If you like the writing, then check out my
serial novel at the link below.
There is a new
chapter every Monday.
On the Isle of
Caprice
Right off the top,
I’m going to categorically state that I’d rather stick my head in an Asplundh
Whisper Chipper than get into a discussion about Woody Allen and his present ex-familial
travails. So, for the purposes of this sociological
treatise, let’s all pretend that the Woodster never drew his first neurotic
breath.
That being said…this
bespectacled “He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named”, this nerdy non-gentile who does not
exist anymore than The Perth County Conspiracy, does shine a bright light on a
peculiar and startlingly capricious aspect of the human condition. I.E. the separation of the artist from the
art.
Celebrities, for
the most part, are an ill-behaved lot. Reprobates
of the highest order. Drunken, wanton,
unwashed, and uncouth ne’er-do-wells who feast upon narcissism and eschew the
accepted norms of public decorum. Multiple
marriages, bewildering affairs, arrests, sincere contrition, proud reformation,
more arrests and drugs, drugs, drugs leading to an early and ignominious death
next to a toilet.
Back in 1957,
Jerry Lee Lewis severely dented his career by marrying a 13 year second cousin. Today, Papa Duck of Dynasty fame is filmed
telling a large crowd of guffawing sophisticates that it is imperative that
they wed a girl by the time she’s 15 and it barely rates a mention. Really?
15? He has things living in his
beard older than that.
Chuck Berry likes
to watch women poop into buckets and got arrested for taking a 14 year old
waitress across state lines for unbridled naked frolicking.
Likewise, R. Kelly
seems to find very, very young women as irresistible as people find his records.
And it’s not just
underage girls! Michael Jackson had
invited half the male children in Southern California
to his house for sleepovers and no one ever got suspicious until...
Rick James
kidnapped and tortured a woman and forced her to perform deviant sex acts on
his girlfriend while he was performing sex acts on his crack pipe. Rick may have added one or two entirely new
volumes to the “Totally Fucked-Up Encyclopedia” before he gave everyone a break
and cacked it.
Courtney Love was
proudly photographed breast feeding an aspiring rapper in a New York
Wendy’s. (After eating a Dave’s Hot ‘n
Juicy Triple, one often pines for a complimentary beverage.)
Vince Neil killed
Hanoi Rocks’ drummer when, in a whimsical state of mind, he mistook and
oncoming vehicle for a liquor store.
And let’s not
forget the God fearin’ country folk like Glen “Attractive Mugshot” Campbell, Randy “Lying Naked in the Road in
Front of a Church” Travis and Billy Joe “I Shot Your Face Off” Shaver. The trick in the South seems to be, if you
can get banjaxed to the point where you can’t even remember who God is, then you’re free to do whatever the
fuck you want.
But it’s not just
the Johnny-Rotten-Come-Latelys. Frank
Sinatra did not shy away from acts of unabashed naughtiness and criminality. Elvis had his share of icky habits. Hank Williams, Sam Cook, Eddie Fischer, Phil
Spector and Spade “Wife Murderin’” Cooley all put lobster and au gratin
potatoes on the plates of the gossip mongers of their day. Why even a guy as squeaky clean as Nat “King”
Cole had a torrid affair with a bouncy young Swede named Gunilla Hutton.
The whole hollow,
self-centered industry is replete with rakes and rounders. Celebrities aren’t so much entertainers as
they are soccer hooligans with microphones.
And now that I’ve
run dry of musical miscreants to savage, I can finally get to my oh-so-round-about
point. Why is it that we can disregard
some performers’ ghastly deeds and not others?
Rick James was being cheered on at the House of Blues a few months after
he was released from the hoosegow. Chuck
Berry can now afford to record women defecating on hi-def video with surround
sound. Michael Jackson was about to
embark on a billion dollar tour when he took one too many horse sedatives.
What exactly
separates the tolerable from the unforgivable?
Is it talent that
makes us look the other way? In far
less forgiving times, uber-despicable characters like Bing Crosby, Art
Linkletter, Red Skelton, Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle, Buddy Rich, Paul Anka,
Jerry Lewis and Red Buttons didn’t suffer public ostracism. This sordid sack of surly celebrities was
guilty of all kinds of ethical and behavioral malfeasance but their fan base cared
not.
Yet, back in the
day, Fatty Arbuckle’s career was ruined by the “Coke Bottle” scandal and he was
found innocent. Was it that he’d been
accused of a crime so horrific that people couldn’t forgive him, even though he
didn’t do it, or were they just tired of laughing at the tubby actor?
It wasn’t enough
that Mel Gibson insulted the entire Jewish race to the constabulary while
driving drunk. (I mean, who hasn’t done
that?) He also had to punch out his
girlfriend’s tooth while she was holding his baby before his admirers started
to question paying $17.50 a seat to see his movies.
And speaking of
men who have had the incalculable courage to beat a woman half their size black
and blue…Jason Kidd has often taken his extra-large-sized knuckles to a member
of the opposite sex but he could still shoot a three-pointer and that was all
that seemed to matter. And now he’s
coaching other young and impressionable enormous men.
But, perhaps you
don’t even have to have talent to survive self-induced shame and humiliation. Kim Kardashian started out with a scandalous
sex tape and then got famous. It’s hard now to think back to a time when I
didn’t know exactly what Paris Hilton’s vagina looked like. And who hasn’t Naomi Campbell bludgeoned
insensate with a cell phone? Perhaps a
nice pair of hooters helps smooth over life’s little indiscretions regardless
of one’s thespianic gifts. I know that I
myself have forgiven any number of outrageous transgressions against me due to
a healthy pair of Bristols.
The question
is…would we have forgiven Gary Glitter it he’d written “Beat It”, “Johnny B.
Goode” or “I Believe I Can Fly”?
How far does the
Biebster have to go before little girls stop buying his peppy-poppy records? Manslaughter?
Murder? Singing without
auto-tuning?
And speaking of
taking another life – All the people below took someone’s life and it was their
damn fault. I’ve divided them into two
distinct categories.
Seemingly Forgiven
Matthew Broderick,
Keith Moon, Laura Bush, Ted Kennedy, Brandi, Don King, William S. Burroughs,
John Houston, Howard Hughes, Snoop Dogg, Lead Belly, Charles S. Dutton, John
Landis, J.R. Smith.
Forever Damned
Sid Vicious, O.J.
Simpson, Robert Blake, Phil Spector, John Wilkes Booth, Jayson Williams.
If we acknowledge
the precept that all entertainers and politicians are basically woefully
wayward infants, then it becomes incumbent upon the public, as the adult in the
room, to set appropriate boundaries for them.
But, what the fuck are these behavioral lines in the sand? I don’t see any sort of consistency here. If a rock star accidentally kills his babysitter
while fucking her tied to the hood of his Bugatti Veyron, does he suddenly
think, “Christ, I better write a major hit song before the police get here or
I’m totally up the shitter.”
Perhaps there is
no answer. Bankers don’t go to jail, why
should famous bass players? Perhaps
we’ll just keep deciding, on a case by case basis, which luminaries we are
willing to allow to kill our neighbors, brutalize our women and have sex with
our children.
People get the government
they deserve, and just maybe, they get the celebrities they deserve.
If you like the writing, then check out my
serial novel at the link below.
There is a new
chapter every Monday.
