Open: An Autobiography by Andre Agassi

Andre Agassi's autobiography, Open, was surprisingly wonderful. How rare to find an athlete with such articulate self-awareness. His memoir thoroughly convinced me that he really does hate the game of tennis, the game brutally forced on him as a child. Unfortunately, he can't quite stay away from it either, because it is the thing he knows how to do best in the world; the thing that makes him feel in control (as he never was during his childhood). A fascinating contradiction, and likely one that many child-stars have experienced.

What I kept wondering is: Why does this work so well?

Yes, we know it's bad to harass children to death...but take a look at those boffo results. (Obviously, this is what dad was thinking, too.)

Granted, it doesn't work on every child prodigy... After all, there were three sons before Andre, who failed and couldn't deliver, forever regarded by their father as disappointments and losers. Andre felt the pressure, as another tortured child, Michael Jackson (fifth son, to Andre's fourth) certainly felt it. I also think of Mozart, Patty Duke and countless others, including even Agassi's two wives: Brooke Shields and Steffi Graf. (Agassi is so deeply defined by his childhood-prodigy experience, that I seriously doubt he could bond with any woman who did not in some way share it.) At one point, Shields refers to Jackson as "just like us, he never had a childhood"--and it is clear that the show-biz kids identify very strongly with each other; the psycho-stage-parent thing is its own unique gestalt. (To his credit, Agassi doesn't take potshots at the infamous Teri Shields, but I would have.)

Agassi's father, an Iranian immigrant and former boxer working in Las Vegas (extremely determined to hit the big time), started on him when he was tiny. Andre daily faced a machine nicknamed "The Monster"--shooting tennis balls at him at a furiously fast rate. And little Andre hit them back, over and over and over, hour after hour, day after day. These sections are very difficult to read, since they are basically an account of child abuse. But it's legal child abuse. The book introduces us to a whole world of tennis camps and stage-dads, endlessly haranguing and pimping the kids. It's grueling and horrific. The Florida "tennis camp" is like Basic Training; they even sleep in barracks and eat gruel, shipped out by bus to a local school for prearranged half-days, which guarantees the kids plenty of time to practice, practice, practice. Hours and hours and hours. Andre learns to channel his considerable anger over these circumstances, into his game. He becomes a very aggressive, precocious player and enjoys beating everyone who takes him on. As a teenager, the capitalists come calling, giving him the endorsements he needs to drop out of school (in ninth grade) and hit the road. For a working-class kid who has always lived hand-to-mouth, the money is jaw-dropping and intoxicating, and he is quickly hooked on the life of a star. He collects an entourage, and the real games begin.

My question for discussion is: Does this child-prodigy-routine work or doesn't it?

I offer Andre, Mozart and Michael Jackson as proof that their dads seemed to be onto something. And as long as stage-parents can produce these kinds of results? The Oliver Twist-tennis camps will still be in business.

Would he have won eight Grand Slams without his father's horrible machine, firing those endless tennis balls at him and teaching him to return even the strongest, deadliest serve at astonishing speeds?

Can we make champions without child abuse? Would Michael Jackson and Mozart have existed without child abuse? Of course not.

It's a paradox. We watch the champions, we watch the movies, we watch the stars, and we are dazzled... but we also disapprove of the process by which they learned to dazzle us.

I speak as one long dazzled by Agassi's return volleys. And now I ask myself: was I dazzled by the results of child abuse? Apparently so.

Andre makes us aware. He had the awareness forced on him, and now, he shares it with us.

One of the Living

1) I can't find my phone.

2) My acid reflux has returned, I fear because I am drinking way too much Yerba Mate. (But I love it!)

3) I also love Multilieve (photo at left) an excellent natural pain-reducer, which contains Corydalis Yanhusuo, Chinese Peony and California Poppy.... (Wicked Witch of the West voice: poppies! poppies!) No, I have not been compensated with anything but free samples.

