"Hello, this is Sally Field"

Big article in a recent LA TIMES saying that it’s now okay to sport gray hair because of Taylor Hicks winning the AMERICAN IDOL competition. Are we the most shallow country in the history of the world, or what? Do we really need to take our cues on how to live our lives based on celebrities? Following the Taylor Hicks logic, it’s now okay to be drunk like Paula and illiterate like Randy. Social graces are no longer required. We can now all be blunt and insensitive like Simon.

Which is well and good except if you do try to act like Simon in the real world you’ll get the crap beaten out of you eighteen times before lunch. If you drink like Paula you’ll be fired and hopefully lose your driver’s license (or at least your gig on LOST). And if you’re a moron like Randy you’ll wind up in the White House.

I just don’t understand the notion of making celebrities role models. Why would anybody give a shit what Barbra Streisand or Tom Cruise thinks about anything? Why is Martin Sheen’s opinion any more valid than the skeesix who fixes your snow blower? If you want to give to a worthy charity because Bono supports it, that’s fine. But to base any life decision on the advice of “self help author” Teri Hatcher is INSANE.

With the June elections coming up I’m getting three calls an hour from my “close personal friends” Ed Begeley Jr. and Sally Field pimping some candidate. If I’m on the fence over who to vote for do I study up on the issues or take the word of the Flying Nun?

Here’s a novel concept: how about thinking for ourselves? Or at the very least realizing that celebrities are there to merely amuse us and when we do need to seek the council of others we turn instead to people who actually are qualified to help – namely bloggers.