Читать книгу 28 Minutes to Midnight - Thomas Mahon - Страница 9

“I’ve watched how successful Kim Kardashian became and I think a lot of it was due to the release of her sex tape.” Montana Fishburne, Laurence Fishburne’s daughter, on why she is appearing in her own X-rated video.

23 Minutes to Midnight…

There’s no question she was a talented pop artist who captured the imagination of millions, most especially impressionable teens and pre-teens. Following her first marriage, which lasted an astounding 55 hours, she married a struggling rap artist whom she let impregnate her just as another woman was giving birth to one of his babies. Shortly after having her second child, the pop diva informed her unworthy man (by text message, no less) that she wanted a divorce. Then, leaving her underwear behind, the diva hopped into a limousine with Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton, and gallivanted about L.A. for the next couple of nights—the paparazzi snapping photos of her bare crotch just as fast as their little shutters would click. The whole escapade prompted the New York Post to fire off a front page photo of the three, along with this caustic headline:

BIMBO SUMMIT¹

Brandy Navarre, of the Celebrity rag X17, appeared on Fox News in January of 2008. “I think it’s like the best reality show going,” she said. “It’s an A-list celebrity with the most drama you can imagine…You see this inconceivable drama unfolding in front of your eyes. No one can believe, every day, what she does. And no one can predict what she’s going to do next.”

Navarre was right. There was more to come. The individual in question checked herself into a rehab facility, but left after one day. Hours later, she turned up in a San Fernando Valley tattoo joint and shaved her head. Soon it was back to rehab and then out again—all the while sporting a Star of David necklace. (A quick note to my Jewish friends: 1. It’s your turn. You can have her. 2. You guys may as well take her because the rest of us have been unable to do anything with her. 3. Zol zion mit Mazel— For those of you that aren’t Jewish, that’s Yiddish for Good Luck). Then it was back to rehab and out again. She slammed her car into a parked vehicle while visiting a pet store one afternoon. She didn’t even pause to consider the damage she’d caused to the other car before she sauntered off. Finally, she stole a cigarette lighter from a convenience store in plain view of the ravenous paparazzi. Her divorce attorney gave up on her. Her publicist promptly followed suit. The custody of her two children went to the washed-up rapper.

The story of Britney Spears is very real. One hundred of the top fiction writers our country has to offer couldn’t concoct a story like this. But while we’re at it, I think we’d better have a look at Spears’ cohorts during those Los Angeles nights in question: Lohan and Hilton.

Lohan is a notorious party girl who’s done a few Disney films. We do know a thing or two about this young woman: 1. She has asthma. 2. Excessive partying makes the condition worse. 3. When the asthma acts up she must seek medical assistance at the ER. 4. She continues to party anyway. 5. She could probably party in her sleep. 6. She admitted to having an alcohol problem and entered rehab—all before she’d even reached the legal drinking age. While there, however, she decided she missed two things: McDonalds and sex. 7. She continues to party. 8. She was taken to the woodshed, by one studio executive, over her late night escapades and tardiness to work—a pattern that has continued while she was playing the role of Elizabeth Taylor in a made-for-television production. 9. She probably wishes I would just shut up and party. 10. She continues to pop in and out of rehab, looking frighteningly skinny. 11. She’s most likely number one on every dead pool list from Thule, Greenland to Ushuaia, Argentina.

Paris Hilton would be the Franklin D. Roosevelt of this prestigious summit; she hails from aristocracy, as did FDR. We also know a few things about her: 1. Unlike the other heads of state, many of us are still trying to figure out just what talent, if any, Hilton has. 2. She was born into fame and wealth and did absolutely nothing to earn either one. 3. There’s a pretty racy porno circulating out there starring the hotel heiress. 4. Many who have actually met Hilton describe her as self-absorbed, arrogant and stuck-up. 5. She parties with Lohan and Spears. 6. She has really white teeth. 7. She has a very small dog. 8. Unlike FDR, she has demonstrated no willingness to serve her country. 9. She’s been to prison. 10. She looks fairly presentable in prison garb.

