Celebrity Love
Had a bizarre conversation with a co-worker. She's a pleasant woman, probably about 55, and she mentioned how she was still suffering from Michael Jackson's death. I asked, "Suffering...how?" She said she suffered inside, and that whenever her friends died, she had to take to the bed sometimes and just cry for hours. So I asked, "Michael Jackson was your friend?" And she said, yes, of course. He was a close friend. She then elaborated: she had never met him, of course, but she felt a kinship to him.
Okay. I asked her if there were other celebrities she felt this close to. The answer was a resounding, and lengthy, yes. When John Ritter died, she said, she was in bed for a week. And Farrah...how tragic was that? I asked her if her Farrah fixation was based on Charlie's Angels, and she said, "Well, that's when i first got to know her, but we've been friends ever since." There were many, many more examples, nearly all of them that B-level celebrity, and just talking about them made her cry a little bit.
Since we were talking on John Lennon Death Day (dec 8), I asked her if she this reaction to John Lennon. "Oh no," she said. "He never did anything for me. But I do love Paul."
So she answered a question I didn't even ask her: who buys into this celebrity culture and watches Entertainment Tonight and gives a good goddam about these 'famous' people they don't even know? The answer: co-workers, people on the street, lots of people. I didn't quite get the 'why' answered, though.
Okay. I asked her if there were other celebrities she felt this close to. The answer was a resounding, and lengthy, yes. When John Ritter died, she said, she was in bed for a week. And Farrah...how tragic was that? I asked her if her Farrah fixation was based on Charlie's Angels, and she said, "Well, that's when i first got to know her, but we've been friends ever since." There were many, many more examples, nearly all of them that B-level celebrity, and just talking about them made her cry a little bit.
Since we were talking on John Lennon Death Day (dec 8), I asked her if she this reaction to John Lennon. "Oh no," she said. "He never did anything for me. But I do love Paul."
So she answered a question I didn't even ask her: who buys into this celebrity culture and watches Entertainment Tonight and gives a good goddam about these 'famous' people they don't even know? The answer: co-workers, people on the street, lots of people. I didn't quite get the 'why' answered, though.