WATCH OUT FOR PAULINA GARANG. SHE CALLED ME 'DEAR' AND I'M PRETTY SURE I'VE NEVER MET HER.

Hello Dear

 

I know this mail will come to you as a surprise since we haven't known or come across each other before considering the fact that I sourced your email contact through the Internet in search of trusted person who can assist me.

 

I am Paulina John Garang 24 years old female from the Republic of Sudan, the Daughter of Late Dr. John Garang. My late father was a strong opposition for over 20years until he was appointed the vice president on the 9th of July 2005 by the United Nations Peace Team as an avenue to quench the 20years civil war in Sudan. He died on the 31st of July 2005 following a helicopter crash alongside with 12 others just 22days after his appointment as the vice president. What led to the helicopter crash is still unclear but I know that my father was the target.  You can read more about my father in the link below. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ africa/2134220.stm.

 

I am constrained to contact you because of the maltreatment which I am receiving from my step mother. She planned to take away all my late father's treasury and properties from me since the unexpected death of my beloved Father. Meanwhile I wanted to travel to Europe, but she hide away my international passport and other valuable documents. Luckily she did not discover where I kept my father's File which contained important documents. Now I am presently staying in the Mission in Burkina Faso. I am seeking for long term relationship and investment assistance. My father of blessed memory deposited the sum of US$ 7.5 Million in one bank in Burkina Faso with my name as the next of kin. I had contacted the Bank to clear the deposit but the Branch Manager told me that being a refugee, my status according to the local law does not authorize me to carry out the operation. However, he advised me to provide a trustee who will stand on my behalf. I had wanted to inform my stepmother about this deposit but I am afraid that she will not offer me anything after the release of the money.

 

Therefore, I decide to seek for your help in transferring the money into your bank account while I will relocate to your country and settle down with you. As you indicated your interest to help me I will give you the account number and the contact of the bank where my late beloved father deposited the money with my name as the next of kin. It is my intention to compensate you with 20% of the total money for your assistance and the balance shall be my investment in any profitable venture which you will recommend to me as have no any idea about foreign investment. Please all communications should be through this email address only for confidential purposes.

 

Thanking you a lot in anticipation of your quick response. I will give you details in my next mail after receiving your acceptance mail to help me. 

 

Yours sincerely

Paulina Garang

STILL MORE JACKO ELVIS MIRRORS

Rev. Al Sharpton called for a commemorative Michael Jackson stamp, online petitions are circulating to make Jackson’s birthday a national holiday (August 29), and Facebook users want June 25 to be “Michael Jackson Remembrance Day.”

Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Texas said at Jackson’s memorial that a resolution promising to honor Michael Jackson as an international humanitarian is on the House floor. For that promise to materialize, however, it first has to get past political critics.

Similarly, the likelihood of Jackson’s image being affixed to your mail won’t be known anytime soon, because the United States Postal Service doesn’t evaluate commemorative stamps until five years after an individual’s death.

As far as a holiday, no government representatives have touched the issue. But fans are already making promises to annually remember the pop icon, federal approval or not.

BUCKET HEAD UPDATE - STILL WEARING BUCKET

Fifteen minutes before Buckethead was scheduled to play, my friends and I decided to go backstage to see if we might catch a glimpse of the famed metal guitarist who dons a creepy white mask and, yes, a KFC bucket on his head. It’s not just a clever name.

As we stood there in the back, I suppose I was expecting something completely normal – just some dude with a guitar walking up the stairs, only to be handed his mask and bucket before revealing himself to the crowd. “Here’s your bucket. Have a good show.”

However, the quest for seeing the real Buckethead quickly became the weirdest, and, perhaps, most memorable, part of our entire All Good Festival weekend.

Shortly after we arrived backstage, a non-descript SUV pulled up to the loading ramp, and was met by an All Good stage worker. The driver side window rolled down, and a man who might as well have been your dad, spoke to the stage hand in what seemed like a nervous hush. Had there not been this moment of slight tension, the general presence of the SUV would have more or less gone unnoticed.

Trying not to be too obvious, I uncapped my camera and directed it at the car, readying myself for a few hip shots if things got juicy – it was sort of like being in the paparazzi.

