lollipop_monkey

Sure, or a rental, or... What I really want to know is how the hell a random Belgian magazine got ahold of pics of Mika in some front yard in America. How random. I mean, even in the UK the media doesn't seem to care if he's strolling out of his front door unless he's arm-in-arm with a half-naked Lady Gaga. So why would photogs in Miami have such an interest? Yes That was my first thought too.

I'm torn about this On one hand I suppose iMMa would want her own career to be keeping her so busy that she doesn't have time to tour with Mika. On the other hand, she sounds so freakin' amazing with him that I always want her to stick around. Happy Ending will never be the same without her. I haven't heard anything "official" yet about that, so I guess time will tell.

I shouldn't laugh, but that's just such a ridiculous stereotype that it's actually quite hilarious. Sorry Welshies.

It's all very sad, and admittedly I don't know enough about her story to know what sort of invisible demons she may have been fighting (depression, mental illness, etc). Still I hesitate to call the whole thing a "tragedy", really, because again to me that word has connotations of being out of the victim's control and given that self-destruction came into play, I'm not sure she's entirely a victim of circumstance. I think both of the statements I've bolded are so very true. The world does love a trainwreck, which leads to a media frenzy, which leads to a situation like you get with say, Amy Winehouse, or Lindsay Lohan. It is a sad aspect of our time that when celebs self-destruct they end up doing so in a fishbowl.

And you say you don't mix French and English every second word. OMG? Friday? Crap, which seat should I take??? In honour of this glorious day: [YOUTUBE]3c5LPQld7OM[/YOUTUBE]

I suppose what it comes down to is this: what is the intended entertainment value in this Anna Nicole opera? It's either to instill some sort of reflection, as Mika seems to have been hoping, or else it's just another flavour of Jerry Springer-style, we-like-watching-trainwrecks mockery. I didn't see this opera but given that the audience "laughed and laughed" it seems that mockery was probably the intent - and I would agree that it's ridiculous to make a production for the sole purpose of mocking someone, especially someone whose story took place so recently. I think it would be a challenge for any director to build any true empathy with Anna Nicole using opera as the medium. It just doesn't seem to fit. If they really wanted to instill "worry, compassion or self examination" the best medium would have been a film documentary. That would be a much more effective way of conveying whatever good traits this woman may have had, and casting emphasis on the truly tragic aspects of her life as opposed to the self-inflicted destruction. Perhaps Mika admires her tenacity, for example (if that's indeed what it was) that took her from a nobody to a Playboy centrefold. A film may have been better able to convey that tenacity as one of her shining traits. Admittedly from where I stand she seems like a complete disaster and the majority of it is directly because of her own bad decisions. Mika mentions that the poor dear was a single mother at 20. Sure but so are countless women in the US and all over. Did she struggle? Quite likely, but maybe she shouldn't have gotten married and had a child when she was still a teenager. And the debacle with her late husband's fortune is of her own making too. If they were truly in love she would have been in his will, as far as I'm concerned. There would be no room for debate. I don't fault her for being a porn star at all - if a woman (or a man) goes down that path of their own volition, all the power to them. I don't even fault her for being a gold digger, if that's what the situation was, but I can't imagine she was surprised when it didn't go according to plan and her husband's family mounted an opposition. What I fault her for is doing disservice after disservice to herself, and ultimately to her children. It's great to feel compassion for Anna Nicole, but what about her children who suffered as a result of her decisions? When Anna Nicole was found dead, she had a toxic cocktail of at least seven different drugs in her body - some of which had been prescribed for others, not for her. She left behind a baby girl who will never know her mother. Again I don't fault her for posing for Playboy, but I do fault her for this destructive pattern of behaviour that left her infant daughter alone. I think she did a disservice to her son as well. His death was attributed to a combination of the drugs zoloft, lexapro and methadone. Why was a 20 year-old man on such a cocktail of drugs?! I can't chalk it up to coincidence that Anna Nicole and her son both died far too young of the same root cause. To me that looks like pretty convincing evidence that she passed on her self-destructive behaviours to her son. Mika calls his death "as tragic as they come", but I don't agree. To me tragedy is something wholly unexpected and wholly out of control of the victim(s). Yes her son's death is horrible and must have destroyed her - to lose a child is probably among the worst horrors a parent can experience. But to call it "as tragic as they come" seems to absolve Anna Nicole and her son of responsibility for the contributing factors to his death (and hers) that were within their control.

