I live in Los Angeles, so it is probably no surprise that a lot of people I know are making resolutions to either become stars or achieve bigger stardom.
It doesn’t seem like it is much fun to be famous in 2008 though. Entertainment Weekly’s entire year in review issue was all about how much it sucks to have the eyes of the world on you. When I recently went to my OB/GYN, I was reading either Esquire or GQ in his waiting room and there was an interview with Michael J. Fox. The interviewer asked him what his thoughts were on like Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears or Paris Hilton or maybe all three. Michael J. Fox was a young Hollywood star in the 80’s, but he still has a pretty squeaky clean rep. Perhaps because he played a wholesome character on TV for a while. At any rate, his response was that he was soooooooooooooo glad the whole tabloid and paparazzi thing did not exist when he was young because it was his opinion that he did a lot of the same dumb things and they just were not recorded for posterity.
When I was a teenager, I lived overseas, mostly in countries where (a) it was legal for me to drink and (b) I had diplomatic immunity so what was legal was not that much of a factor. I am pretty certain that I would cringe at photos and video taken in many of the situations I got myself into. But there aren’t any. Actually, I wish there were more photos of me growing up. But the point is that I could be young and experimental and even a little wild, without it going down on my permanent record.
My mother’s generation had a saying about how you could go anywhere so long as you had a little black dress. I’ve been working on putting this to the test this September. Every year, I tend to feel kinda gothic during the summer and I perk up as soon as it is Fall. I don’t know if this is some sort of Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder (Disorder is such a judgmental word.) or if I just really like school to be in session, whether or not I am attending it. My birthday is also in August and I tend to use my birthday and New Year’s as times to make adjustments designed to perfect my existence. This Fall, I’ve made a commitment to get out and enjoy what Los Angeles has to offer. So I bought a lot of little black dresses and have been trying new things and enjoying it a lot as it happens. The only weird thing about doing so much which is brand new is that it creates a bit of social anxiety.
The feminist blog/site Say Object referred to me saying,
“One of our favorite feminist thinkers, Amelia G of BlueBlood.net, recently weighed in on the “Captivity” billboard controversy, and some of what she says suprised us (plus, Girl clearly did her research).”
Writer/editor/cupcake fetishist Rachel Kramer Bussel and I were chatting about the Say Object mention and she told me they were having a party.
So Tuesday night, although I knew I was eventually headed to the West Side to help Blue Blood hottie Superna celebrate her birthday, I started all the way on the East Side at The Echoplex in Echo Park. The first event on deck …
I realize that Glaxo doesn’t want to be associated with a person like Paris Hilton, but she’s being cheated out of a great opportunity to use her popularity for good, and to rehab her image a bit.
Yes, I think PH should become a celeb spokesperson for Valtrex, and should do public outreach on behalf of genital herpes sufferers.
(Seriously, it’s not like she has any sense of personal shame, and the jail thing doesn’t work for anyone. The last guy who came out of jail with his image improved was Mandela, and he went in a hero.)
I’m envisioning a very lo-tek trashy glam viral-style campaign, if you will, with street teams pasting up mysterious flyers that ask, “Is Paris Burning?”