If you lived during the 1970s, you might remember the Flying Wallendas and their heart-stopping, death-defying and sometimes hair-brained high-wire acts. I can still see old Karl Wallenda walking the wire between the Eden Roc and Fontainebleau hotels on Miami Beach on a blustery night in 1977. My father and I watched it on the black and white Zenith in our family room. Wallenda, Dad was quick to point out, had no net beneath him, just cold, hard cement below. Jeez, this guy could fall right here on national television, I remember thinking. I was only twelve and not at all ready to see something like that. God how I held my breath and kept my eyes glued to that Zenith. It took him a while (the network kept cutting away for commercials) but Wallenda finally made it across. I breathed a sigh of relief. “Hope he never tries that again,” I said, exhaling. My father chuckled, assuring me that Wallenda would be revisiting the high-wire again and soon. But why, I wanted to know? Why take that kind of risk? “He can’t help it,” answered my father. “It’s in his blood. It’s who he is.” On March 22, 1978, one year after Miami Beach, Karl Wallenda attempted another walk, this time in Puerto Rico, at the age of 73. I don’t think I have to go into any details. You can figure out the rest for yourself and view the 27 second video on Google.

I get a Wallenda-like feeling, in the pit of my stomach, whenever I read about or watch the ongoing exploits of Lindsey Lohan and the Spears Family. They, too, conduct their lives like proverbial high-wire acts, while the rest of us gawk up at them in amazement while we wonder if there’s a shred of common sense among them. And every time we think we’ve seen the last of the high-wire histrionics, along comes more. And then more still.

Britney and Lindsay are the experts, the Karl Wallendas of their respective families. They’ve been up on those wires for some time now—trekking back and forth between hotels, balancing on one foot, even hanging by their teeth. Between the two of them, there have been multiple run-ins with the law. Open defiance in court. Pregnancies. Divorces. Custody hearings. Weight gains. Scary weight losses. Stints in rehab. Chugging purple monsters– a cocktail consisting of vodka, NyQuil and Red Bull. Two 5150 Holds—mandatory detentions in a psychiatric detox tank—and emergency trips to the hospital, with a dozen police motorcycles, several cruisers and two helicopters paving the way. Even the little sister, Jamie Spears, has grabbed a balance pole and jumped up there on the wire. So precocious, she took on a lover in her early teens and became a mother the same year she got her first driver’s license. But Momma Lynne might just take the Wallenda cake. She knew of the boyfriend and the sexcapades—much of it reportedly happening under her roof and with her blessings. After hearing of the daughter’s pregnancy, Momma Lynne immediately orchestrated a million dollar deal with OK! Magazine for an exclusive story and all the photos they cared to snap of the child mother and her newborn. The only thing this quartet hasn’t done is release a porno.

Maybe not but Kim Kardashian sure has. Pundits claim this woman has no talent. I’m not sure I agree with that. Anyone who can score her own reality television show, get paid serious money for her inane tweets and capture that much tabloid ink, week-in and week-out, has got to have talent. Somewhere. I’m baffled as to how Kardashian does it, but she does it—porno, sham marriage to an NBA player, sham relationships with rappers, revealing bikini photos and all. True, she’s not inspiring students in a classroom, nor is she assisting the aged in a nursing home, fighting fires, trying to cure cancer or helping to safeguard the City of Angels, but she is doing something. The only question I have is this: is her something worth anything?