4) Currently reading Maureen Orth's too-fabulous gossip-ridden and scandalmongering book The Importance of Being Famous, which totally rocks the house! How did I ever miss this book when it came out in 2004?

Orth has completely convinced me of the guilt of Michael Jackson AND Woody Allen, sad to say; she is a tireless journalist and investigative reporter (these articles were first published in Vanity Fair). She also writes extensively about Arianna Huffington, claiming she has never totally extricated herself from new-age guru-flake John-Roger. This stuff is fantastic, I can't recommend it enough.

5) One chapter in the aforementioned volume is about Tina Turner, probably the only celebrity interviewed in the entire book who emerges as a wholly-likable person. I started reading and thought, hey (my mind works in strange ways), whatever happened to that song, One of the Living, which I remembered was written by 80s wunderkind Holly Knight. It was used in the film Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.

And so I dug it out of the YouTube vaults and listened to it... damn, I still love that! Although it DOES bring back an unpleasant time in my life: my second divorce, just as I was starting to wonder if I could get along with anybody. During this emotionally-overwrought period, your humble narrator would sometimes attend as many as 2-3 AA meetings a day.

From one addiction to another.

Carrie Fisher once described what one does in detox/recovery: not drugs. And that is what I was doing. I was falling apart, financially destitute, with a child not even two years old and a divorce imminent, but I was ...NOT DOING DRUGS!

One nice person who commented on one of my irate Kennedy posts yesterday said "as a fellow 12-stepper" and I did not have the heart to tell this person that I no longer consider myself one. However, after you've done the TOTAL IMMERSION AA-thing (nods to Baptists in readership), you feel like you are stamped with it for life and it is somehow encoded in your DNA, just like LSD.

So, oddly, this song makes me think of AA meetings, one after the other, an endless balm of talk-talk-talk that soothed and tranquilized me in some way I can't readily or sensibly describe.

Don't wanna fight but sometimes you've got to
You're some soul survivor
There's just one thing you've got to know
You've got ten more thousand miles to go

As a bonus, we are reminded by this video that both Tina and Mel Gibson were looking especially hot back in the 80s.

Enjoy!

~*~

One of the Living - Tina Turner from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)



PS: Tina won a Grammy for this, which I didn't know, or didn't remember.

How may I help you?

Purty flowers from downtown Greenville... which of course, have absolutely nothing to do with this post. (Yes, I really do own one of those old "flower power" buttons ...)



I wake up and my TV channels are totally scrambled. Panic! How do they expect me to keep up with my scandalmongering without TV? Yes, I know the internet is a great place for snooping about, but I want my talking heads! Michael Jackson's death has just been ruled a homicide, and I must know more.

My rather slack-ass and stingy cable TV-company, Charter Communications, is now bankrupt, but still operating. How does that work exactly? When regular people go bankrupt, they have to STOP operating, don't they? But here they are, taking my money and continuing to provide slack-ass service anyway.

The Charter website does not list any re-set of channels. So, I am attempting to find out the reason though their computerized customer service.

Thank you for choosing Charter Chat Live! A Customer Care representative from Cable TV Support will be with you shortly.
You are currently number 8 in the queue.
All agents are currently busy. Please stand by.
You are currently number 7 in the queue.
All agents are currently busy. Please stand by.

Are these bots or people? As Dead Air regulars know, your humble narrator worked in/was traumatized by customer service for over 5 years, and I think I would have preferred typing bullshit replies to giving bullshit replies over the phone.

At least, when they scream, you wouldn't hear it.

