One Day at a Time

MONDAY, JUNE 29 Not sure if you heard anything about it, but brace
yourselves, guys: Michael Jackson died! Happily, the media has
been super cool about it, and other than the occasional tasteful story
here and there (and a picture of his fresh corpse on the
cover of OK! magazine), not much has been said about the
tragedy. However, since this is a gossip column, we’ll try to
fill you in on what little the media has been reporting following MJ’s
untimely death. Headline #1: JACKO’S BODY TO BE VIEWED AT
NEVERLAND… WAIT! NOW IT’S THE STAPLES CENTER! Making a bad
situation even worse, the Jackson family is denying his fans the
opportunity to view Michael’s remains in his natural habitat (the
Neverland Ranch), and instead will force them to pay their respects in
LA’s boring Staples Center. BOOOOO!! So much for our plans to ride the
bumper cars, see Bubble’s cage, and watch a sobbing, PTSD-stricken
Macaulay Culkin curl up in a ball outside Michael’s bedroom.
Headline #2: JACKO’S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT EXCLUDES FATHER JOE,
EX-WIFE DEBBIE ROWE, AND KIDS! Or does it? Apparently his will
leaves everything to “a family trust”—which holds the ultimate
power to distribute Michael’s wealth (currently hovering around $500
million). That means everyone’s going to be extremely sweet to the
holders of this trust… until their payday is denied, of course. (Have
we mentioned how much we LOVE Tito?) Headline #3: JACKO’S
KIDS—NOT REALLY HIS KIDS! According to Us magazine,
Michael’s artificially conceived children (Prince and Paris)
actually came into being thanks to the sperm of Jacko’s former
dermatologist Arnold Klein—which is grrrreat news for any
teenage progeny of Jackson who loves clear skin but hates collapsing
nasal cavities.

TUESDAY, JUNE 30 The world took a quick break today from their
Michael Jackson obsession to say “Ha-ha-ha! Bernie Madoff is going
to jail… for 150 years!” Financier/heartless monster Bernard
Madoff, whose $65 billion Ponzi scheme wrecked the lives of at least
9,000 investors, has been sentenced to 150 years in prison.
Written testimonies from Madoff’s victims ranged from a widow who had
been robbed blind, to a Korean war veteran forced to sell his home and
live in his daughter’s spare room, to a physician’s practice with 140
employees who saw their retirement plans vanish overnight. While
the 75-year-old Scrooge may not live to fulfill his 150-year sentence,
there is an upside: Hell rarely, if ever, grants paroles.
MEANWHILE… Did you enjoy your break? Good, now here’s one
final (and we do mean FINAL) MJ story to chew on! According to
nutritionist Cherilyn Lee, who was hired to work with the King
of Pop on his comeback tour, Jackson had repeatedly begged her to supply him with the intravenous drug Diprivan to help him
sleep. Used in surgery to induce unconsciousness, an overdose of
Diprivan can stop a person from breathing and possibly lead to
cardiac arrest. Lee turned down his requests and told the AP: “I
said, ‘Michael, the only problem with you taking this medication [is
that] you’ll take it and you’re not going to wake up.'” Results
of toxicology tests performed during Jackson’s autopsy are still
several weeks away.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 1 Everybody relax! Britney Spears is NOT
dead. She’s simply a victim of someone hacking into her Twitpic
account (and being forced into the entertainment industry as a young
child). Nevertheless, a somewhat minor panic ensued when hackers broke
into her and Ellen Degeneres’ (?) (!) Twitpic account (which is
kind of like Twitter except… oh, you don’t really care, do you?). The
point is that Britney is alive and well… and yet? The week is still
young, isn’t it? MEANWHILE… Reality douchebags Spencer and
Heidi Pratt desperately tried to hang on to their slipping
notoriety by proclaiming on a radio show that 9/11 was definitely
“an inside job” (SNORE!), and that birth control is the work of
the devil/government. “I feel like God was telling me that [birth
control] was just something created by the government that is really
bad for my body,” says Heidi, who has done only wonderful things with
her body such as plastic surgery. “I researched it… how it morally
corrupted society… how it devalues women, how it causes
depression, how it can cause cancer, how it sterilizes your body, and
how most women are suicidal sometimes on it.” Let us pray: “Dear God,
we know you hate birth control… but why couldn’t Heidi’s mom be the
exception?”

