Fame Throwa

I don't have anything against Tara Reid. I don't particularly have anything for her either, other than the fact that she was Bunny Lebowski and was in Josie and the Pussycats which was better than it ever had a right to be. Yeah, I said it. I just kept hearing these stories of the Tara Reid train wreck and I thought to myself, "Y'now Billy, if you were 'famous' in your twenties, there'd be plenty of pictures of you stumbling out of places blind drunk and with your breasts dangling out of outfits."

I wasn't famous, and there are plenty of above noted pictures.

But then I saw this footage, again on one of those weekday "news" programs that pass as investigatory journalism, of Paris Hilton being admitted into a club with that permasmirk glued firmly in place. I watched for a moment, hoping that I would be able to cross Paris off of my list of People I Would Like To See Kicked To Death By A Unicorn, but alas no. What I saw was a dejected Tara being barred from entering the club.

I grinned a little bit; it's gotta hurt when your credibility has fallen, when your fame has become a tad tarnished. I had to admit to myself that there was a large amount of jealousy driving that grin, which sucks. I don't want to envy any of these untalented club kids passing themselves off as artists, but there it is.

The thing that makes that jealousy palatable to me though is the understanding of the threshing machine aspect of fame. For any of these folks who sign on to make their living as a celebrity, not as an actor or artist, well they willingly or not sign on to have that addictively lavished attention suddenly taken away for no reason.

Making your living as an actor is not necessarily a noble pursuit, you're not out there teaching our children or curing diseases or helping the poor, but man it beats the holy crap out of making your living as a celebrity. There are a whole slew of people deluding themselves into thinking they're actors or musicians when in fact they get paid to be themselves. They're the ones who show up as the mouthy friend of the sit com lead, the ones on reality TV shows, the ones that Entertainment Tonight do "stories" on, the ones whose club life we are more aware of than their achievements.

When you stop and think about the void in these folks' lives that make them desire and pursue the love of the faceless blob of American consumerism instead of working on honing a craft and producing something that might be an actual value to someone, something that will actually touch someone emotionally, well it almost makes you feel sorry for them. I thankfully have a lot of love in my life, and am surrounded by amazing people who don't feel like it's not cool to express that love. Thank you and thank you.

But it certainly doesn't mean I wouldn't like to get paid a nice chunk of change to be in a movie.


Song Stuck In My Head Right Now: Big Brother by David Bowie