My Facebook post on Thursday read, "I'm waiting for my daily 'Charlie Sheen fix.' Come on Charlie. Do something." A day without some news of Charlie Sheen's latest bizarre behavior may lie ahead of us, but for now Charlie just keeps turning up in the news like a bad penny. Today it's about a Thursday night police raid at his house that turned up a few rounds of ammunition. Big deal. As an aside the report noted that Charlie has permits for 47 guns... Yeah, 47 guns... But don't worry. They're all registered to Charlie. Perfectly legal. Nothing to worry about there.
Eccentric showbiz personalities and imploding celebrities are nothing new. The old saying that "any publicity is good publicity" must have some merit though. After all, his Monday tweet for a "winning" social media intern drew 95,333 clicks WITHIN THE FIRST HOUR, visits from 181 countries and ultimately 74,040 submitted applications. And, according to at least one source, Charlie was the fastest to ever reach one million Twitter followers -- just 25 hours after being launched on Feb. 28.
Seeing Charlie this week waving a machete on top of a building and sipping simulated "tiger blood" only confirmed the distance in my mind between the Hollywood crowd and the working class.
There are other eccentricities too numerous to mention. Michael Jackson, Brittney Spear's shaved head, Lindsay Lohan behaving badly (yet again), Christina Aguilera's recent mishaps, Alec Baldwin's and Mel Gibson's rants... the list goes on and on. Of course it's not limited to Hollywood celebrities. The athletic world is populated with meltdowns, including Tonya Harding, Mike Tyson and O.J. Simpson. What's got into these people?
Eccentric behavior has become so common it hardly gets more than a ho-hum anymore, unless a law has been broken in the process. But it's sure brought ink and air time to these people, like it or not. What is our fascination with their problems?
The latest pop phenom is Lady Gaga, born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta. I had heard of Lady Gaga but never had been subjected to her music or videos until we studied her rise to stardom during my Women in Media class. When I polled my kids about her, they agreed they liked her music but thought her behavior a bit odd. I agreed her music was kind of catchy, but her videos were, to me, bizarre. She made Madonna -- who pushed the envelope back in the '80s -- look like a prude. Lady Gaga's crowning moments were a featured segment on "60 Minutes" and her grand entrance in an egg at this year's Academy Awards. I never actually got to see her come out of the egg. Viewers were simply told that that was Lady Gaga in there.
I used to think Elton John was the eccentric one. Roger disliked his music, except for "Crocodile Rock." And "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" got under Barb's skin. I loved Elton John's music, but thought Crocodile Rock was not one of his better songs. His "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" album was one of my favorites. It got a lot of play during my freshman year at SDSU. Rog would kid me no end (and probably disown me as a brother) if he knew my I Tunes collection includes 181 Elton John songs. Michael Jackson accounts for 17 songs, and the Jackson 5 (which starred Michael) adds another 10. By contrast, I have one song by Christina Aguilera, and none by either Brittney Spears or Lady Gaga.
And I've never watched one episode of "Two and a Half Men." I have no plans to either.
1 comment:
Seriously? Michael Jackson? I really took you for a Johnny Cash man, myself. But then since we've never really met or been formally introduced, it was merely a guess. On the other hand... I'm an old Sir Elton fan myself. (much to my parent's dismay back then... I never understood why they didn't like him until much later on. I was a naive small town Neb. girl. lol)
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