Blogs are great, you can be as opinionated as you like, and if you offend someone who cares? It's my shot at being controversial and pretending I'm some sort of journalist who makes a living this way. Celebrities are fair game anyhow, right?
That's a whole other sloppy mess. If anyone is reading this, insert sarcasm and re-read that first paragraph after you've read the following. Maybe you'll figure out how I really feel. In the meantime...
TIMELY ADVICE, OPINIONS, CONFESSIONS ETC.:
Lindsey Lohan: Hard to say what's true and what isn't behind all the Hollywood press agent hype, but this is one actress (don't call someone with that degree of experience and that many successful films behind her a "starlet", it's insulting to her widely acknowledged abilities) that really does seem, on one level, to be trying to get her act together. Here's the thing, though: there's a reason why they tell rehab patients that when they get out, they have to make a whole new life. New friends, new pastimes, new haunts. You can't just expect to go out and be exactly the same except for the alcohol and drugs. It just doesn't work, any more than someone can go on a crash diet and exercise program for 3 months, lose a bunch of weight, then go back to eating 4000 calories a day and watching TV and expect to keep the weight off. Get clean again then come out and try again, with a new set of friends and habits.
Dustin Dimond: It's called "Celebrity Fit Club", not "Celebrity Sit On Your Ass, Whine A Lot, Dis Your Co-Stars and Take Diet Pills Club". Anybody can do that, why would they pay to watch you do it? Obviously you went on the show to promote your stand-up act and get publicity. Well, that's the reality of reality TV, now isn't it? Everyone who does those shows has a personal agenda that they're just using the show to further. But you signed up so play the game like a trooper, dumb-ass. You just might surprise yourself and actually learn something.
Ward Churchill: If you're going to plagiarize other people's work and falsify research, smart money says you fly below the radar and don't give people the excuse to investigate your academic record. Alternatively, if your aspiration is to be a controversial public figure who draws attention and pisses a lot of people off with outrageous comments (the Eichmann comment in your paper could really have no other point), then make damn sure that your record can stand scrutiny.
Paris Hilton: Wish I could get that gig -- born rich, famous for being yourself and showing up. On the other hand she does strike me as probably being smarter than her public persona, simply because you can't pull off that degree of fame without being crazy like a fox. Time will tell if she really means the things she was saying while in prison, but if she does, then more power to her. I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt, personally; about a million years ago I did a short jail stint for DUI (as in, a day) which scared the crap out of me and really did change me, why should I think it couldn't happen for her?
Tammy Faye Bakker Messner: I thought she was a joke, a walking representative of everything that was corrupt in televangelism in general and born again Christianity in particular, one of the reasons I left the church and never went back. I made fun of her make-up, her constant crying on TV, the over-the-top declarations of love for JUH-AYYYYY-zussssss! I thought it was ironically, bitterly hilarious, proof of my contempt, when she was called out as a drug addict and her husband uncovered for cheating on her and then embezzling to pay off the other woman and try to maintain his public image. Many years later I saw Tammy Faye in an interview, where she commented quietly on the fact that she was publicly cheated on and humiliated and instead of getting any sympathy, she was a national joke. I was absolutely stricken. I truly put myself in her shoes, not as a public persona, but simply as a woman, and imagined how scalding that humiliation must have been. My hats off to her for surviving that and managing some dignity and gaining some respect in later years, and my thanks to her for helping me become a better person on some level, for calling me out on my cruelty. May she be beyond pain now, and have gained what her true faith should have earned her.
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