Boring People Like Weird Celebrities

I've been developing this theory lately concerning the types of celebrities we're all attracted to, following the death of Michael Jackson and the inexplicable summer success of Lady Gaga, who are both total freaks. And I came to realize that when I was young and Michael Jackson was at the height of his success, what with the Thriller album and the Victory tour, that the people who were into him were the people I would have considered the boring people at my school -- the people with no imagination, the people who dressed exactly like the Guess ads told them to, the people who had no drama in their lives, the people who (due to their lack of imagination) didn't even know how to create drama. And so they turned to the heightened drama of a figure like Michael Jackson, who in those days cultivated a lot of mystique while at the same time being a huge, huge star. Back then, you could be the biggest star in the world and still not have anyone know anything real about you -- there were paparazzi, but they weren't yet following celebrities into the coffee shop or anything like that. So someone like Michael Jackson was fascinating to boring people; he did all the work for them, cultivating his persona as well as his mystique, controlling it all very carefully. And that worked for him, and he failed to evolve with the rest of us, and eventually the cracks appeared and that's when we were all treated to far too many glimpses into the freakshow that became his life.

And I submit that it is these same boring people (Perez Hilton is like their fucking King) who are fans of Lady Gaga. I mean, obviously someone's listening to her, but it's no one I know personally. Again, she does all the work for them, with her insane outfits and bizarre "statement" performances (she actually said that her VMA performance was a recreation of the death of Princess Diana, but no one seemed to grasp this -- everyone just thought it was fucked up and insane), and her bland earworm tunes. She has cleverly catered to the paparazzi -- they'll never catch her doing something fucked up because that's what she does "naturally;" there's nothing to catch her doing if her behavior is terrible from the get go. In fact, it would be a huge scandal if Lady Gaga were to be spied in public dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and buying a latte at Starbucks. It would ruin her career (and would thus be totally awesome).

Whereas my peeps are all recovered from some sort of past drama or another, and are creative and musical and artistic, and have had to actually work very hard at our dull thirtysomething existences, and thus we never saw any appeal in celebrities like Michael Jackson or Lady Gaga.

The only thing that messes up my theory is the fact that Heather is really into Michael Jackson, but her life has never been boring. However, she is way younger than those of us who knew Michael Jackson in his prime, so I suspect that she would have loathed him along with the rest of us if she had been a Child of the 80s. Her age is a factor.

Of course there are always way more boring people in the general population than interesting people, so that totally accounts for the vast popularity of weird celebrities.

And that's the theory I've been working up, and I'm sticking to it.

Lotta Pacing Back and Forth, Not Much Material

That is a quote from David Spade, who was on a comedy show bill with Jon Stewart and Dennis Miller way back in 1993 -- one of the best comedy shows I've ever seen, incidentally. David Spade had so little material prepared for his 30-minute set that he started taking requests from the audience for bits, and I was in the front row and requested "Gap Girls," which he obliged. But that's a damn funny person -- someone who can come out in front of 2,000 people and make them laugh hysterically even though they've got nothing. Oh, and this was before Jon Stewart was way famous, but he had had his late night show on MTV, and he was wandering around before the show started and I was like, "Hey, you're Jon Stewart!" and he stopped to talk to me and my boyfriend, and made jokes about how it looked like we were all at a keg party because the theatre sold beer in red plastic cups like you get free with the purchase of a keg. And he was so nice and funny, and I remember thinking that I hoped he became a big huge star someday because he was not lame like so many of the big huge stars of that time.

So but that's how I feel right now -- lotta pacing, not much material. But I feel as if I should post SOMEthing. And I feel like posting. It's just that I feel like I have nothing to say. I mean, there are plenty of things I could rant about, sure. I'm so tired of all the lies and vitriol in the health care debate, for one -- perfectly normal, intelligent-seeming people have shown their true ignorant colors in the last few weeks, and it's really disturbing to me. And then there's this whole LUDICROUS "issue" with the address President Obama is sharing with schoolchildren. I mean, it's disgusting to me how some people have managed to completely turn it into some ugly political game, and made it look like he's some disgusting pervert being given unprecedented access to our children... I mean, if you've seen any of the debate, that's the issue that people seem to have, that the President of the United States shouldn't be allowed near their children. He might touch them inappropriately... through a television monitor, from thousands of miles away. Or he might instantaneously convert them to socialism.

Or he might turn them black. And I think you and I both know that that's what the "debate" really boils down to in this situation. I think there is a huge segment of the population who are still totally pissed off that they've gotten themselves stuck on a planet where a black man was allowed to become President of the United States. I made the unfortunate mistake of reading comments about the "issue" on MSNBC yesterday afternoon, and to a person, the people who were against the address being shown in schools were making hateful racist comments or channeling that moron Glen Beck and calling President Obama a racist. It takes one to know one, I guess.

But I don't really have anything to add or subtract from either of the political shitstorms raging right now, and I've gotten past my bitter hatred for the stupid people perpetuating all of it, so I'll just leave it now. I'm just glad I can come on my own blog and call people out for being stupid and moronic and assholey.

Hey, maybe that's what I'll do. Post this on my Facebook and tell everyone they don't have to play nice here.

Excellent plan.