My newest topics in celebrity gossip

It's funny how a birthday, when you're a girl in your late thirties, shifts your perceptions of things. Almost like having a kid, not that I've even done that yet. There's another problem. So I've gone mentally goth all of a sudden. Some of this gothness comes from a close friend of mine suddenly dying in his 50s, leaving behind a wife and teenage son. God bless Bill Trout.

Watching old episodes of "What's My Line" on youtube, I see all the stars in the 50s. Liz Taylor (again with that, I know), Milton Berle, Jerry Lewis, Red Skelton. When 30+ years of your own life pass by, you see people who were young when you were a child, and you see how they age. All the stars who were in their peak when I was young are now have 30 years added on them, too. They're all 60-80 years old, when you add the 30 years. And it freaks me out to look at facebook, because all my classmates are also my age. They look good, mind you, but it still freaks me out to be middle aged.

Anyway, I find it hard to be interested in airheads, druggies, losers, fameseekers, and bimbos right now. That pretty much crosses off most of the A and B list of celebrities, right? So who's left? The actors who let the job just be a job, and the actors who were once the shining stars who fell out of grace because of OLD AGE. Native people would never abandon their elders this way. We're all getting older. Some are too young or vain to think this. In this respect, my list of IN and OUT (thank you Heidi Klum):

IN: Matt Damon, Meryl Streep, Sissy Spacek, Robert Downey Jr., Jon Stewart, Britney Spears/Anne Hathaway (unfortunately, heartbreak brings maturity to a woman).

OUT: Tom Cruise, Hiltons, Lohans, Pam Anderson, Aniston, Simpsons (Bronx Mowgli, table of zero), the Wilson brothers (sorry, love them, but they need rehab STAT), Joaquin Phoenix, Olsen twins (coffee table book called INFLUENCE? Please!), Sienna Miller, Victoria Beckham.

There is a third category. There are people who are talented enough that they can pull off being brats: Jack Nicholson, the Brange, Billy Bob Thornton, Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Kathy Griffin, Oprah, KANYE WEST (long live the SQUID BRAIN! Who writes in ALL CAPS! But I really love the song Gold Digger, OK? And I blew off a chance to play violin in his band because I had an iron-clad prior gig, which I will always regret!), Sean Penn.

I'll add more when I've taken more meds for my mid-life depression and eaten some more bon bons. Oh, and please feel free to comment on this, or submit your own IN/OUT lists. I know: what, we're accountants now? But it's amusing, and a good memento mori, and helps pass the time.

Celebrity Culture

Well, the absolute freedom of having my own blog means I can write about anything I want. I don't have the ENORMOUS pressure that Lainey and Michael K and the rest do to entertain through observation. I'm hoping that, when future blind items come up, I can muse and puzzle them out with everyone, sherlock-holmes style. But in the meanwhile, it's a slow season, right?

I was reading an poorly written text on celebrity culture a few years ago. I keep thinking about the nature of tabloid journalism. What are the sociological forces driving this phenomenon? My grandfather recalls newspapers and magazines in the 40s; you could buy "real news" for half the price of the hollywood gossip sheets. And what did they discuss? I'm actually very interested in Hedda Hopper, and the evolution through Cindy Adams to our dear internet bloggers. Evening TV news has never been highbrow, but more often now, the news resembles a gossip rag.

At first, I'm sure the Hollywood studios had to create press for their charges in order to sell movie tickets. I have heard of people hired to scream as a new celeb arrived somewhere, then some clued-in photographers caught the scene, and -viola!- a star was born. I heard a rumor that some of the Beatles screamers were planted; am I right? I am really curious about what things were like for Hepburn, Vivien Leigh, Liz Taylor, and all the rest. The standards were similar to Disney standards, in terms of rigid sexual purity.

Why does our culture embrace celebrity so strongly? Why are so many shows dedicated to a tiny roster of A and B list people? Lainey's assertion that Jen Aniston and Angelina Jolie's likeness and false stories about them may decide a magainze's profitability really chills me. We've come full circle. The celebs themselves are keeping tabloid journalism afloat! It used to be a sideline column in the regular news.

These poor actors entertain us, but there's something about the mentality of wanting fame for its own sake that doesn't attract balanced people. The paparazzi culture is full of such vicious vultures now, scrapping for whatever embarrassing picture they can wrangle out of these entertainers. Wouldn't it be frightening to go outside, go to dinner, go to the movies? Ugh.

In Chaucer's book "House of Fame," there is an enormous house made out of ice in the middle of the desert. Names of famous people are in danger of melting, or are half-melted already. Every so often, Aeolus's horn blows to announce a new person made famous (beautiful sound, smells like roses) or infamous (nasty sound, smells like farts) . In a fickle world, in a youth culture, with all the impossible standards in place, every single celeb runs out of time and faces a melting ice house in a desert. Liz Taylor, the most beautiful woman in the world, now faces her mortality. It's rough, this memento mori, but it helps me get past the brutal, shallow, grasping nature of the bite of fame.