Last night I began a project -- setting up an iPod connection kit with my home theater system. It's not complicated, and I've actually had a few people ask me how to go about doing it, so I've walked at least three people through the entire process, which -- in theory -- should take about 20 minutes. The biggest obstacle I faced was a tight enclosure; my receiver's an 18-inch deep monster and very wide, so it would be hard to wiggle it out with a dozen or so connections (all told, about 30 wires) piping in and out the back of the unit. Yet I embarked on the project nonethemore.
That was last night...I got sidetracked (and tired) so I finished half-way and vowed to wrap it up tonight. But today was a busy day, and then The Verdict came down...guess I would need something with which to occupy my PC time tonight. So I endeavored to finish what I started last night and -- with relatively few problems -- I did.
"In the evening, when the day is done...I'm looking for a woman, but the girl don't come. So don't let her play you for a fool... She don't show no pity baby, she don't make no rules..."
Nothing quite like listening to the dramatic stylings of an iPod playing back through a home theater system replete with a subwoofer and 400 watts of power spread across two channels.
"I hear you crying in the darkness, don't ask nobody's help...ain't no pockets full of mercy baby, cause you can only blame yourself..."
The iPod sounds tight, loud and omnipresent. The stereo separation is dramatic, and the highs are high and the lows are loooooooow. And overall the nicest part is I have a NaviPod which allows me to navigate the iPod's 14-day library fed via my universal remote. So I can be incredibly lazy, sit around and do nothing, watch TV, listen to music and order take-out for about two weeks before things start getting old.
Today's Day 1.
In the meantime, around 5:15EST this afternoon, the Michael Jackson case concluded with The Verdict, a complete acquittal of Nambla's poster child. I was not completely surprised; the biggest mistake people make is assuming that an acquittal means the person is actually innocent of the crimes of which they have been accused. In this case, whether or not that is true, it seems to me that Mr. Jackson did have sexual contact with children under the age of 18. I think he was "guilty" of many, if not all, of the crimes of which he was accused. However, the key to him being found guilty thereof is not whether he actually did those things but whether the prosecutors were able to convince the jury, through evidence and testimony, that he did indeed commit these acts. Obviously, the jury was not convinced. It might have been an issue of doubt -- was it beyond reasonable doubt that he actually did some or all of these things -- or was it just not backed up by evidentiary support and witness testimonials? Whatever the rationale, Mr. Jackson, tonight, is a free man. But that doesn't mean that he is innocent of those now irrelevant charges.
Personally, I am somewhat impressed that this jury acquitted him. This is a guy who willingly admitted -- in an international documentary -- that as a 35-plus-year-old man, he regularly shared his bed with young boys. The fact that he does this is sickening; the fact that he admitted same is beyond baffling. Obviously he's got problems with right and wrong.
And I'll bet my last pair of clean shorts that despite his acquittal, none of the jurors would willingly allow their child -- boy or girl -- to spend the night at Neverland.
The cynical among us will point to this case, as well as those against OJ Simpson and Robert Blake, and decry the American judicial system. "Money buys justice," they'll say. And on some level I suppose they're right. However, OJ Simpson is a pariah where he was once a B-List celebrity. He has completely lost his ability to use his celebrity as a means for income, and everywhere he goes -- and ever will go -- people will whisper, stare and keep their distance. Robert Blake's sordid, disturbing post-Beretta life was laid out on a courtroom table for our perusal, and what we saw repulsed us. His future is avoiding the spotlight and keeping as low a profile as possible. And Mr. Jackson is a suspected, if not convicted, pedophile and deviant who has no contact with reality. His ability to market "family"-oriented albums evaporated as the testimony unrolled, and if his career wasn't mired in a spiraling, sinking ditch of quicksand before, he is most certainly in the past tense as a viable recording artist. So his $100,000-a-week spending habit will now return to Earth even if his mind and his personality will never follow. He'll sell his ownership of The Beatles' catalog, his kid-friendly ranch, Neverland, and will become a recluse, either here in America or elsewhere. Good riddance, either way...
In other words, if you think he walked out of that courtroom today a free man, think again. He's a prisoner of his own design, of the media, and his own pathological, disturbed sexual desires. And whether or not another child ever spends a night at that ranch ever again, any parent who permits same should be flogged with a barbed-wire whip...during a live broadcast of Wheel of Fortune.
It occurs to me that the most effective way to injure a celebrity is not to lock him or her away in a prison (a la Martha Stewart) but to force him/her to endure a lifetime of ridicule, suspicion and distrust. Take away their money, either by legal bills or by castigating them publicly and peeling back the layers of facade to allow the rest of us to peek in at the disturbed, angry, confused, pathological, unhappy, insecure, pathetic individual which said celebrity, deep down, really is.
That's the true guilty verdict.
Although, then again, it would have been nice to hear that Rocco and Guido went looking for Mr. Jackson's other glove -- in his tuchas.
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1 comment:
Amen my brother!
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