You are currently number 4 in the queue.
All agents are currently busy. Please stand by.
You are currently number 3 in the queue.
All agents are currently busy. Please stand by.
You have been connected to TTD Shazia .
TTD Shazia : Thank you for contacting Charter Video Support. My name is Shazia. How may I assist you today?
Me: My channels are all scrambled up and not in the usual order
TTD Shazia : I'm sorry. The channels are being updated due to the recent changes in the lineup. These channel changes are effective August 25th, 2009. After August 25th, 2009, go to charter.com to view your channel line-up.
TTD Shazia : I can give you a list now if you want.
Me: Yes, I would like that!
TTD Shazia : In order for me to further assist you, may I have the phone number on the account starting with the area code, please?
Me: blah blah blah
TTD Shazia : Thank you. Can you also please verify the name that appears on the account, the complete service address, and the last four digits of your SSN?
Me: More blah blah blah
TTD Shazia : May I verify who I am chatting with?
Me: Daisy
TTD Shazia : Thank you. One moment, please.
TTD Shazia : Thank you so much for patiently waiting.
TTD Shazia : Channel Line-Up Effective August 25th, 2009:

And Shazia/the bot gives me a list which I printed out. Better than the phone, most assuredly, where this wouldn't be possible.

While working in customer service, I was instructed to say "I'm sorry" about everything, or some variation such as "I apologize for that," which I still say in retail if I don't carry a product or we are out of something. Why are we apologizing for something not our fault? I hate that shit. I hate it from Shazia/the bot too. Not her or the bot's fault if Charter is all fucked up and doesn't care about telling customers that the line-up has changed.

Looking up the name "Shazia"--I see it is an Indian or Pakistani name. Did I just talk to India?

I have a lot of mixed feelings about the fact that the job I used to have, is likely outsourced now. I hate that Americans are not getting the jobs, and then again, I know how badly everyone in the world needs a job. I have always prided myself on being a working-class person who connects to other workers, no matter where and who they are. When I saw the 60 Minutes segment in 2004 and learned customer service people in India are making maybe one-fifth (or less!) of what I made, I was livid on their behalf, too:

On any given day in New Delhi and Bombay and Bangalore, the call goes out for new call center recruits as more and more American companies come calling. The call center employees earn $3,000 to $5,000 a year, in a nation where the per capita income is less than $500. The perks include free private transport to and from work plus the sheer heaven of an air-conditioned workplace.

And every time I talk to Luke (Skywalker?), Peter (Parker?) or Jennifer (Aniston? Garner? Lopez? Connelly?), I am also reminded of the 60 Minutes show:

New Delhi is nearly 11 hours ahead of New York, so manning the phones is largely night work. By day, the agents - as they're called - are dutiful Indian sons and daughters. By night, they take on phone names such as Sean, Nancy, Ricardo and Celine so they can sound like the girl or boy next door.

"The real name is Tashar. And name I use is Terrance," says one representative.

"My real name is Sangita. And my pseudo name is Julia," says another representative. "Julia Roberts happened to be my favorite actress, so I just picked out Julia."

American movies are part of an agent's training in how to sound all-American.

Lavanya Prabhu is a call center trainer who guides young Indians through the labyrinth of American English. And she says she is able to pick up some of typical American accents while instructing her students.

"Well, you have Brooklyn. 'You walk the walk and you talk the talk.' And you have the southerner's thing. 'Oh hello, there. What can I do for you today,'" says Prabhu, who spends most of her time trying to de-Indianize her countrymen.

But it's difficult to get in. In fact, Prabhu says they accept approximately five applicants out of 100 applications.

We are spreading our Americanism around the world; colonialism through culture. There appears to be no escape for anyone.

I was recently asked an account-related question by a customer service worker with a strong Indian accent...I couldn't find the information she asked for, and mumbled, Oh God, I'm such a mess, which unexpectedly brought some hardy laughter.

I was glad I could make her day happier, and add to the colloquialisms she would later share with her co-workers.

Is globalizing customer service a good or bad thing for the US economy? Having hung out with the Ron Paul people quite a lot, I am inclined to say no, but then again, I can't keep my personal feelings and work experience out of my assessment.

What say you?

Odds and Sods - Hotter than July edition

Table Rock (and all other photos below) from my Flickr page.