I’ll say this much for Lohan and Spears: they’ve lasted a lot longer than many prognosticators had originally thought—myself included. I was convinced we’d be burying Spears after the last 5150 hold, where she had to be rushed to UCLA Medical. The same goes for Lohan and her manic party habits, not to mention the asthma and weight loss episodes. Fortunately, they’ve survived while Hollywood has bid adieu to the likes of Anna Nicole Smith, Heath Ledger, Corey Haim, Brittany Murray, Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston. Spears is fortunate that her father has stepped up and taken a leadership role within the family. Lohan, I’m afraid, hasn’t been so fortunate. Does this mean that Spears is out of the woods? Not so fast. The Associated Press, and I’m sure they’ve done this with Lohan, too, has actually pre-written Spear’s obituary says THE WEEK, in its February 1, 2008 edition. “Of course, we would never wish any type of misfortune on anybody,” said Jesse Washington of the AP, “but if something were to happen, we would have to be prepared.” So, let’s just call the 5150 incidents in January of 2008 her precarious walk between The Eden Roc and Fontainebleau. And she doesn’t have too many more of those left in her. Neither does Lohan. Is there a March 22, 1978 in their futures—a day in which one or both of these young ladies will tempt the fates one time too many? Will children, across America, have to ask their parents why such a tragedy (or tragedies) had to happen? If so, the answer will certainly be: “She couldn’t help it. It was in her blood. It was who she was.”

I tell my students the Spotlight fallacy is not a difficult concept to grasp. It comes about when we assume the individuals and issues occupying the spotlight (or headlines, if you will) are representative of the norm and worthy of emulating. One would hope that, as creatures of common sense, most of us would be able to discern the difference between normal and irresponsible behavior, even deviant behavior. That’s precisely why Spears, Lohan, Hilton and Kardashian are banned in my house—along with hosts of others, I might add. I don’t want my kids exposed to that pathology. Sadly, however, our nation’s appetite for the likes of these four, and many others like them, is sufficiently voracious to justify the parasitic and voyeuristic existence of scores of entertainment rags, television shows and web pages. America sits back and consumes this garbage each and every day. We’ve become a nation fascinated by Hollywood’s version of reality and gossip—never content, never satisfied; snared in this vicious cycle. The average student or working person wouldn’t survive a day, even an hour behaving like Spears, Lohan, Hilton or Kardashian. Our teachers and supervisors wouldn’t put up with it, nor should they. We’ve got to make this clear to our kids. Those four behave the way they do because they can. The rest of us can’t afford to emulate their nonsense.

If my words aren’t enough to convince you, read the July 2011 article, Facebook is Fun for Recruiters, Too. So, the next time you apply for that job, or submit that college application, don’t be surprised if someone is vetting you at the other end, vetting you thoroughly.² And if you’ve fallen into the Spotlight Fallacy pit and are emulating our four diva friends in any way by flaunting your Hollywoodesque exploits on social media—drugs use, excessive drinking, nudity, sexual activity, indiscriminate partying—

just be prepared for a string of rejection letters.

Some are going to claim that Spears is no longer the “in” news item and thus has no influence on our youth. To believe that, you’d have to deny what we now see in our young girls in terms of their behavior, their looks and what they wear. Cruise around the social network sites and take a look. Who are these people? And what are they trying to accomplish? Any father of a pre-teen or teen will tell you how difficult it is to find hip fashions that don’t accentuate their daughter’s buttocks, show a bare midriff and emphasize cleavage—even where cleavage has yet to present itself. I believe the word is precocious, and that was one of Spears’ main selling points. To me, Spears was like a nuclear explosion, whose fallout is still in evidence today.

Hollywood is a land of imitators. Spears comes along, then it’s Lohan, Hilton and Kardashian. Pamela Anderson makes a porno, then Hilton imitates her, followed quickly by Kardashian, Montana Fishburne and now former Miss Teen Delaware Melissa King—not to mention about a million other young ladies. Porn is now a multi-billion dollar industry. You no longer have to be an abused, neglected, alcoholic, drug-addicted cast-aside to make pornos. They’re mainstream. All you really need (besides the narcissism that already there) is a little nerve. Just a little. Janet Jackson has a “wardrobe malfunction” and suddenly they’re all the rage: Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Ice-T’s wife, Coco, Sarah Jane Dias, Lindsay Lohan, Sharon Stone and, please say it isn’t so, Selena Gomez.

