had more of a last "conversation" than "words." But the thing that is the same is that he saw something on the other side and was happy or comforted by it. Wow, a natural death seems exciting or at least not scary.

Here is a first-hand account of Sam Kinison's last moments and words:

"... At first it looked like there were no serious injuries to Kinison, but within minutes he suddenly said to no one in particular "I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die." LaBove later said "it was as if he was having a conversation, talking to some unseen somebody else" some unseen person. Then there was a pause as if Kinison was listening to the other person speak. Then he asked "But why?" and after another pause LaBove heard him clearly say: "Okay, Okay, Okay.’ LaBove said: "The last ‘Okay’ was so soft and at peace...Whatever voice was talking to him gave him the right answer and he just relaxed with it. He said it so sweet, like he was talking to someone he loved." Source: Paul Luvera Blog

They Found Some Bones Yesterday

They found some bones in Malibu Canyon yesterday and everyone thinks it's Mitrice Richardson. Park Rangers were checking a spot to see if marijuana was being grown there as in the past and came across "a skull and some bones." Later, it was reported that the bones were of a woman, and there was denim fabric near the bones.

The bones were found only 2 and 1/2 miles from the spot where she was last seen!!

Seems like the family may have heard this news the same time the rest of us did because Mitrice's mother held a press conference in front of the county morgue because she was outraged that the sheriff's department would give out details to the public before telling her first. I agree - law enforcement has been so obtuse in this case. Seems like common decency would have made the detectives call Latice (Mitrice's mother) and tell her "look, this is going out on the news but we want to give you a head's up, it might not be anything relating to Mitrice but a partially decomposed body was found this afternoon." Something like that.

I always believed that Mitrice was still in the canyon. She could have stumbled there and died or she could have been murdered but I always felt that she was in some kind of "Deliverance"-type camp with a couple of degenerates who eventually killed her. Funny thing, judging from the pic taken by a helicopter and, I assume, before the remains were removed, it appears that the remains are beside a road as if someone drove there and pushed out the body and there it laid until all its skin and flesh disappeared. It looks like there are hair and clothes (I magnified the above pic) on the remains.

I'm sure, if it is Mitrice, those law enforcement officers that have viewed the remains and clothing will already know if it's her or not. Latice is demanding to be able to view the remains and I think she should so she doesn't have to agonize while the coroner does all the testing that needs to be done. There might be hair left on the skull or shoes on the feet that could identify her. Lord, let your will be done.

Was It Worth It?

OK, I kinda/sorta understand when cultural expections make you go to the extreme. Like women getting Triple-G size implants. But when you are so poor you sleep on the floor and you pay to be made pregnant and actually bring a child into this world with the great possibility that you won't be around for the heavy lifting.

Take for instance this lady on the left, Rajo Devi Lohan, gave birth to the child she is holding in her arms at the age of SEVENTY through IVF. Now she's dead.

I Almost Disappeared Like That

On Sept 17, 2009, Mitrice Richardson, a 24 year-old, All American-type girl, disappeared. There is a lot of controversy over whether the Sheriffs Department was negligent in releasing her in the dead of night, without a ride or someone to pick her up, in an undeveloped area with a lot of hills and brush. Oh yeah, the sheriffs wouldn't give her her car - impounded for some unknown reason - and told her she could leave though - on foot. As of today, June 26,2010, Mitrice has been missing for nine months.

This story haunts me because I almost disappeared like that, in a split second, and like in a movie playing out before me, someone from out of NO WHERE, in the next split second, saved me, literally, physically, saved my life.

I was riding my bike on a deserted street of undeveloped land when a van pulled over to the curb as I was waiting to cross the street. The man in the passenger seat asked me for directions. He looked harmless - chubby with fat cheeks and me, with my Girl Scout and sunday school training, I thought I would help him. As I straddled my bike and tried to think of how best to explain to him he jumped out of the van and ran towards me, grabbed my wrist and started pulling me to the van. I was like WTF is going on!!??

The struggle began as I started jerking back on my arm and digging in my feet trying to breakfree of his gigantic dirty hands. It was like we were in a tug of war. He got me all the way to the van and I stuck my arm straight out and braced it against the side to keep him from pulling me in.

I knew my skinny arm wasn't going to last long but adrenaline is a powerful thing because I felt like I was in a struggle for my life. It wouldn't have been any different if it had been a bobcat or bear or some other beast, I was scared to death and was fighting for my life.

I'm looking at the driver of the van, an old Latino man with gray hair and missing teeth. I'm begging him to help me, to stop his grandson and then it dawns on me that the old man is in on it. Just then, just in time, right before I was beginning to give up hope, a big fist came across from the left and socked fatboy so hard he staggered back and let me loose. He got back in the van and they sped off.

If this man had not stopped and rescued me I would have disappeared, just like that, just like it happens everyday.

Yet Another Disaster......

On April 20th a huge catastrophe occurred in the Gulf of Mexico, an oil spill, gushing out millions of barrels of oil day and night for the last two months. The black ooze of oil is all over the beach and it is a pathetic sight to see the birds and animals coated with it and can't move or fly. Ah, the cost of providing fuel as we know it.

Marc Christian Died

Rock Hudson's last lover died in June this year. I remember him because AIDS was the big thing in the news then and Rock was the first major actor the public knew that had AIDS. Marc was a really handsome man, the kind that get sugar-daddies among rich homosexuals to keep them in money and style. It's sad that Rock Hudson didn't have any family whatsoever and all his legacy went to this hustler he had only known for short while before he died.

