Michael Jackson's Last Laugh

Michael Jackson's death will be a JFK-Elvis-Diana memory for decades. "I remember where I was, who I was with, and how I found out Michael Jackson died," will become part of the vernacular into the 22nd century. Modern technology allowed us to be intimate with Michael from afar, and now he is gone. Michael Jackson is dead. It's hard to grasp, like yellow not being a bright color.

Celebrity death is tough on the public. Instinctively we want to run to help those we know and love, but with a famous person, all we can do is run to a television. It's a connected disconnected with emotional strings tied into a knot. When I heard Jackson was dead, I was knocked off center by the switch that occurred among millions of neurons in my brain. I just can't imagine Michael Jackson - dead. Like Diana's death twelve years ago, the cultural getting-used-to will take some time.

I met Jackson twice, most recently at a Carousel of Hope Ball in Beverly Hills. He was timid and gracious but still bigger than life. We hugged the hug he probably had given to hundreds of thousands of fans. I told him I missed his performing, but he told me he was performing every time he stepped out of the house. As he stood there in his spangles and epaulets, it was easy to understood what he meant.

Last December when I heard Jackson moved yards from my home, I was hopeful he might be reigniting his career. Surprisingly the infamous recluse had chosen the corner of Sunset Boulevard that most screams "I'm back!" I'd drive by his home daily, consistently amazed by the legions of die-hard fans camped across from his gate. Just days after Christmas I remember how simply normal I thought it was so see empty toy boxes poking out of his recycle bin - an ordinary holiday for an extraordinary American.

By very late January Michael Jackson still had his Christmas wreaths hanging on his gates. It was slightly odd, so I made a video about it. Michael Jackson was in a neighborhood - I was not about to let him think that he wasn't part of our tribe. About three weeks after I put the video on OVGuide.com, a blocked call rang on my cell phone. "Hello, this is Tom," I said. All I heard in the receiver was the sound of my own voice playing from the video and a soft giggle. Then the voice said, "man, you're crazy." I laughed and asked who it was but all I heard was more giggling until the end of the video when I heard "thanks...crazy" and then the phone went dead.

I made videos two and three, expecting I would tape number four on the pivotal Fourth of July date. I had planned to bring a reindeer and/or Santa along to help me plead my case for Jackson's Christmas wreaths coming down. I suspect Michael would have tuned in to see the fiasco I had invented. As it is, the Christmas wreaths that Michael might have left up for my silly videos got their real claim to fame by overtly hanging on his gates the day he died.

As we fight the war on economic meltdown, terrorizing attacks, and common household germs, Jackson's shocking death reminds us to live life fully now. Time seemingly moves faster and faster ever year. Death is the end of the tracks. What will you do with your life if this is your last day?

In Michael Jackson's case, he lived life out loud his own way, not because had the money, but because he knew none of us have time to waste.


The painting below is by my pal, soap star Thom Bierdz. It seems more real to me today.

Obama orders review of NASA plan to return to moon

NASA's human spaceflight program gets top-level review

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., May 7 (Reuters) - The Obama administration has ordered a top-level review of the U.S. human spaceflight program that has been focused on returning astronauts to the moon by 2020, officials said on Thursday.

Former Lockheed Martin (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) Chairman and Chief Executive Norm Augustine will head a blue-ribbon panel charged with assessing NASA's progress on a space transportation system to replace the retiring space shuttle fleet.

"Clearly if we're on the wrong path, we should change, but if you're asking me do I think we're on the wrong path, the answer is no," Chris Scolese, NASA's acting administrator, said at a news conference to unveil the agency's $18.7 billion spending plan for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.

The review, which is due by August, will focus on the U.S. space agency's Ares rocket program and the Orion capsule that is being designed to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station as well as to the lunar surface.

Prime contractors for the shuttle replacement program include Boeing Co (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research), Alliant Techsystems Inc (ATK.N: Quote, Profile, Research), Pratt & Whitney, a United Technologies Corp (UTX.N: Quote, Profile, Research) unit, which are building the new Ares rocket; and Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research), which is developing the Orion capsule spacecraft.

The space shuttles are due to be retired by Sept. 30, 2010, after eight more flights to assemble and outfit the space station and a final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope that is scheduled for launch on Monday.

The $3.2 billion budget request for space shuttle operations includes funds for an added flight to carry the $1.5 billion Alpha Magnet Spectrometer particle physics experiment to the station for installation and operation.

Scolese said the review panel also will address extending NASA support of the space station beyond 2016 and possibly the lunar initiative.

BUSH'S MOON PLANS

In January 2004, President George W. Bush announced plans for the United States to return to the moon by 2020 and build a way station there for flights to Mars. NASA's last human flight to the moon was in 1972.

The agency also is requesting $150 million to help foster a commercially developed capsule to fly crew members to the space station.

Space Exploration Technologies, a California firm known as SpaceX, has been working under a NASA contract to develop its Dragon capsule to haul cargo to the outpost. The contract includes an option for a passenger system, which NASA said it intends to exercise.

NASA's spending plan is $2 billion richer than the budget it received two years ago, largely the result of federal economic stimulus dollars.

In part, the extra funding will go toward an expanded global climate change research program, a new initiative to develop environmentally more benign aviation technologies, and new science programs including a joint U.S.-European mission to Jupiter's ocean-bearing moon Europa.

(Editing by Jane Sutton and Will Dunham)