Tired of Celebs? Blame yourself and the media

IN MY OPINION
Tired of celebs? Blame yourself and the media
BY LEONARD PITTS JR.
lpitts@MiamiHerald.com
In the first place: if I never see another stupid, cutesy shorthand (i.e., Billary, TomKat and Bennifers I and II) applied to another celebrity couple, I will light candles of thanksgiving.

In the second place: Namibia?

As you know unless you, well, have a life, that south African nation is where Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie -- Brangelina to the cognoscenti -- have ensconced themselves with their two young children while they await the birth of their baby. They've been followed by a phalanx of photographers eager to get shots of them and -- the holy grail -- the aforementioned baby.
But it seems the paparazzi are not getting along well with the couple's bodyguards, variously described as ''thugs'' and ''goons'' in press reports. Apparently, the photographers have been such a nuisance that Pitt and Jolie had to issue a statement pleading for privacy. This prompted Namibia's prime minister, obviously kept insufficiently busy by affairs of state, to ask that the two be left alone. At least four photographers have reportedly been given a choice between departing the country and spending time in one of its fine penal institutions.

But the camera crews soldier determinedly on, even following the family to the local KFC because, you know, inquiring minds want to know what they had for lunch. One imagines some loser with a Nikon staking out a chicken joint and phoning in urgent bulletins by satellite phone. (``It looks like . . . yes! Brad's going with the hot & spicy, and we have now confirmed Angelina ordered the extra crispy.'')

REMEMBERING PRINCESS DIANA
I have trouble figuring out what I think about all this. Part of me thinks it's hysterical. Part of me thinks it's pathetic. Part of me thinks it's hysterically pathetic.

And part of me simply remembers how it felt, nine years ago in August, to see that awful news bulletin. A car carrying Princess Diana and her boyfriend, Dodi Al Fayed, had raced into a tunnel in Paris, reportedly trying to elude paparazzi. The car, piloted by a drunk driver, never emerged.

Maybe you remember how it felt, too, that sickening, sobering crunch of reality and frivolity colliding, lives of gossip, glamour and gossamer brought to an end in a cry of brakes and a
cruelty of asphalt.

Angry celebrities like George Clooney and Rosie O'Donnell used the tragedy to point out that it's no fun being camera stalked and that while fame means many things, it should not mean surrender of one's right to use the toilet unmolested by inquiring minds.

There followed much hand wringing and soul searching from editors who bought invasive pictures and readers who bought magazines that such pictures appeared in. Out of this came vows to turn away from the practice and support of intrusion journalism.

Nine years later, there's a stakeout at a KFC in Namibia. (``Code Red! Angelina has changed her order! Do you copy?'')

WHY IS IT LIKE THIS?
A man asked me the other night why media are like this. Why, with mass murder in Sudan, an insurgency in Iraq, the national debt scaling nosebleed heights, they spend so much time, talent and treasure on ephemera.

I told him media are like this because the people are, because this is what people want, what matters most to them. They are less interested in the news that impacts them, the news that determines how and sometimes, if, they live.

Yes, the entertainment industry is an influential multibillion dollar concern. And yes, too, gossip is eternal.

But don't you sometimes get the sense that we have become conspirators in our own distraction, eagerly ingesting a media opiate that discourages too much thinking, too much digging, too much asking? It's a sign of how distorted are our priorities, how shallow our concerns, that two actors have to flee to Africa to have their baby in peace.

And that they can't do so, even then.

George Carlin on Stuff

Actually this is just a place for my stuff, ya know? That's all, a little place for my stuff. That's all I want, that's all you need in life, is a little place for your stuff, ya know? I can see it on your table, everybody's got a little place for their stuff. This is my stuff, that's your stuff, that'll be his stuff over there. That's all you need in life, a little place for your stuff. That's all your house is: a place to keep your stuff. If you didn't have so much stuff, you wouldn't need a house. You could just walk around all the time.

A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it. You can see that when you're taking off in an airplane. You look down, you see everybody's got a little pile of stuff. All the little piles of stuff. And when you leave your house, you gotta lock it up. Wouldn't want somebody to come by and take some of your stuff. They always take the good stuff. They never bother with that crap you're saving. All they want is the shiny stuff. That's what your house is, a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get...more stuff!

Sometimes you gotta move, gotta get a bigger house. Why? No room for your stuff anymore. Did you ever notice when you go to somebody else's house, you never quite feel a hundred percent at home? You know why? No room for your stuff. Somebody else's stuff is all over the place! And if you stay overnight, unexpectedly, they give you a little bedroom to sleep in. Bedroom they haven't used in about eleven years. Someone died in it, eleven years ago. And they haven't moved any of his stuff! Right next to the bed there's usually a dresser or a bureau of some kind, and there's NO ROOM for your stuff on it. Somebody else's s--t is on the dresser.

Have you noticed that their stuff is s--t and your s--t is stuff? And you say, "Get that s--t offa there and let me put my stuff down!"