Everyone's feeling pretty
It's hotter than July
Though the world's full of problems
They couldn't touch us even if they tried




The American right-wing is having a meltdown. Their carefully-constructed pretense of patriotism-at-all-costs, is crumbling right before our eyes. Politico reports:

Screaming constituents, protesters dragged out by the cops, congressmen fearful for their safety — welcome to the new town-hall-style meeting, the once-staid forum that is rapidly turning into a house of horrors for members of Congress.

On the eve of the August recess, members are reporting meetings that have gone terribly awry, marked by angry, sign-carrying mobs and disruptive behavior. In at least one case, a congressman has stopped holding town hall events because the situation has spiraled so far out of control.

“I had felt they would be pointless,” Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.) told POLITICO, referring to his recent decision to temporarily suspend the events in his Long Island district. “There is no point in meeting with my constituents and [to] listen to them and have them listen to you if what is basically an unruly mob prevents you from having an intelligent conversation.”

In Bishop’s case, his decision came on the heels of a June 22 event he held in Setauket, N.Y., in which protesters dominated the meeting by shouting criticisms at the congressman for his positions on energy policy, health care and the bailout of the auto industry.

Within an hour of the disruption, police were called in to escort the 59-year-old Democrat — who has held more than 100 town hall meetings since he was elected in 2002 — to his car safely.

“I have no problem with someone disagreeing with positions I hold,” Bishop said, noting that, for the time being, he was using other platforms to communicate with his constituents. “But I also believe no one is served if you can’t talk through differences.”

Bishop isn’t the only one confronted by boiling anger and rising incivility. At a health care town hall event in Syracuse, N.Y., earlier this month, police were called in to restore order, and at least one heckler was taken away by local police. Close to 100 sign-carrying protesters greeted Rep. Allen Boyd (D-Fla.) at a late June community college small-business development forum in Panama City, Fla. Last week, Danville, Va., anti-tax tea party activists claimed they were “refused an opportunity” to ask Rep. Thomas Perriello (D-Va.) a question at a town hall event and instructed by a plainclothes police officer to leave the property after they attempted to hold up protest signs.

Why is no one calling these trouble-makers insurrectionists, wingnuts and psychos, as lefties have always been called?

Time to call them what they are: dangerous, anti-American wackos.

~*~

Apologies for being slack last month and overlooking the Carnival Against Sexual Violence, as well as Caroline's wonderful Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy (NSFW).

Lotsa good feminist reading for everyone!

~*~

Pretty echinacea, to cure what ails you. (Photo taken at Table Rock, above.)




Also required reading is Dw3t-Hthr's Some Things They Don't Mention About Pregnancy:

*Trying to get a ballpark figure for an appropriate amount of weight gain during pregnancy from the internet is not a good idea.

Take all of the crazy, interfering, I-know-better-than-you stuff that gets directed at pregnant women.

Take all of the crazy, interfering, I-know-better-than-you stuff that gets thrown around about weight and health issues.

Combine.

Or hit yourself in the head with a brick a few times. It's faster, and just as informative.

* Moods are not unstable. Moods are turned up to eleven.

Instead of "cranky" I was achieving "kill it and devour its heart that its lifeblood might sustain my offspring."

Instead of "I don't want to deal with this" I was achieving "I need to go live in a cave and contemplate the hopelessness of human interaction."

* Childbirth classes with any sort of natural bent will spend at least a quarter of the time in class talking about how to protect yourself from hospitals.

This is epically fucked up. Completely, totally, epically fucked up. Legalhusband and I would leave our childbirth class every time, exchange glances, and then he'd say, "I'm so glad we're not planning on a hospital birth. I'm so glad we don't have to go through that."

And this ranges from stuff like the friend of mine who went in for a post-term ultrasound to doublecheck that everything was okay and had the administering nurse lie to her in an attempt to panic her into admitting herself to be induced immediately to horrifying shit like a woman having her baby taken away because she refused a C-section.

They will lie. They will not talk about the risks of epidurals. They will insist on putting an IV shunt into your vein "just in case" and not mention that it's possible to refuse. They will pressure. This is why people hire doulas - when they can afford them - to help protect their families from the crushing stress and pressure. This is insane.

