Paris Hilton Doesn't Care A Damn What I Think

Wherever in the world Paris Hilton is laying her head tonight, I'm quite sure her last thoughts before drifting off to sleep will not be about me, or my little blog where I, among other things, skewer people like her and the Kardashians and the pop culture landscape that celebrates (yea, worships!) anything that promotes style over substance.

How do I know this? For two reasons. One, why should she? She exists in another realm and breathes another kind of air than I do. She doesn't have to care what I think. She's made a ton, several tons, actually, of money trafficking on her looks and on a carefully crafted version of herself that represents the kind of vapid, clueless celebrity that people like me roll their eyes at. But today I got a bit of an eye-opener after reading a fairly detailed story about her in Broadly. Behind the baby voice, and the doe-eyed, air-headed affect is someone who does in fact know what she's doing and understands that her persona is, in a way, a bit of performance art. In other words, ladies and gentlemen, Ms. Hilton is acting. She's giving us a show. She's tried her hand at acting and at music while we all thought she was just looking for something to occupy her time, but if this story is to be believed, her dance card is plenty full. Always has been. From New York to Paris to L.A. and back. Rinse and repeat. She's been having us on the whole time. There's probably not a lot of social critique going on in all this. It's just something that happens to work for her and has made her quite wealthy and famous. From a business perspective, this kind of shameless self-promotion works. She's not the only one who's tried it, and it's essentially harmless compared to the horrific bombast of Donald Trump, who will not EVER get to be president, and whose only reason for campaigning is to promote his monumental ego.

He actually doesn't care a damn about the job of president anymore than Paris Hilton cares what I think. Which leads us to reason Number Two why Paris Hilton cares not a damn what I think: she's said as much. In the aforementioned article, she says, "I don't really care what people think about me." I take her at her word. My noting is of this phenomenon of faux celebrity that she's a part of and helped create. She, and the Kardashians and a bunch of others are a mirror for this culture of no-think. Of distraction. And, to be sure, a bit of it is fine. Just like a bit of McDonald's so-called "food" is fine.

You just don't want to mistake it for the real thing and make a steady diet of it. The effect, over time is deleterious. With that understood, I will say that like so many of us, I was fooled by the image of a shallow celebrity party-girl which is in fact, a brand being fleshed out by a rather attractive and canny young woman.

Well played, Paris. Not that you care a damn what I think. Nor should you.

Feast your eyes, friends. Maybe there is yet a functioning brain in there. But, as a friend of mine put it recently, "The brilliance only goes so far."

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KCD

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The Second Coming...this time.

On Sept. 25th, Apple released its newest iPhone. The iPhone 6s and 6 Plus.  According to published reports, 13 million of them were sold during launch week, with 10 million of them sold during the first three days of the launch. CEO Tim Cook announced that although they may look familiar, "we've changed everything about these new iPhones."

Oh, goody. Just when you were figuring out how to update your Facebook page with this thing, they go and change EVERYTHING. Just when you were figuring out how to speak in Emojis on your Twitter feed, they go and change EVERYTHING.

And did I mention that without a contract, these devices start at $650? Now, lest anybody think that I'm just "hatin'" on new technology, let me say that there do seem to be some pretty cool features with this upgrade. The camera features by themselves make this fascinating for the true tech-heads among us. The always on Siri feature could become a bit annoying in the way that Number Six was a constant distraction for Gaius Baltar. And it's safe to assume Siri bears no resemblance to Tricia Helfer.

A rep at the local Verizon outlet told me they were only getting 40 iPhones to sell initially that first day, and that there'd be a line stretching round the block. I didn't go check but he may have been right.  Poor bastard had to work that opening too.

Ye Gods. Behold what Steve Jobs hath wrought upon the earth! Behold his second coming (or third or fourth; he died Oct. 5th, 2011) in every new iteration of the I...fill in the blank. There's a new movie out now about him, exploring his complexity.

I just find it a curiosity that a man so obviously brilliant could get people to plunk down a sizable chunk of change every time one of his digital offspring reproduces after its kind, so that they can go take "selfies" at a baseball game. I'd like to think Steve Jobs' legacy would not be another generation of mindless sheep, or worse, tech-starved addicts. Unfortunately, we have a predilection in this culture to lionize CEOs, to gather by the hundreds if not thousands and incline our ears for the next bit of "wisdom" these people might drop on us.

It's just another sales pitch, people.

But the multitudes stream forth from the event as if from some revival, and before you know it, everyone you know has the shiny new trinket, eyes glazed over, updating Facebook statuses and refreshing Twitter feeds and sinking into blissful oblivion from the lights on the tiny screen.

