Baby Jessica First

Oh wow. The stars & stripes graphic on the background of McCain's website are so small town pageant, just like Sarah Palin's hair. They would totally be invited to the Baby Jessica festival.

Chip, Reba & Jessica McClure in the hospital after the rescue.

life, liberty, and fame

" …one of the rights of being an American is the right to be famous."

-From a Today Show clip about people paying for “Paparazzi Parties.” Basically you pay $250-$2,500 for paparazzi to follow you around while you’re out on the town. You can even hire a bodyguard to “protect” you from the fake paps and be on the cover of a fake gossip rag.

Is fame part of the pursuit of happiness?

Is Baby Jessica responsible for the Britney Spears crotch shots and the death of Princess Diana?

According to a report by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press in 1997:

"In an era in which virtually all Americans share very few things, the story of Princess Diana's death captivated the nation. . . Modern communications have spawned an ever increasing diversity of tastes and interests and decidedly smaller audiences for everything from news stories to sit-coms. Add to this growing public cynicism and distrust, and the consequence is that there are very few things to which everyone pays attention. . . Jessica McClure is the only other individual to have ranked with Diana in news interest."

One of the most interesting conversations I had with D. Lance Lunsford in Midland was about how the Jessica McClure rescue was the first story that all the networks covered at the same time. I don't have all the research to back this up, but apparently it was when CNN's 24-hour coverage was still new (CNN started in 1980 but wasn't profitable until 1985.), and the other networks discovered that when they didn't continuously cover the rescue, their ratings went down and CNN's went up, so the other networks had to cover the story incessantly in order to compete. As Lunsford put it to me, the Jessica McClure rescue was the "proving ground for the 24-hours news medium as a conduit to the masses."

I know that nothing exists in a vacuum and no one person could be a single contributing factor to the insanity surrounding us today. BUT, I also wonder if, in a very broad sense, the Jessica McClure rescue was a catalyst (perhaps even a partial genesis) of our modern Us Weekly mentality? Did the coverage of the rescue help to feed the frenzy that led to things like the O.J. Simpson Bronco chase, and even more tragically, to the paparazzi chase that ended Diana's life? It's a rolling stone that only gathers more moss when you think that coverage of Diana's death further fueled our culture's demand for incessant media coverage, the kind of coverage that leads publishers to introduce to the world the "gift" of the Britney Spears crotch shot?

If Baby Jessica and Britney Spears are both All-American Girls, America's-sweetheart types, how did we get from rescuing a baby to publishing pictures of a pop idol's snatch?

Did Baby Jessica, in a metaphorical sense, grow up to be Britney Spears?*

*more on this later. I've got a billion Baby Jessica=Britney Spears theories.

Halo Over The City

Baby Jessica's Dad, Chip McClure, co-wrote a book about the Jessica McClure rescue, and now I get to read it!


So far my favorite part is a letter from a little girl to Baby Jessica that says, "I've been watching the news when you were on and I saw you at your parade even my stiuped [sic] brother did."

Wells in Folklore & Fairytales

3. Fountain: In some versions of the story, the fountain is a well. Traditionally, good spirits live in wells, and from thence came the tradition of throwing coins into wells in hopes of having a wish come true (Philip 1997).

-SurLaLune
Notes on The Frog King

Dinner with a Local

I had dinner tonight with D. Lance Lunsford, a reporter from Midland who wrote a book, The Rainbow's Shadow, which is about the Jessica McClure rescue and does a wonderful job following up with the people who were involved. His grandparents lived just a few doors down from Jessica's Well, and he remembers his mother picking him up from school and talking her way past the police so they could get a good view of the action. He remembers watching Jessica come out of the well on TV, and then running outside to follow the ambulance down the street. After Jessica was rescued, his boy scout troupe marched in the parade.

There are a few grassfires around Midland, which are not being helped by the wind, so we decided to just eat at the hotel rather than brave the tempest and the smoke. I was too busy laughing at Lance's wild tales about Midland's long history of, how to put this delicately, "colorful characters" to remember to take a picture with him, but I did send him off with Kona coffee. He couldn't have been nicer to me or more helpful. He drove two hours just to chat with me, and then he bought me dinner.

Anyway, I learned all sorts of juicy gossip which was, of course, off the record, so now when you see the play you'll just have to guess what I made up, and what is real.

Does Baby Jessica live here?

Thanks to some super sleuth work by my very intelligent roommate, I found a property record for Jessica McClure. However, upon cross checking it with WhitePages.com, it's either her house or her husband's car wash. So either I am going to meet Baby Jessica, or Adrienne's car will be very clean.

Baby Jessica song

Baby Jessica songs are always amazing.

The latest one I have come across is "Baby Jessica" by Grandpa Griffith. I couldn't get a direct link to it, but you can find it on iTunes.

Jessica McClure memorial

Photo by dustdevildiver.

The inscription reads:
Nothing the heart gives away is gone
It is kept in the hearts of others

I'm going to Midland from February 25-26. This is the kind of stuff I want to see.

Baby Jessica's Well

Thanks, Google Maps!

3309 Tanner Drive

It only took me 2 hours of Googling, but I finally figured out the current occupant of the home at 3309 Tanner Drive where Baby Jessica fell down the well. I just composed a letter to the residents. I hope hope hope they let me visit.

I am glad I have never been "Baby Jessica'd"

1.	Baby Jessica
	1. a reference to "Baby Jessica" Mcclure, the Texas infant who fell down a well in Midland, Texas on October 14, 1987. This created a national shitstorm of attention as rescuers worked for 58 hours to release her. 2. A sexual act that involves placing one's testicles into another's asshole, to the point where they get stuck. Thus the oft used saying "I baby jessica'd her (him) last night" Chris tried to put the "dog in the bathtub" last night, but he ended up Baby Jessica'ing her. - Urban Dictionary

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

"Midland Texas is the home town of President George W. Bush. " From the Midland Texas Visitors Site.

How many different types of wells are there?

from the mouth of the babe

“I explain to myself that I believe that people cared so much because they would hope that somebody would care that much about them. In a way, helping me out and caring about me helped them out.” - Jessica McClure Morales, in an interview with Matt Lauer.

Bobby George - Jessica's Rescue

This guy has based his entire musical career around a song he wrote about Baby Jessica .

"Everything took a big change in 1987." - Bobby George Dynes.

Collins, Iowa

"4 streets, 5 avenues, a few hundred people"

pictures by Kimberley Hale

small town America

I'm going to pull a Julia Allison here and put a query on my blog. (Don't read Julia's blog. It is addictive. It will suck all your time and you will start coveting pink furniture. Don't do it. Just don't.)

My question is this:

What does small town America mean to you? I'm looking for images, movies, articles, poems, quotes, books, songs . . . anything. Send it to me.

To do:

Read

Carl Jung
and Uncle Joe (Joseph Campbell).