It’s not just the influential divas we have to watch out for. Consider the issue of celebrity marriage. It seems nobody stays together anymore. At least that’s the impression we get from Hollywood: Pitt-Aniston, Phillipe-Witherspoon, Barrymore-Green, Madonna-Penn, Basinger-Baldwin, Cruise-Kidman, Cruise-Holmes, Garner-Foley, Jolie-Thornton, Simpson-Lachey and Spears. I’ll even throw in the Gores, Al and Tipper. So, who’s next? Jolie and Pitt? Alright, I’ll go for that.

This past Christmas I noticed a new book on my mother’s end table: Leading Ladies: The 50 Most Unforgettable Actresses of the Studio Era.³ It’s a thorough work, put out by Turner Classic Movies, and includes a complete filmography on each actress, along with a comprehensive list of all marriages and children—legitimate and illegitimate. After reading a couple of the bios, I began noticing how each woman seemed to have had two, three and even four husbands. All of a sudden, I had the irresistible urge to thumb through the book and count all of the divorces. When I was done courting these fifty lovely ladies (Garbo, Russell, Taylor and Garland among them), I could hardly believe what I’d scribbled down: 101 divorces. No wonder two-thirds of the world’s attorneys reside right here in the United States. I bet a majority of them are divorce lawyers. And consider that these failed marriages came at a time when divorce was supposedly frowned upon. And we hold these people up as role models? They’re the cultural elite? By the way, just what does cultural elite mean? I’d like to propose a new title for the book: The 101 Most Forgettable Relationships of the Studio Era and the Men and Women Responsible for Their Ruin. One thing’s for sure: When I finally closed the book and tossed it back onto the end table, I had a sudden urge to wash my hands and Lysol the room.

Vladimir Lenin referred to foreign sympathizers, during the Russian Revolution, as useful idiots. And wouldn’t the crusty old Bolshevik get a kick out of the likes of Kevin Spacey, Sean Penn and Naomi Campbell—all of whom have cavorted with the late Venezuelan dictator and potentate Hugo Chavez, simply because they couldn’t stand George W. Bush or maybe because they were ashamed of America. Perhaps going steady with Chavez was simply the sheik Hollywood thing to do. Penn and Spacey have both spent several hours with the megalomaniac, as did supermodel Campbell, who declared her admiration for the “love and encouragement” Chavez gives Venezuelan welfare programs.⁴ When I first read Campbell’s claims, I had to do a double take. Wasn’t Chavez the same guy who had his own people standing in line for everyday necessities (baby food, milk, chicken and eggs) at state-run markets manned by soldiers? Wasn’t he the same great mind who aspired to change the country’s constitution regarding presidential term limits so he could cling to power indefinitely? And wasn’t this the same man who changed Venezuelan time, and who grabbed control of the press and oil wells?

Can somebody explain what the heck Campbell is talking about?

I have news for these three celebrities: George W. Bush may not have been perfect, he may not have been everyone’s favorite president, but he never attempted to seize control of the press. He didn’t change the constitution by eradicating executive term limits; rather, he stepped down gracefully on January 20, 2008. That’s more we can say about Chavez. Perhaps Spacey, Penn and Campbell would care to break free from their hectic schedules in order to visit our country’s troops—the true American heroes. They might want to send a few letters, or even ship a care package or two, to the men and women defending their liberty to visit with and have lunch with a dictator that regularly mocked the United States. Unfortunately, that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. These three would rather find the closest fascist, catch a flight to his country and have lunch with him. Take a tour of his opulent palace. Ogle at his fleet of 115 BMWs. Listen to his delusional ranting. Hopefully, they brought along their digital cameras so they can share these priceless moments with their Hollywood buddies. And now we have Dennis Rodman snuggling up to North Korean dictator and saber rattler Kim Jong Un, in March of 2013, saying that “He’s just a great guy.” Of course, Jong Un is the same young man who has put 200,000 of his own people into prison camps. The same individual who is threatening war, even nuclear war. On that score, Rodman had this to say: “He loves control, because of his father, you know- stuff like that.”

Indeed. Stuff like that.