THURSDAY, JULY 2 Happy birthday, Lindsay Lohan! And
congratulations on receiving $70,000 from the MGM Grand in Las
Vegas, simply for hosting a pool party and changing bikinis five
times. Stop laughing, you guys! Comparatively, Lindsay changing her
bikini five times is like you having to show up to work every day for a
year. Oh, bitter fame… thy true name is “drudgery.”

FRIDAY, JULY 3 Today Caribou Barbie (AKA Sarah Palin) outdid
herself by abruptly resigning as governor of Alaska. In the most
bizarre press conference ever, the normally composed Palin went off the
rails, offering a barrage of confused, breathless non-sequiturs.
“You are naïve if you don’t see a full court press from the
national level picking away right now a good point guard,” she began,
and her labored sports analogy soon veered into an incoherent
speech that utilized trusty Republican buzzwords (“national
security,” “big government takeover”), confusing requests
combined with trusty Republican buzzwords (“All I can ask is
that you trust me with this decision and know that it is no more
politics as usual”), dubious reasons for her decision (“prayer
and consideration,” soldiers in Kosovo, the fact that her infant
son Trig was mocked in the press for having Down syndrome, her belief
that “the world needs more Trigs, not fewer”), weird aphorisms
(“only dead fish go with the flow“), something about a magnet on
her parents’ refrigerator, an assertion that public office is a
“superficial, wasteful, political bloodsport,” and, finally, a
hurried promise to the actual, physical state of Alaska: “Remember,
Alaska,” Palin declared, “America is now, more than ever, looking north
to the future. [Not true. –Ann] And it’ll be good. So God
bless you.” In response, Alaska shrugged, muttered that it thought
“she’d never leave,” and went back to watching Northern Exposure DVDs.

SATURDAY, JULY 4 “The world of Mexican midget wrestling was
rocked to its tiny foundations this week, when a pair of pint-sized
twin performers were murdered—apparently by poison-wielding
hookers they met in a sleazy bar,” reports the New York Post.
Thirty-five-year-old twins Alberto and Alejandro
Jimenez—who went by La Parkita (“Little Death“) and El
Espectrito (“Little Ghost“) in the ring—fell prey to an
all-female gang that spikes men’s drinks using eyedroppers full of
poison. “Most of the gals’ full-sized victims are only left knocked
out,” the Post continued, but “because of the Jimenez brothers’
small stature, the poison proved fatal.” (WHAT? It was either this or a
story about how Hubby Kip managed to burn off his left eyebrow
and right sideburn with a sparkler. For the third year in a
row.)

SUNDAY, JULY 5 We know we promised no more Michael
Jackson news, but we can’t help squeezing in these last bits of
late-breaking MJ gossip! “Plans are being hatched for a hologram
image of the King of Pop to appear on stage beside his brothers for
a series of concerts,” News of the World reports! “Jacko’s dad
Joe and his brothers Jermaine, Tito,
Marlon, and Jackie who were part of the Jackson 5, are
behind the idea.” AND! E! Online, while sitting around a
campfire and holding a flashlight under its face, insists that
Michael Jackson’s ghost appeared on Larry King Live!
Apparently, in footage shot for King’s show, a moonwalking
apparition can be seen, silently sliding across the hallways of
Neverland Ranch. C’mon! As if that’s the creepiest thing that’s
ever happened at Neverland Ranch, right? (Ka-ZING! We’ll be here
all week! Tip your waitress!)