Sometimes you leave your house to go on vacation. And you gotta take some of your stuff with you. Gotta take about two big suitcases full of stuff, when you go on vacation. You gotta take a smaller version of your house. It's the second version of your stuff. And you're gonna fly all the way to Honolulu. Gonna go across the continent, across half an ocean to Honolulu. You get down to the hotel room in Honolulu and you open up your suitcase and you put away all your stuff. "Here's a place here, put a little bit of stuff there, put some stuff here, put some stuff--you put your stuff there, I'll put some stuff--here's another place for stuff, look at this, I'll put some stuff here..." And even though you're far away from home, you start to get used to it, you start to feel okay, because after all, you do have some of your stuff with you. That's when your friend calls up from Maui, and says, "Hey, why don'tchya come over to Maui for the weekend and spend a couple of nights over here."

Oh, no! Now what do I pack? Right, you've gotta pack an even SMALLER version of your stuff. The third version of your house. Just enough stuff to take to Maui for a coupla days. You get over to Maui--I mean you're really getting extended now, when you think about it. You got stuff ALL the way back on the mainland, you got stuff on another island, you got stuff on this island. I mean, supply lines are getting longer and harder to maintain. You get over to your friend's house on Maui and he gives you a little place to sleep, a little bed right next to his windowsill or something. You put some of your stuff up there. You put your stuff up there. You got your Visine, you got your nail clippers, and you put everything up. It takes about an hour and a half, but after a while you finally feel okay, say, "All right, I got my nail clippers, I must be okay." That's when your friend says, "Aaaaay, I think tonight we'll go over the other side of the island, visit a pal of mine and maybe stay over."

Aww, no. NOW what do you pack? Right--you gotta pack an even SMALLER version of your stuff. The fourth version of your house. Only the stuff you know you're gonna need. Money, keys, comb, wallet, hanky, pen, and change. Well, only the stuff you HOPE you're gonna need.

Let's talk about your mother

Keillor: Let's talk about your mother
Garrison Keillor

I'd like a word with you about your mother, and I want you to read this column all the way to the end, otherwise I will slap you so hard your head will spin. I realize that Mother's Day is a fake holiday perpetuated by the greeting card industry and the florists, but it's here to stay, so make the best of it. The president is a fake, too, but we still pay our taxes. And it's time you did something nice for your mother.

I bring this up well in advance of Mother's Day so you can plan a little bit and not roll out of the sack on SUNDAY, MAY 14, and fritter away the morning and then dash over to Mom's and on the way pick up a cheap box of chocolate-covered cherries at the gas station, or a gallon of windshield cleaner, or whatever you were planning to give her. Cheap chocolates are not appropriate for your mother, nor is a bouquet of daisies marked down 50 percent at the convenience store. What you owe your mother is a sonnet. A fourteen-line poem, in iambic pentameter, rhymed, just like Shakespeare's ''When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcaste state.'' Look it up. You can do it, if you try.

Your mother loves you, she has loved you from Day 1, she loves you on your good days and your bad. She was on her way to Broadway and Hollywood was taking a look at her when your father got her in a family way and she put glamour and fame behind her and had you instead. Think about it. All that pain, and then out you came, not the high point of her day, believe me. She changed your poopy diaper when the stench was such as to make strong men dizzy. And when you hopped up and ran off, leaving a brown trail behind you, she mopped that up, too. At a certain age, you put everything into your mouth - dirt, coins, small toys, cufflinks - and when she stuck a finger down your throat, you refused to vomit. Nothing would come up. All she could do was pour Listerine in you and hope for the best.

But if she tried to coax you to eat green leafy material, then you would throw up quarts of stuff. And she'd clean it up and take you in her arms and comfort you although your breath was rancid. You were not a bright child. I realize that you think you were in the accelerated group, and that was your mother's doing. Her great accomplishment was to protect you from the knowledge of your own ordinariness. The rest of us knew. You didn't. Nor did you realize the extent of your bed-wetting. Three a.m., you sat in a stupor, while Mom changed your urine-soaked sheets, tucked you in, and sang you to sleep with ''If Ever I Would Leave You'' from ''Camelot.''

She loved you through the dark valley of your adolescence, when you were as charming as barbed wire. You surrounded yourself with sullen friends who struck your mother as incipient criminals. Her beloved child, her darling, her shining star, running with teenage jihadists, but she bit her tongue and served them pizza and sloppy joes, ignoring the explosives taped to their chests. When you were 17, when other adults found you unbearable and even your own aunts and uncles looked at you and saw the decline of American civilization and the coming of a dark age of arrogant narcissism unprecedented in world history, your mother still loved you with all her heart. She loves you still today, despite all the wrong choices you've made. Don't get me started. Go write your mother a sonnet.

It costs you nothing except some time and effort. Do not buy her chocolate. She doesn't care for it. She only pretended to, for your sake. Do not take her out to dinner. She has eaten plenty of dinners with you and one more isn't going to be that thrilling. She might prefer to snuggle up in a chair all by herself and watch ''Singin' in the Rain'' and have a stiff drink. (You do know your mother drinks, don't you? Ever wonder why?) Get out a sheet of paper and a pencil. Here's an idea for a first line: ''When I was disgraceful and a complete outcaste.'' You take it from there.