Yet again we see how some actors and celebrities (I applaud the many celebrities who do the right thing) get away with goofy behavior with little or no consequences. So what does this mean for the average lay person? Just imagine hating your boss so much, you skip across the street and knock on the door to your biggest competitor. You don’t quit your job (no more than Spacey, Penn or Campbell would renounce their U.S. citizenship for a life in Hugoland); you simply hang out for the day and tell your competitors how wonderful they are. Berate your boss. Listen to your competitor berate your boss, and call him every name in the book—that sort of thing.

Are you currently in a fight with your wife? Would you like to get under her skin? Look up her ex—the one she absolutely can’t stand; the one who has all the goods on her. Have a few drinks with the guy while you both agree what a shrew she is. Bowl a couple of frames together. Catch Monday Night Football at the local watering hole. There. Now don’t you have a better appreciation for the logic of these three? Hope your brand of foreign sympathizing was worth it; unlike these three, you may not have a job to return to in the morning. You may no longer have a marriage, either. But don’t worry a lick about Spacey, Penn or Campbell. In the morning they’ll still have their careers. They’ll have a country to return to as well. Not only that, but their pictures will be splashed all over newspapers and magazines.

But that’s okay because they’re celebrities.

Boon and Lamore did a study in 2001. They found that 75% of young adults have had a strong attraction to a celebrity. Additionally, nearly 60% say they’ve actually been influenced by celebs. Take Tara Conner, former Miss USA. She almost lost her crown amid accusations of underage bar hopping, sexual promiscuity and alcohol abuse. Conner ultimately got to keep her precious crown, but what message does this send to young girls? Especially those who are so impressionable and vulnerable? That they, too, can screw up as much as they want and still get a second and third chance from a tycoon like Donald Trump?

Immediately following Conner’s absolution by Trump, Rosie O’Donnell lobbed several caustic barbs across the tycoon’s bow. He immediately returned the fire and these two went at it on national television, spitting their venom back and forth across Manhattan. Since this was the spotlighted behavior du jour, most of us shrugged and accepted the latest carnival side-show. As a high school dean, I spend a fair amount of time urging the kids to respect one another and to get along. Sometimes, with the really bad cases, I have to haul them into my office and threaten them with serious disciplinary reprisals if they don’t knock it off and grow up. I tell them that they’d better get a handle on this type of behavior before they become adults. I make sure they understand that respect, temperance and maturity are vital tools for success.

And then Trump and O’Donnell jump into the public arena and start swinging.

Thanks, guys, for making my job a little more difficult. I really appreciate it.

NFL receiver Terrell Owens did just about everything within his power to defy his coach and the Philadelphia Eagles organization. So, what happened to him? This ball of laughs was jettisoned to Dallas, receiving a lucrative deal with no apparent behavior clauses written into his contract. Then he left Dallas for Buffalo and another loaded contract. Finally, it was on to Cincinnati, where his career came to an end. Robert Downey Jr. has had numerous run-ins with the law over his drug use, yet he continues to act in movies and pull in millions for his roles in Ironman and Sherlock Holmes. O.J. Simpson netted a cool million for a failed book deal. The infamous Runaway Bride, Jennifer Wilbanks, inked a $500,000 deal to tell her story of deceit.

Just in case we’ve forgotten, here’s a gentle reminder of the facts of life: You and I are not celebrities. We don’t have their money. We don’t have their time. We don’t have their egos or insane desire for publicity. We are not able to race all over the world (in and out of rehab, sporting a shaved head, gallivanting around without any underwear) while we stick our kids with god-knows-who. We don’t have the luxury of spending a lazy afternoon with a filthy dictator. When we mess up we will not catch the breaks they do. In other words, all people are equal, but celebrities are more equal than others.

Hey, we have to learn our place in the barn, don’t we?

However, if after reading this you want to become a celebrity you need to keep one thing in mind: The number of people looking at you is directly proportional to the stupidity of your actions. In celebrity- speak that means it might actually pay to be an egotistical horse’s rear end. And if you have a little talent to go along with your outrageous behavior, you might go far. So, go ahead. Have at it. Only, don’t expect to have your old job waiting for you when you return from that world. That’s okay, because you won’t need it anyway.

You’re now a celebrity, and they play by different rules.