Go forth and consume. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.

 

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KCD

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Evangeline Lilly and the Hurricane

Evangeline Lilly, the actress who first appeared on "Lost" has apparently decided to slip on a bikini following the birth of her second child. Hollywood, whose camera lens zeroes in on things of such magnitude, got pictures of what she looks like in said bikini after carrying extra pounds of human inside her.

Hadn't heard much from Evangeline Lilly in a while. Reports say the last movie she was in was "Marvel's Ant-Man" starring an insect sized superhero. I heard one report some time ago where she said she was done with acting. She was going to do "missionary work". I suppose one might argue that she's done exactly that.

One observer on social media posted, "Thank God. I was just getting wrapped up in the last school shooting. Glad there are more important things trending."

No more sleepless nights. Unless of course you want to concern yourself with the fact that Mexico might well go the way of Atlantis if this never-before-seen hurricane makes landfall.

Meanwhile, there's this.

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KCD
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Our Latest Fixation (Warning: May Not Be Safe For Work)

Iggy Azalea, rapper from Australia, felt the need to remove her constrictions before boarding a flight at LAX back on Oct. 16th. Wearing a white bodysuit with a plunging neckline, she was photographed at the airport and the pics went viral.

Sigh. I don't even know who this woman is. Nor do I know if "Iggy" is a stage name or what her parents actually decided to call her (apparently, it is a stage name; her given name is Amethyst Amelia Kelly). All I know is that in the midst of all the insanity circling the planet and its inhabitants, the world still pauses at the sight of...breasts.

Admittedly, Amethyst Amelia Kelly at 25 is very attractive. She was a model who decided she could be a rapper and a singer. She's a pop music confection. Kind of a cartoon. Seems to be working for her. There may even be a method to her madness. There clearly has been with the multi-faceted, multi-talented Lady Gaga. Time will tell. Meanwhile, notice how our corporate-owned celebrity media has chosen to fixate on this girl's cleavage and turn it into some naughty sensation. The fashion press goes to this well often, and it seems like the well is always full. Yet the subtext is grounded in a kind of repression. "Proper ladies don't act like this, don't dress like this, don't flaunt it like this."

Right. "Tell us something we don't know". But that's just it. Our collective unawareness is such that we're all apoplectic, as if the sight of a woman's breasts is some new and salacious sinful thing loosed upon the earth by some minion of hell. And we fall for it over and over again.

Refugees streaming across the European continent fleeing civil war and a homeland that for all intent and purposes no longer exists. Beheadings in Iraq by a group of sadistic savages to make some weirdling statement. The land mass that is now called South Carolina underwater from rains that last came 1,000 years ago before Nikki Haley was even an idea in the mind of God.

But nevermind all that.
The wheels on the bus stop for this.

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KCD

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Fall is Falling On Us All

Autumn here in New England is well and fully upon us, and despite some dry weather for a few weeks, some recent rain may well have saved our colors this season. California, on the other hand has more to worry about than fall colors. They need A LOT MORE rain than they've had in a while, and the good news is that it looks like they're going to get some if Accu-Weather is, well, accurate.
Thank goodness.


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KCD

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Does the World Come With A Volume Switch?

It's been one of those last few weeks.

You know what I'm talking about.


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KCD
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On Glass Houses and Stones

Bristol Palin is pregnant. Again. Outside the bounds of holy matrimony. Again. She who took off the Candies Foundation for a quarter mil for preaching abstinence has somehow found it impossible to keep from scratching the itch before she "put a ring on it".

It should be pretty obvious to anyone paying attention that whilst advocating for teen abstinence, Bristol, who was already a mother of one when she was 18,  hasn't exactly been, ahem, abstaining. Now, amazingly, she says that she wants no judgment, no lectures, that her family is disappointed, and that this pregnancy was, in fact, planned.

Okay. No judgment. No lectures. In exchange, Bristol Palin should just admit that she likes sex. A LOT. Oh, and she should give back the money. And, she should stop with the judgments and the lectures and the references to the Almighty, because that just makes her look like more of a hypocrite, as if we needed more of those.


If you haven't already guessed friends, this is another one of these posts where I observe how we in this country confer celebrity status on people who shouldn't be anywhere near it. Bristol Palin, whose mother ran for VP in 2008, is a particularly vapid example of those who preach a kind of repressive morality that they don't themselves practice, and get paid a lot of money to do it. So while Ms. Palin may want a pass for her obvious lack of integrity, she may just find rocks being thrown at her glass house.

Just Sayin'....




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KCD
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