Celebrities: On Heath Ledger's Death

Driving home from the gym today, I got a text from one of my friends. It said:

"Heath Ledger died today!!"

The way I found out about Anna Nicole Smith last year was the same way . . .a text. It's all so sad. And I just wanted to get home to check a celebrity blog to find out what exactly happened. It was as if this death, the death of someone I have never met and don't even know remotely, was somehow relevant in MY world. Like, how is this affecting ME? How can I write about it?

It's disgusting, if you really think about. Okay, so suppose I didn't think about what I would get out of it, the question remains why do I care about this person's death anyway? Why am I taking time out of my life to research and to even write about it this second? I have lots of shit that needs to do. (My room isn't going to clean itself.) If Heath Ledger hadn't died today, what would I be doing right now? Helping my life somehow, I'm sure. Is this really helping my life right now?

The image of Heath Ledger I have in my head is him walking on the streets of NYC with his daughter on his shoulders. It is heartbreaking that she will never get to know him. I wonder if he thought about her in the last seconds of his life? It was an apparent drug overdose. Why did he feel the need to end his life? Maybe in the coming days we'll find out more.

So, this guy had fame, fortune, a beautiful little girl . . . but none of that kept him here. Maybe it's because he was lonely, especially after his split with Michelle Williams. Who knows. What keeps any of us here? We can, theoretically, end it all at anytime.

What gives life meaning? Why do we go on? What makes us fully happy?

I have come upon these questions after a text and a celebrity blog told me a celebrity died. It's so postmodern. At times I feel as though I am lost in this postmodern existence. It seems unreal, intangible, pointless . . . it's so easy to lose touch with reality in these times.

Oh, and I'm sure everyone thought Britney would be the next celebrity to die in this fashion.

CELEBRITIES

Oh, you know I had to write about it . . .

THE SPEARS GIRLS HAVE LOST THEIR MINDS.

So, I never posted about Jaime Lynn and her pregnancy a few weeks ago, but OF COURSE I have an opinion.

Why wasn't she on the Pill or at least using condoms????

Hello, she is 16! Nevermind the fact that I think it's ridiculous that she was allowed to sleep over and go on vacations with her older boyfriend. Mama Spears is a little nuts for allowing this. Jamie Lynn is at fault, yes, but she's a baby. I don't think she's "ruining her life" necessarily by having a baby at 16. She doesn't know how to be a mother and she may not be ready, but she'll figure it out. It'll be hard, but she'll be okay.

BUT WHY OH WHY DID MAMA SPEARS PUT HER SHIT OUT THERE IN OK! MAGAZINE! WHAT? She could have EASILY hidden this whole mess for months. We haven't seen Jamie Lynn because she's, presumably, been holed up in Kentwood. How would we have seen her or known about the pregnancy??? They should have kept it under wraps.

AND THEN WE HAVE BRITNEY'S HOSTAGE SITUATION LAST NIGHT . . .

My heart goes out to this girl. She is obviously in so much hurt and turmoil that she doesn't want to LIVE anymore. Can you imagine how this feels? I can. I have had numerous breakdowns (Um, HELLO! I did blackout while talking to a boy who was rejecting me a few days ago!) and I can only imagine how magnified it is with the WHOLE WORLD watching you! At least I have my family and friends to support me. It seems as though Britney has pushed everyone away. The only people around her are the ones she pays. I feel for the girl.

Life is hard. Britney's life is not normal by any means. I can only imagine how it must feel to be here. As you know from my previous posts about Britney, it's really weird that she was THE POP PRINCESS when I was in high school and defining who I was as a woman and person. She was everything us girls wanted to be and now . . .

I end this post with her video "Lucky". Self-fulfilling prophecy? I think so . . .

Watch and listen with awareness. I pray to God BritBrit doesn't commit suicide.

My Love for Gwen Stefani Exposed

This morning, I received the following Facebook wall post from a friend:

"Anywhoo, there is a cute video of your girl Gwen on TMZ.com. When I saw her and heard what she said it made me think of you and how you guys sort of seem a like....check it out, you'll see what I mean (hopefully).

I went to tmz.com and viewed the video. It was Gwen Stefani when she was young talking about her dreams while super gluing an outfit she was going to wear on stage. She got every wish. She wanted to be famous and tour the world. She accomplished it. She even got her beautiful rockstar husband and her adorable little baby she sang about in her songs all the time. Who wouldn't want that dream?

I fell in love with Gwen Stefani when I was 12. I saw No Doubt performing on the Video Music Awards pre-show back in 1996. I remember being in my parent's bedroom watching the awards with my dad and thinking: "That is what I want to be when I grow up. Who is this?" I was enraptured and just flat out amazed. Who was this?

My memory about where I purchased "Tragic Kingdom" is kind of fuzzy. I could have been in NYC while visiting my brother and his mom or it could have been at Best Buy in my hometown. I don't remember. It was a weird time in my life. I was in 7th grade, beginning the teenage years, dealing with becoming a woman, dealing with a lot of stuff with my family . . .and you know, all that stuff.

