Not that I’ve ever been very good about keeping any of them, but my 2006 New Year’s Eve resolution seemed simple enough. I didn’t swear off carbs (never could – gotta love me when I’m fat), booze (don’t really drink to begin with) or swearing (F*CK THAT!). Instead, my seemingly easy task was to simply “Stop Crying For Millionaires.” That was it, 2006 was intended to be a plum year without much chance that I’d be drowning in Lake Depression by the guaranteed failure of said resolution by Spring thaw.
It all started with Brad & Jen, or more specifically, it started with their end. To be clear, I do not know either Brad Pitt or Jennifer Aniston. I once spoke to the former backstage at an event, where I was filming a package for a talkshow and once shared the air of Sunset Plaza eatery with the latter, but that is the extend of it. Still, there was something about that couple that I liked. I remember when the first pics of Brad and his new “FRIEND” (boy the press killed that pun back-in-the-day) first appeared around town.
I remember thinking, ‘where did those two meet?’ – with an assumptive curiosity that might have been appropriate had I possessed even a modicum of first hand information regarding any part of their lives outside of what projects they’ve done. But, I quickly learned I wasn’t the only one Brad and Jen forgot to tell, because the world at large wondered the same thing.
In fact, the world at large spent a significant amount of energy comparing Brad’s new sitcom-that-could-star Aniston to the 90’s Grace Kelly send up Gwen Paltrow. For those who can’t recall a decade back, Brad dated Gwen when the world and specifically, governing award show bodies, believed Paltrow’s voice could turn phonebooks to Shakespeare and then after doing so she essentially shit Oscars©.
At the time, I remember thinking they were a great couple (again, based on what, I can’t tell you now nor I could I then). I went so far as to think that fun and frisky Rachel Aniston was probably a lot more fun in the sack then stuffy old (she was like 25) Gwen would be. (I offer my sincere apologies to Gwen, Chris Martin and Apple – again – like I know them or they would ever care. Some habits are just sooo hard to break.)
So the point, and yes I do have one, is that I liked Brad and Jen, so when it all went south I felt bad for them, truly bad. Now, I’m a fairly empathic guy, I get sad at all the right places in movies, and long distance phone service commercials. I laugh at the funny stuff that happens too few and far between in “comedies” - to throw that term around haphazardly. But at what point does E-M-P-A-T-H-E-T-I-C become just plain old P-A-T-H-E-T-I-C? Rather literally when one loses the M-E of it all…
And I did just that. In September 2005, I clearly remember watching Oprah’s 20th Season premiere episode – when O revealed the new WAREHOUSE sound stage that doubles as a service port for the Spruce Goose during hiatus weeks. Oprah kicked off the show immediately by rolling back the two thirty foot King Kong doors and introduced the newly single Jennifer to her syndicated congregation the world over and I stepped back from my computer and watched – the entire show – work be damned. Why? Cuz that lovely girl was special to me. She was my “FRIEND” and she was putting on her best bravest face and coming on the Oprah Show to show us that she was ‘OK!’.
Now I don’t know what happened between them, and it doesn’t really matter cuz I try not to judge my friends (actual or perceptional). Since they’d never included me in their problem times (or happy times or flatly ‘any’times) it didn’t seem my place to place blame. I realized that I did feel bad for her, really bad for her.
I felt so bad for this girl. I felt so bad for the girl…I didn’t know. I felt so bad for this…famous…girl I didn’t know. I felt so bad for this…beautiful…famous girl I didn’t know. I felt so bad for this…rich…beautiful famous girl I didn’t know. I felt so bad for this…talented…rich, beautiful, famous girl I didn’t know.
Then I thought – ‘HUH? What’s that about?’
After a having couple of months to think about it I came up with my nifty resolution and decided – as of 01/01/06 – my heart would go from celeb-empathic to celeb-empty. It wasn’t to be cruel. It was just practical. They’d never reap those benefits from my worries – I’d save it for the non-famous kid around the corner with the unfortunate hairlip and nearly tragic pitching arm. I want to focus on his needs – so he can one day descend the mount after a no-hitter and look me in the eye and say “thwwwanks fowr thwe gwood thwwoughts.” I’m talking simple, transactional positive energy exchange.
That’s the dream. But I keep failing. And for some reason, my thoughts keep going out to these characters I don’t know. Even some people that really sort of suck.
Larry Craig: Given his voting record, complete hypocrisy (as demonstrated by said voting record) not to mention (except that I am here now doing so) his infidelity there is every reason to dance around the fine lines of hate with this man… However, I just look at him and I feel sorry for him. He’s 9 million years old and is so full of self-hate that he lives the most poetic double life imaginable. It reminds me of the Chappelle sketch where he plays a blind man that is the head of the KKK – so full of hate for people of color – that he refuses to acknowledge who he really is… I guess if Senator worked on basic cable instead of basic rights – it might be funny. But nonetheless I feel bad for that sad pathetic man and his even more sad and pathetic crusade to “clear his name.” YOUR HOUSE IS ON FIRE - DON’T STOP RESOD(omize) THE LAWN!!!!!
Britney Lohan: My sympathy for this bunch is limited – so I can only muster the energy once. I can’t imagine a world where everyone in my life – including my parents – see me as a meal ticket? Speaking of visuals – it’s like a Sylvester and Tweety cartoon where the Cat sees only a chunkly headless game hen with white paper booties where Tweety sits whistling. I imagine Britney’s mom looks at her sort of that way and while I acknowledge that Brit’s costume choice at the VMA’s did nothing to quell such imagery – it is still SAD non-the-less.
At the heart of it all, she is still a fairly young woman without ANY education to speak of so I do have compassion for her – while acknowledging that it is time for the 25 year old MOTHER to put her kids first and put her shoes on and go get some of that edumacation that her belly bearing bucks can buy. As for La Lohan, addiction sure doesn’t look fun from here. She’s a very talented girl – her parents should beat themselves unconscious with their own self-removed appendages. Again, she is an adult – but she was never a kid. Maybe she wasn’t afforded the opportunity to transition from one to the other and now just exists in a blur of the two.
By the way – this isn’t a new thing. I cried when Lucille Ball died – but I was only a teenager then. Nor is it limited to famous people – I wept at the discovery of a child’s body found broken and bloody by some inhuman monster thousands of miles away. It is also not limited to people – I once cried while my older siblings poured gasoline on an entire ant colony to just to watch them burn (I promise they are nice people now.) And finally, it is not limited to living things – as I even managed to cry after my parents threw away an old couch. Seriously. I was four years old and as I stared at this old couch outside in the rain, I anthropomorphized it’s pain s- feeling so lonely, unwanted and discarded.
I know – that’s just FREAKISHLY PATHETIC – but as a child it seemed so traumatic to me. But you know what really chaps my ass?
Neither Brad nor Jen could give a shit. Nor should they.
“In honor of the Year Two Thousand and Eight I do hereby resolve…”
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