Everybody Deserves a Roof - EDAR

An EDAR is such a cool invention. It's a miniature tent on wheel for the homeless. It folds up to the size of a shopping cart and has as much, if not more, storage space and can be pushed from here to there like a shopping cart. The real beauty of it is that it folds out into a water and wind proof tent with a bed that is OFF the ground. The wheels are sturdy and can be locked in place.

Anyway, when saw this story about the EDAR on CNN I thought about Jimmy, the homeless man at Crown Drugs. I thought he would be perfect and if I can get him one I would get to see it first hand on a regular basis because that's where he stays, everyday, all day. Except when it rains he told me he goes to some "window" business and sleeps.

I introduced myself to him and asked his name. He told me his name was Jimmy. I saw a plastic band on his wrist and asked him if he just got out of the hospital and he said "I just got out JAIL!" I thought of Richard Pryor and the wino. But Jimmy was not intoxicated nor did he ask me for money. Actually I've never seen Jimmy begging around the shopping center which is probably why they let him stay there. I told him I'd like to get him a portable tent he could sleep in, then fold it up and take it with him like his shopping cart.

It took a little while but once he understood he was all for it. As I soon found out, everybody, the merchants, clerks, security all love Jimmy. His bed and shopping cart are always neat and like I said, he doesn't beg. I found out later that Jimmy gets a GR check and probably has an EBT card. He just doesn't want to live in a shelter - period.

Phantom of the Opera

Michael thought like no one else known to the public. All his decisions made his life an operatic tragedy. His worst decision was to have so much surgery on his face and then turn his entire complexion white, whiter than even white people. In the end he looked like a ghoul and lived like a vampire. Only Michael Jackson would think of having an anesthesiologist on 24-hr call to have someone put him under for night. Then like a daytime vampire MJ would be brought back to consciousness the next day.

Back in medieval times Michael would have been kept in a back room, doing menial tasks until he died. Unless he had been rich and his appearance didn't start off that way then he would have been an eccentric recluse, living deep in the bowels of a hugh gothic castle.

Other People Who Died This Year That Meant Something to Me

Patrick Swayze, died on Dad's home-going anniversary

Henry Gibson, "Laugh In" "I know naaaa-ting."

Michael's Style, Part 2 - The Mature Years

Michael wears a suit! Kinda. This is about as conservative and "normal" as he got. But it's a cool look. He dressed like a rock star or some wealthy, eccentric European. Whichever he looks rich and odd.

Michael's Style,

Michael Jackson had great style. Especially when he was accepting awards. His costumes usually had a military or royal theme befitting a King of Pop. This is how the generals would look if there was an all-gay military.

The armband is one of Michael's signature looks. He must have seen it somewhere like maybe a police officer's funeral and all the police officers were wearing armbands. It's like that sequined glove, the ONE sequined glove. I think he saw a golf match or something. The tape on the tip of his fingers? A volleyball match. But the armband was phasing out, along with the seguined look. My next post about Michael will be his "businessman" look.

Michael Jackson, Super Nova

Michael Jackson, a man with a simple name, lived an operatic life. He will be thought about, sung about and listened to by many, many generations to come. In a thousand years Michael Jackson's life, not just his music, will continue to make people marvel. His life was that of a super nova, a star so hot and bright, so infinitely larger than all the other stars put together that it is considered strange and awesome all at once.

You Could Be Stitting Next to a Murderer

Here, in L.A. crime has decreased drastically. So much so that the police can now work on cold cases (I love "Cold Case" on A&E)AND use DNA tests that weren't around twenty years ago. They've solved two cases, cases I remember reading about and the person arrested in each case was a HUGE surprise, shocking even. But it all goes to my theory that we all know someone who has killed, got away with it and keeps it as a deep dark secret that only they know about.

Take for instance John Floyd Thomas.

He's 72 years old and had been working for the state of California as a claims adjuster since 1989. He's worked in the same office all those years. His co-workers said he was pleasant, quiet, and religious. Well, it turns out that John was also a convicted felon and registered sex offender who was required to submit his DNA in October 2008 to LAPD for its DNA registry. Remember, the police now has a lot of time on their hands so they are contacting every registered sex-offender for a cheek swab and processing the results in the database.

Well, well, if it didn't come back five months later that Thomas' DNA matched the DNA left and stored for thirty years in the bodies of at least six elderly white women in the 1970s and 1980s who were raped and strangled. They called this guy the "Southland Strangler" and could never catch him. All they knew was that he was black and that they kept the semen from the bodies of the victims.

His co-workers at the state office were in a state of shock. They had been working with a serial-killer who thought he had gotten away with it and turned over a new leaf. I do wonder how he was able to get such a good job with his record of 12 years in prison.

Then there's Stephanie Lazarus who was just arrested yesterday for the murder of her ex-boyfriend's wife twenty-three years ago. Not only did she hold the same job with her co-workers for the last 26 years but she was a LAPD cop. Now she had to know she wasn't going to get away with it for very much longer. She had to know that there was a shift in the department to DNA testing to solve old crimes. Maybe she thought she didn't leave any DNA behind, but she did. And it was tested. It turned out to belong to a woman. Det. Lazarus' name was in the file from 1983 (she was a rookie cop then), as the ex-girlfriend.

Funny they don't already have law-enforcement personnel provide DNA since they ask for finger prints but anyway, they didn't have Stephanie's DNA on file so she was followed and something was found with DNA and, of course, it matched.

LAPD is stunned. But it proves my theory mentioned-above.