Celebrilust

Today both FB and Reddit, my two most frequented websites veritably exploded with the news of Tom and Katie getting divorced.  I was completely overwhelmed with a feeling of meh.


To a certain degree I understand celebrity lust.  In that I understand it exists.  I personally don't share it.  I see it, but it always feels so foreign to me.  I can't help but be aware of it.  It is impossible to stand in a checkout line at any store anywhere and not become oversaturated with all the latest gossip about who's pregnant, who's cheating, and who's fat now.  Half the television programming is celebritycentric, focusing all the attention on people who already have all the attention.  If not that, then giving other people the opportunity (they hope) to reach that level of stardom.  Meh.


I have worked in or on the periphery of the entertainment industry for over half of my life.  Seven years spent specifically working with people who have attained some level of fame.  From the top of the top A list on down.  If I were to start dropping names (and I won't), I could fill this page, and probably a few others of people I've met, mingled with, or worked with.  You would know most of those names.  I've joked with an Oscar winning director.  Shared cigarettes and a few laughs with film and television stars.  Worked with Platinum selling musicians.  I'm not famous, but I've enjoyed perks of the life.  Yes I have stories.  No I'm not going to tell them.


With only a few exceptions...the thing that strikes home every time, is these people are pretty much just like me.  They are for the most part...normal people.  Just rich and famous too.  And really pretty to boot.


Thing is though, we treat these people much like pets.  We watch them.  Observe them.  Feed them with our attention.  We project so many things on them, and we can't wait...I mean REALLY can't wait for our opportunity to drag them down from Mount Olympus and watch them roll in the muck.  Some of them make it very easy for us.


We are entertained by them, and then cry when they die, although...we never knew them.  We don't know dick shit about them.  We only know what little parts we glean, learn about, read about, or face it...create about them.  You can read a thousand biographies about a person, and still not know the first important thing about them.  But we sure love to pretend to.


Don't get me wrong.  This is not so much a defense of celebrity, as it is a condemnation of those of us who aren't.  I fully understand that to put yourself in the spotlight, you accept the position of extreme scrutiny.  If you want to be famous fine, but understand at that point your life is no longer yours alone, but shared with millions who will from that point on, judge you by the type of latte you get from Starbucks, the style of clothes you wear, how much you weigh, who you date, what drugs you are caught with at the airport, and whether or not you may or may not be gay.  Because goddammit these things are important.


If you marry.  If you divorce.  If you eat, sleep, or shit...these things are no longer personal.  Live with it.  Your most private moments now belong to the greater community.  ESPECIALLY if you make a sex tape, or take naked pics of yourself with a cell phone.


And as I write this diatribe I realize I am just as guilty.  For me it is the same sickness with a skewed perspective.  Because of my own personal desires.  My life choices.  My decision to follow my own passions, I fall into the same traps, just with different targets.  I don't give a rats ass about who TMZ, or Perez Hilton tell me I should follow, but show me a good local stage actress, someone who steals my breath in a performance...and yeah...I get a little starstruck.  Of course I imagine what it would be like to have sex with them...or drinks at the least.  Even more than that...in my deepest darkest...inner sanctum places of my non existent soul...I imagine what it would be like to share stage space/time with them.  This is what I do.  This is what I want to do more than anything else with people who make me feel that way when I watch them.


So maybe it is just our human nature.  To create pedestals and put people on them.  To put ants in a jar and make them fight.  To hang a facade over our own reality, just to make it a little less mundane.  Maybe we need the scapegoats.  Maybe we need to see the mighty rise, and fall, and rise again.  Maybe its inspirational, or fun, or just adds a bit of flavor to an already almost perfect dish.  I really don't know.  


Here's what I do know.


I still don't care that Tom and Katie are getting divorced.