Ohhhh, hell yes it is.

Awesome writing and women's truth, read it all!

~*~

They want us to join their fighting
But our answer today
Is to let all our worries
Like the breeze through our fingers slip away

If you are up for a post with 68 comments (mine got 2 thumbs-up and 1 thumbs-down), check out Restructure's interesting conversation: Libertarianism is rational for rich white people only.

And while reading, always keep in mind John Scalzi's Law of Internet Invocation: If you name them, they will come.

So yeah, the Libertarians are present and accounted for.

~*~

Old railroad trestle is from West Greenville County, SC.



One of my least favorite subjects, one that makes me want to scurry away and hide, was addressed in a round-about way earlier this month, on a vibrant and interesting Quaker blog: Anti-Christianity and where it comes from.

Usually, it comes from us. (The Christians, I mean.)

Alice Yaxley at Quaker Quaker asks: How should Quakers deal with members who are openly hostile to Christianity?

She also poses this as a generational question, which is fascinating, also:

What do Friends have to teach me about how to deal with people at Quaker gatherings who are openly hostile to christians? I've encountered some of it in the most liberal Quaker gatherings I've been to. It's not ok. I know that some liberal Friends groups in their lack of openness attract some people who are really spiritually wounded.

How do we make such people welcome and address their fears whilst at the same time not tolerating hatred of Christ or people who follow him? It's not a loving favour to indulge the spiritually wounded. Our indulgence of each other is spiritually dangerous and I believe I have seen it pretty much kill the spirit of a Meeting. How do we challenge wounded people to heal?

I care about this because it's not just about sucking up the persecution. It's about whether liberal Quakers get to keep a whole load of smart committed highly motivated christian young folks who may already be bored to tears with boomer wooliness. This is a key issue for people in liberal meeting to address. I think lack of toleration for open hostility to Christ needs to be the very least we can expect, otherwise what on earth are we doing?

Her post was the catalyst for a thoughtful discussion about WHY people are hostile to Christianity in the first place. And yeah, I already know why, but I always force myself to read the gory details.

Betsy Blake comments:

Alice, it is soothing to me, to hear you address this. I have done intensive Quaker intervisitation work for 14+ years. I am a Jesus-loving FUM Quaker. I identify with traditional Christian language. I didn't learn until college (at a liberal Quaker school), that even if you have the best of intentions and are as grounded in love as one can be, it still hurts people just to say the very words that are associated with this past hurt. This in turn can trigger swift attack.

I really, really, struggle with this.

Yes, me too. And I identify as a dissenting Catholic, not even one of the cool-liberal hippie Quakers.

Blake adds:

My question is--do people WANT to be healed?

Hmmm. Good one.

I often believe they do not.

Bill Samuel, another commenter:

Some meetings seem full of sick people not wanting to get well. Healthy people are viewed as sick. What happens when good Christians stay in such meetings? Well, a variety of things, but one thing I've noticed is that they tend to take on some of the illness. I'm not sure it's healthy to stay.

Does it have to be like this? The faith community I'm in now (I resigned from a liberal Friends meeting in 2005) also attracts lots of people who didn't fit in typical evangelical, Catholic, or whatever churches. But our community focuses on discovering what it really means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, not on rejecting Christ because others have distorted him badly.

And then there was this comment, from Algirdas Davidavicius:

I guess on the level of interpersonal relationships with such "hostile" people one good Christian Friend can always keep in mind, that the hostility in question is not because Christ nor His message, but because some painful, rejecting experience these people or their important ones once have from institutionalized, formalized or self-proclaimed "christians", hence they are making this projective, negative blanket-statement, discounting everything "christian". This is not problem, solution is always to listen and inquire directly persons experiences, feelings behind those "anti-" statements, which are only kinda cries for positive affirmation and, actually, truly christian acceptance of anyone as possessing indelible "that of God in us".

