Well, whichever way you look at it, it’s been a helluva year so far. Honestly, I haven’t had a chance to catch my breath. In fact, I’ve become a bit of a news junkie. Every afternoon, when I wake up, I dash to my computer and hit the news websites to see what happened in the previous 8 hours, and I’m never disappointed. There’s always something new, something big, to worry about. I kinda knew that news was just entertainment for grown-ups, but lately it’s become a series of cliff-hangers that would shame a soapie.
From Arabs to Zimbabwe, the entire planet seems to be spiralling out of control. Oil prices, inflation, Iraq, xenophobia, Mugabe, Hilary, Obama, Zuma, the Scorpions, global warming, Austrian cellars; dozens of stories all clamouring for column space and the attention of increasingly bewildered readers. It’s enough to convince you that the much-anticipated Mayan apocalypse is indeed going to take place in 2012, if we can hold it together that long.
Then, today, I came across a story that stopped me dead in my tracks. It was a story so huge, so earth-shattering, that it made me choke on my Cornflakes. Lindsay Lohan’s dad says that she’s having a lesbian affair! No! Say it ain’t so, LiLo! First Ellen, then Jodie Foster and now you! Damn the Sapphic juices that course through your emaciated frame. Now you will never be mine!
Of course, you’ve got to admit that it’s the perfect tabloid story; mixing prurience and salaciousness in a delicious package that makes the reader blush and ogle at the same time. Forget about petrol at R10 a litre, forget about carbon emissions, rocketing interest rates and burning foreigners – this is the stuff I want: rich young dimwits acting up.
So come Lindsay, come Paris, come Misha, come Miley. On Amy, on Ashlee, on Britney (and Britney’s sister). Do it! Shave those crotches. Take those drugs. Make those headlines. I’ve tasted your idiotic shenanigans and I want more! Yes, I’m a Heat-seeking missile and proud of it.
You see, it’s easier to immerse myself in this superficial world of celebrity irrelevance than it is to negotiate the tumultuous sea of hard news that may actually affect my life. The real world has become too problematic and too upsetting to contemplate. So, I’ve decided to bury my head in the glorious vacuity of the American Celebutante and revel in the schadenfreude they so generously provide.
That’s right LiLo, my little lesbian minx, the endless antics of you and your kind are actually a public service; a welcome distraction to a daily litany of bad news and crippling uncertainty. Without you, I would have to face reality on a daily basis and, frankly, life’s more fun when Ryan Seacrest is the host. IMHO.
[Originally posted 29/05/2008]
It’s a good post.