For another five minutes, nothing happened. The car just sat there. Then, as we settled back into our Buckethead holding pattern, either from the far side of the car or from somewhere beyond the stage, a man appeared with a mask over his face. It wasn’t the ghostly mask that Buckethead wears on stage, but, rather, a surgical mask.

Our immediate assessment was that this man was either trying to avoid the dust or, maybe, it was really Buckethead trying to keep himself just slightly hidden before going on stage. Either way, we knew that he was somehow involved with the Buckethead performance when he approached the SUV and, through the driver’s window, was handed a white Gibson Les Paul. Unquestionably, this was Buckethead’s axe.

He fitted the guitar with a wireless transmitter, and then returned it to the man inside the SUV – just a little pre-show prep.

It would be five more minutes before everything changed.

In a slight “this is the moment” fury, the surgically masked man opened up the car’s side door. Then, from a hiding position on the floor, covered by a blanket, Buckethead emerged, clad in Chucks, a one-piece jumpsuit, his mask, and the bucket. The guy had seriously been hiding there in that car all along. And it couldn’t have been comfortable. Buckethead is astonishingly tall and skinny, which ruled out my theory that he’s really Warren Haynes in disguise.

The man in the surgical mask helped Buckethead up the stage, holding his shoulders and directing him with both hands. Once he was situated, standing alone in front of the crowd, Buckethead proceeded to hammer away, slaying his guitar to backing music that came from, perhaps, an iPod, a DJ, or maybe Jupiter. The whole thing was so weird – I stopped asking questions.

In the photo pit in front of the stage, there was more press crammed together than I had seen for any other act all weekend. It was like, Bob Weir from the Grateful Dead? Nah… I’m here for the bucket guy.

Be it a fun gimmick or strange alter-ego, whatever it was that inspired this man – this Buckethead – was working. People were absolutely eating it up.

Now, I’m not into metal, but I stood there truly amazed at the performance I was seeing on stage. In actuality, it wasn’t really even metal. It was just… odd. But good. As I turned to my friend Ryan, he said, “This is like a train wreck. I can’t turn away.” Next to him, my other friend, Andrew, said nothing, only allowing his jaw to drop.

The day’s plan for us was to watch one Buckethead song and then head back to camp to cook a quick dinner. However, fifteen minutes into the set, we were still standing there, dinner be damned.

Finally, Ryan tapped my shoulder and mimed eating with a spoon, the international signal for I’m hungry. Later, he would explain, “I felt like one of us had to make a move. Otherwise we would have been there for an hour.”

Elvis and Michael: Two Kings Whooshed Touching

Elvis and Michael: Two Kings Whooshed Touching

Hillel Italie of the Associated Press writes delightfully about two Kings - Elvis Presley, King of Rock and Roll, and Michael Jackson, King of Pop, who died tragically yesterday in Los Angeles:

"Michael Jackson didn’t want to be just a superstar. Like the Beatles, he wanted to be the biggest, the king. He wanted to topple the reigning man with the crown, Elvis. In life and in death, there was Elvis. “It’s just so weird. He even married Elvis’ daughter,” said author-music critic Greil Marcus, who wrote at length about Presley in his acclaimed cultural history, Mystery Train. Elvis Presley overdosed — in his bathroom — on prescription drugs in 1977 at 42, his bloated, glazed middle age a cautionary tale to rock stars and other celebrities. Jackson died Thursday at 50, rushed from his Los Angeles home and pronounced dead at the UCLA Medical Center. The death shocked more than surprised. While endless fame seemed to inflate Elvis like helium, Jackson’s fame seemed to scrub the flesh and wear into his bones until you could almost see him shiver. Like Elvis, Jackson was once beautiful, outrageous, a revolutionary without politics who shook down the walls between black and white. He had the hits, the style, the ego, the talent. He was the King of Pop and he needed only to fill in the life: He married Elvis’ daughter. He bought the rights to some of Elvis’ songs. Elvis owned Graceland, its name a symbol for a deliverance the singer prayed for until the end of his life. Jackson had Neverland, a fantasy for a child-man for whom money meant the chance to live in a world of his own. He did, and did not, want to be like Elvis."

Read more about Elvis, Michael, and Lisa Marie in Adam Victor in The Elvis Encyclopedia.