Hold Thee in Light -- Algis, Lithuania (Eastern Europe)

I'll try, man, and thanks for that reminder. I needed it, today.

~*~

Yall knew I couldn't get through a post this size without AZALEAS, right? :)


Claire Hoffman's in-depth Rolling Stone coverage of Michael Jackson's last days, really brought me down. I shouldn't have gone there, but the lifelong scandal-monger in me simply couldn't resist. I wanted to know: how bad was it?

I guess I didn't fully realize that his entire nose was GONE.

GONE, a hole in the center. (He was wearing a prosthetic nose.) Didn't any surgeons wonder if he was able to give "informed consent" for that? Evil, money-grubbing greedheads; I guess if he wanted to destroy his nose, they were glad to do it for a hefty fee.

Likewise, the pharmacy bill totaling (!) over $100,000 in a year's time. Holy shit, people.

This brings to mind an AA discussion, back in the day...John Belushi died about 6 weeks into my sobriety, and I owe him for that. John Belushi died for my sins, right about the same time I was starting to dangerously waver and reconsider the whole sobriety enterprise. And then he died, and I thought, ohhhhh.

The AA-meeting question after his death: Is it worse to be a rich addict or a poor addict?

Everyone agreed: A rich one.

Sycophants, groupies, hangers-on and various assortments of fellow-travelers and dealers, will fuck you up. By contrast, when you're a poor addict, people rapidly desert you in droves. You are out in the cold and you have no choice but to clean up. No job, no money, no lovers, no place to go. There it is, cold hard reality, staring you in face. All your goofy, drug-addled ideas (like destroying your nose) can never really come to fruition. They become the stuff of mindless junkie-talk, pipe dreams and nonsense-blather.

And a good thing too, or you might have had the power and money to do something insane, like destroy your nose.

Michael, we hardly knew ye...

~*~

And finally, a Dead Air tradition at the end of July... he really needs NO introduction!

When you're moving in the positive
Your destination is the brightest star

Stevie Wonder - Master Blaster (Jammin')

[via FoxyTunes / Stevie Wonder]

Michael Jackson inspires Blogdonia

In lieu of a proper obituary for Michael Jackson (surely you've read/viewed enough of them by now), I have collected some of the Best of Blogdonia, holding forth on the King of Pop.

Just when you think everything has already been said, someone adds something especially thoughtful; Michael Jackson's colorful life inspires still another writer or activist to go off in a different direction.

RIP, Michael.

~*~

Open Thread: Remembering Michael Jackson at Racialicious, has some excellent comments and trackbacks.

By way of Isabel the Spy, I found Would Michael Jackson have been such a sensation if he couldn't dance?:

Michael Jackson did dance, he could hold an audience's attention by just dancing and not singing. He didn't have to stoop to pseudo sexual acts for shock appeal. And he made a lot of men, black, white, brown and yellow, want to dance just like him. Perhaps his dancing more than his music was what truly made him an international star.

TigerBeatdown comments on Michael Jackson, Celebrity, Empathy, and the Culture of Silence. Read the comments, too, which include one by your humble narrator.

Ballardian weighs in on Michael Jackson's Facelift from the purely surgical standpoint:

Scarring was hypertrophic at the points where tension was greatest: that is, in the temple and the region behind the ear, but fortunately these were covered by the King of Pop’s hair. The small fine sutures which were not responsible for tension were removed at 4 days, and the strong sutures removed at the tenth day. The patient was then allowed to have a shampoo to remove the blood from his hair. All scarlines are expected to fade, and by the end of three weeks the patient was back in social circulation.

And for even more cold, hard reality, you can always count on Socialist Unity:

The sheer extent of [Jackson's] fame meant that for him anything even approaching normality was as much a fantasy as standing on stage performing and being worshipped by tens of thousands of people was for his millions of fans. Unable to deal with the distorting and cloying reality of the pressure that was placed on him to be more than human, Michael Jackson did his utmost to escape into an imaginary world of childlike innocence and fairytale. His Neverland Ranch was symptomatic of a man who’d rejected a world in which he was surrounded by the demands of fans, managers, promoters, recording executives, and a legion of sycophants, for one in which he was surrounded by children and the innocence they represent.