The original is already on Mikasounds I almost didn't notice it because you have to scroll the homepage to see it: http://www.mikasounds.com/blog/post/4230646773 ------------------------------ I was late. Traffic in London on this February night, had brought the city to a standstill. It was the premiere of the highly anticipated Anna Nicole Opera at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. I abandoned my taxi and ran. A red carpet greeted celebrities as they walked in and the entire run of the show had long sold out. This was not a normal premiere, but it was not a normal show. Telling the story of American TV and tabloid celebrity Anna Nicole Smith’s life, this was a new commission and had been in development for over 5 years. I had been so excited that I had specifically requested to review the opera for La Repubblica. By the next morning I had cancelled my piece. Angered by what I had seen, I didn’t want to contribute to the media frenzy surrounding something that had missed the point in so many ways. Since I saw the first episode of her reality programme in 2002, I always liked Anna Nicole Smith. I respected her story, I liked the way she smiled and more than anything I felt compassion for her. I found her eccentricities funny but over all I felt sorry for the tragedy she endured in the last few years of her life. Anna Nicole was born in a small town in Texas, moved to Houston as a single mother at the age of 20. She found a job at a strip club and within a few years was posing for the cover and centrefold of Playboy magazine. It was at this time that Anna began her relationship with J. Howard Marshall, a billionaire oil tycoon. They eventually married, she was 27 and he was 89. She was successful as a model, even replacing Claudia Schiffer as the face of Guess. At this stage, her classic beauty didn’t hint at her turbulent life, which would later steal the limelight. Her billionaire husband died just over a year after their wedding. The legal disputes over Anna’s share of her husband’s fortune lasted over a decade. Anna eventually filed for bankruptcy and became a household name as a result of her much publicised case. In 2002 her reality TV show premiered on E Network. I was hooked. It lasted 2 years before being dropped. The show was a critical disaster and launched Anna into the final and most dangerous stage of her life. Now addicted to the media attention and living beyond her means, she became a parody of herself. Drug abuse became more and more evident. The worse she behaved the more attention she got. Once again, a celebrity’s demise became popular entertainment. The death of her shy son Daniel was the beginning of the end. His death was as tragic as they come. He died from an accidental overdose, whilst visiting his mother in her hospital room and some reports say he was in her bed. Five months later Anna Nicole was found dead in her room at a Florida hotel, with seven different prescription drugs found in her body. It is hard to imagine anyone reading this account of her life and not feeling some sort of compassion. The televised scenes of her sitting in the back of a limousine begging for pickled gherkins were ridiculous, but if you didn’t like her then you didn’t have to watch. Some women pass her off as a gold digging slut, who even posed for pornos. So what? Many people I know are gold diggers and they don’t get the same abuse she did. And why judge someone for making porn. It seems to be that as soon as a porn star becomes more than a faceless piece of meat, they become reviled. The only reason she was so hated by American media in particular, is because her and her situation got ugly. It was too in our face, there was nothing hidden. Anna became a mirror to the over medicated and indulgent and a parable to the dangers of exploitive media. She became too real. I went to the opera with a hope that some part of this story would be put right. I wanted the audience to see part of themselves in her. The first half was full of promise. The score by Mark-Anthony Turnage, was undeniably brilliant. Flicking between a-tonality, jazz and even hints of Sondhime melodic lyricism. The Libretto by Richard Thomas was eloquent and unapologetic, even if it did feel insincere. Storming through her life the audience laughed and laughed but that never that transcended into worry, compassion or self examination. Instead of black comedy or a Brechtian montage, Richard Jones’ direction left us with clever but cynical pantomime. Throughout the first half no empathy was established between the audience and Anna. Her son’s death in the second half comes as a sudden bump with no real emotional pay off. The saddest thing of all was that that was exactly how it felt when it happened in real life. The Opera could have done this mother and son story more justice. Anna was sacrificed for a laugh and made a villain in the media. The Opera could have created and reinvented an archetype and tragic protagonist as meaningful as any other operatic heroines. Sadly for Anna Nicole the opera failed to do that. It made many people laugh and made me sad because it seemed such a waste of a modern tragic true story. --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm actually starting to embrace the delay. Last month I tried reading it line by line in Italian, seeing how much I understood, then running it line by line through Google Translate.

