Who is John Galt (Partying With at Spago)?

I guess it makes me sort of a hypocrite, but there are a handful of celebrity gossip/paparazzi-type sites I hit on a fairly regular basis. And while it would be easy for me to try to take some sort of high road and say that I check them out looking for writing ideas (especially since I have found story inspirations from them in the past) -- the simple fact is that for better or for worse,
Perez makes me laugh.
Pointing out all the things that are flawed with the cult of personality/celebrity worship culture could easily take up a couple of pages -- but I wonder sometimes if enough attention is paid to the underside of this phenomenon, wherein people give their time and lives to snark on the very same personalities (and fan bases) that so many others work to put on pedestals and worship. The paradox being that in order to stand on the sidelines and throw rocks, these people have to be just as wired in to celeb culture as the sycophants they claim to despise and oppose.
Kinda like that one guy who comes to every one of your
house parties just to complain about the quality of the beer.
Of course the simple fact is that looters and moochers cannot thrive without the sanction of the victim. But what makes this generation of celebrity worship so curious is that it's not always entirely clear just who that so-called victim really is.

Are the celebrities the ones who are accepting self-sacrifice -- or are we the ones who are surrendering even tiny degrees of our indentities and selves by tending to over-value the importance of others who have done so little to earn it? At the same time, are those of us who are able to turn away from the glare (even if that goal is accomplished more through acts of apathy rather than some Dagny Taggart-ian force of will) provided with an equal and opposite reward?

To be honest, it seems like both sides of the coin are in their own ways representations of that scene in No Exit where the door to hell is finally thrown open, but despite all they've been through Garçin, Inès, and Estelle refuse to leave. We hate them, we love them, we hate that we love to hate them -- but for as long as people have been around, we've been doing the same thing.
After all, history texts were the original tabloids.
From Cleopatra's romances to Henry VIII's divorces, there are volumes and volumes of E! network-worthy gushing to choose from. In fact, I'm pretty sure if Adam and Eve had publicists, that whole business with the snake and the apple would have been quietly pushed under the rug (or licensed and sold to an exclusive video distributor, depending on how public opinion was feeling about Eve that week).

You hear all these pundits saying the world is becoming Sodom and Gomorrah, and our insistence on championing people who don't actually do anything worthwhile can only lead to disaster -- but it's honestly kinda hard to take something like that seriously when you're watching it on TV from a guy who has his own show.

Whatever the case, I really don't see anything truly wrong with being curious about the lives of all the golden calves out there as long as you don't let it take over your life or affect your opinion of yourself. Besides, you never really know what you'll find once you start scratching away the surface of glitz and glamour.
Or to put it another way, I can't believe I actually paid good money back in the day to see Sliver
..just so I could see this woman naked.
[Listening to:    Red Hot Chili Peppers"Backwoods" ]

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