Stories began to emerge of his relationship with a monkey, of him sleeping in an oxygen tent, and then later of his inappropriate relations with some of the children he took to taking with him around the world, which progressed into charges being brought against him of sexual molestation.

The physical manifestations of Michael Jackson’s personal collapse were all too obvious in the plastic surgery which turned him into a living, breathing monument to self loathing and mutilation. Increasingly, whenever he appeared in public, it was like looking at a man slowly turning himself into one of the characters from his Thriller video, perhaps in a conscious attempt to hide from a world grown ever more intrusive and unsympathetic.

Ultimately, the ridicule which dogged Michael Jackson while he was alive, ridicule driven by an unforgiving media and international press, was in inverse proportion to the deluge of tributes and fawning idolatry that has dominated the coverage of his death.

From Confessions of a Cryokid, here is A letter to Prince Michael, Paris, and "Blanket" Jackson:

By now you have probably heard all the major media outlets advertising that your dad is not your biological father, and that your mom is not your biological mother. I can only imagine how hard this must be, just days after your dad tragically died.

I am so sorry that you had to find out the truth this way, it's a cruel thing to do to a child - hide the truth about your identity and let strangers reveal it maliciously to you. Parents sometimes make these decisions (to keep a secret) thinking they are protecting their children. However, usually it backfires. Unfortunately, because of who your daddy was, this backfire has been made public and the entire world is watching you. It's not fair, but make the best out of a bad situation.

But don't feel alone. There are thousands (maybe millions) of kids out there just like you - conceived artificially and denied the right to EVER know who their biological parents are. You three can change this!! Stories are flying around that your dad's dermatologist is your biological father. If this is true, you deserve to know, to know him - as your father. Ask questions, demand answers! Not only can you find answers for yourself, you can help thousands of other kids and adults out there who were conceived the same way!

Your daddy will always be your daddy, nobody can take that away - and it will take time to mourn his passing. But you also have a biological father out there, and you carry half his genes. His is part of you - he even looks like you! While nothing can mask the loss of your daddy, I hope that your biological father will step up and give you guidance and love, and support through this rough time and as you grow up. You deserve that as children and as human beings.

You also deserve to know your biological mother, and I hope for your sake that she stands up and acknowledges herself to you and provides love and support. A child needs both a mom and a dad, and to have only one and lose him is tragic but to be denied the ability to know both biological parents is horrific.

If you ever come across this, in a few weeks, a few months, even a few years - please know that you're not alone and that there are many others out there pleading for these same rights...and that one day we will prevail.

Old school Friday: I don't need no cure

Daisy reaches waaaaay back into her already-rusty memory banks this week, for some Old School music.

Enjoy!

~*~

Express - BT Express



~*~

The Love I Lost - Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes



~*~

Great "time capsule" video for this one (from 1976), giving you some pretty good visuals from the US-Bicentennial celebration of that year. Lots of forgotten celebrities and commercials also represented!

This is in honor of Michael Jackson's will, leaving his children to Diana Ross in the event his mother can't take them... Also, I belatedly realized that I did not include her in my Diva Round-up last month, and Van would be so upset with me for that...

Love Hangover - Diana Ross



I don't need no cure/I don't need no cure...

Dead Air is devastated

As I said in this post, I actually took a physical blow for him once (not that I planned on that!)... Hopefully, I will be able to collect myself later, to write a better post.

For now, please listen to one of my favorites. Just magic.

We were less than a year apart in age...so imagine a very young Daisy listening to a very young Michael.

Of course, I had Jackson 5ive posters on my wall, right next to David Cassidy, David Bowie, Iggy, The Who...

And when he sings, "there's so many things we haven't tried"-- (((cries)))

I wanna be where you are - Michael Jackson