Me too. He looks really great dressed like that.

These are all awesome. I can't believe how many people are in that venue! Clearly South Korea LOVES Mika.

Wonka you managed to stay out of the naughty corner for a whole month! I think this may be a record!

Well hey, if he's getting friendly with your mother you should at least be able to get an autograph out of the deal. Well THAT was clearly a dream.

It's already been over a year and a half since you got yours, hasn't it? It wasn't long after Blackpool, if I remember correctly? And yes, that's a very good point. I guess someone should ask us in 20 years how we feel about them... but I can't imagine feeling any different.

Hey now, he hugs me in that video from LA too. Good thing too, or I'd think he's only up for hugs when he's receiving elaborate, time consuming gifts. And I still love my tattoo. Maybe even more than when I got it. I can't believe it's already been over two years. Time flies.

Did you see the video of him receiving the 2009 yearbook in Copenhagen? He was doing one of his my-throat-hurts-so-I'm-not-talking things, but you can see his face when he feels the weight of it. [YOUTUBE]ZOGUzLHdsjk[/YOUTUBE] Sigh. I love looking back on these vids. Thanks! I didn't want to get it unless they were sure they could accurately recreate the pink of her dress, but they did an awesome job. And yes, you have no idea... four years of moments is a lot.

http://www.mikafanclub.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16875 After all this time, you could say Mika "understands" us. I like this one. This is when I gave him MFC's 2008 yearbook, in Amsterdam. This is the same night IngievV gave him the toy dog that makes a cameo in the WAG video. [YOUTUBE]3rGiwoF7rHU[/YOUTUBE]

That was when I showed him my tattoo! And yes, that's how M&G's should be. So chill and relaxed, just chatting with Mika like a normal person. I've seen some M&G's where people are so desperate for an autograph that they're practically climbing on his head.

Out of curiousity, what sorts of services/treatments are not covered or are not handled in a timely fashion by NHS? Here in Alberta, Canada, for example the government healthcare program covers most things but many people also have employer-sponsored insurance to cover things like presciption drugs, dental care and ambulance rides.

Reading about Paloma's accident in his own words is just... ouch. I can't imagine what she's been through, how he felt that night when he first saw her like that...ugh. It's just unthinkable. I can totally understand why he's thinking about different healthcare systems now, and how grateful they are to not have to pay out of pocket for Paloma's care. Those of us with effective, accessible universal healthcare are so freakin' lucky.

I still think this was one of his best performances ever, and I didn't even experience it firsthand. Lucky, lucky people who got to see this live.

How very Italian of you! Thank you Nerys! Much appreciated, as always! That's what I was thinking too. I had been hoping that she had either lost consciousness naturally or that the paramedics had given her something. Wow. I just can't imagine. What a nightmare! Being Canadian I hear these horror stories coming out of the US all the time, but I'm rather far removed from how it works in different European countries. That's just brutal. That said I'm so glad you got the care you needed, and that you're still here with us. I can't even imagine bringing money to a doctor's office. We're really lucky in Canada. Same thing in my province. Pretty much the only things you pay for are prescription medications (outside of a hospital; your meds while you're an in-patient are covered), dental care, ambulance rides and vision testing. Anything else, from a broken arm to a fall in the street to a stroke are all covered by the government. Like Christine said, you never even see a bill. They just make a note of your provincial healthcare number and it's all taken care of. Wow. I can't imagine what it's like to have a parallel public/private system with medical personnel making decisions in the street as to where to take patients. Unbelievable. A friend of mine in California gave birth to a baby who was born with a hole in his diaphragm; what that meant is that most of his organs that were supposed to be in his abdomen migrated through this hole and into his chest cavity. Between the extra care my friend needed plus all the surgeries the baby needed, their total hospital tab was well over $300,000. Thank god she and her husband have great insurance that covered nearly all of it.