I listened to that CD everyday after school. I was a "Gwenabee", as we were called, and I wanted to be just like this amazing 26-year-old woman because I felt like I WAS just like her. I'm sure thousands of girls (and boys!) felt this same way about her; I cannot claim the rights to this. I was a chubby little black girl from the suburbs of DC . . .I was clearly not "like" her, but I was.

I would sing my heart out to lyrics about heartache and saving the world. I would perform for the imaginary thousands of people who came to see me. My mom would barge in on me and laugh. I even had "Spiderwebs" on my answering machine. All my friends loved it. I was so cool.

I cannot explain my love and admiration for Gwen and her life. I cannot, nor will I try. But I am just so moved by the fact that she got everything she wanted. I don't particularly love her solo stuff, but I love No Doubt and I love her.

I remember listening to "Sixteen" on repeat the day I turned 16-years-old. Ironically, No Doubt was performing in concert near me that SAME FUCKING DAY! My mom wouldn't let me go because she didn't know the people I would be going with. I cried. I sat in my room and listened to the song over and over again. The irony. (I'm still sad just thinking about it.) The song was so true for me about the awkwardness of being 16 and not being allowed to do what I wanted. I was such an angsty teenager.

When I was 18, I finally got the chance to see No Doubt in concert. The date was October 18, 2002, to be exact. And I was in FRONT FUCKING ROW. It was amazingamazingamazing. It was in Philly and I was a freshman in college. It was a beautiful moment. Just hearing them do sound check from outside the arena before the show forced tears to form . . .

"I used to listen to these songs everyday!" I exclaimed to my new friend, and fellow No Doubt/Gwen worshipper, Vicky. She smiled. She got it.

We managed to get in the front row and I CRIED just when the intro music started. Before they even came out from under the stage, the tears started pouring and I turned to Vicky, and just hugged her and said: "I'm crying. Holy shit. I can't stop." When I saw them, it felt unreal. I'm tearing up right now writing this.

The concert was amazing. Just . . .words don't even fit. I remember standing right below Tom, the guitar player, and him just looking down at me and smiling. I was in my own world, singing along to every word. He must have seen the bliss radiating from me. His smile was so gentle and kind. I got his guitar pick, which reminds me every time because I don’t have any pictures to remind me. Just my memories.

Stephen, the trumpet player, and I kept smiling and dancing with each other from far away. Such positivity. I didn't get to interact with Adrian or Tony, but that's okay.

And then GWEN! She sang to me during "Hey Baby" and I sang back to her. She sang to me a couple of other times, but I don't remember. It was so fucking amazing. Have I said that enough? The 12-year-old in me was just bursting at the seams. It was one of the best nights of my life.

So back to the video of a young Gwen. When I asked my friend WHY she thought I reminded her of Gwen, she responded with:

"You guys are alike in the way you think about being famous. Like, it's something that you know is going to come at your cross road but you also have a back up plan that will still give you happiness. Although, you feel confident that you are going to set your mark on the world She's has the vibe about her that just reminds me of you...it's hard to explain. The way she talks too...she's soft spoken like you sometimes. You are really soft spoken on the phone sometimes, espeically when you first answer and I'm the exact opposite LMAO I'm a hot mess."

So maybe I am like her, after all. I haven’t seen her persona offstage very much, but I guess we are alike.

Every single day I ask myself: what am I doing? Where am I going? How will I accomplish my dreams? What ARE my dreams? Maybe I need to write them down. Maybe I need to speak them out loud. Maybe someone needs to videotape me answering these questions so someone, like me, can see it years from now and say: “Wow, she got everything she wanted. Maybe I can, too. I want to be just like her.”

The farce that is Suri Cruise

Oh, really?

This morning I did my daily (or hourly, depending on the day) check of "Oh No They Didn't!" and was delighted to see a post featuring my favorite celebrity baby (aside from Zahara Jolie-Pitt), Suri Cruise! I happen to think that Suri is the most adorable Scientology robot baby I've ever seen. When I fawn over her (and feel my biological clock start ticking) upon seeing a picture of her, immense skepticism and fear start to creep in because, less I forget, this is Tom Cruise's "child." I am pretty sure there is some Scientology curse on her that makes everyone who lays eyes on her think she's the "cutest baby ever," which is just part of Ron L. Hubbard's plan to make everyone love innocent Suri, which leads to loving Tom Cruise and, eventually, we will all become Scientologists.

Are we really supposed to believe this baby is the age we are led to believe? I have heard a lot of rumors about Tom Cruise, specifically that he's very gay, but I have not actually seen a penis in his ass, so I can't really say for sure. Why didn't he ever have a biological baby with Nicole Kidman? Recently, Nicole Kidman has admitted to having a miscarriage during her marriage to Tom Cruise. But his first wife, Mimi Rogers, has started publicly that Tom Cruise is infertile. So what's up with that?

If all this is true and Tom really can't father any children, where'd Suri get half of her DNA? I believe that Suri is Katie Holme's child because she looks like her and I believe Katie was actually pregnant, but who is Suri's biological father? Suri kind of looks like Tom, but I heard a rumor that his brother helped out and fathered the child. Also, I heard that Katie was already pregnant when she met Tom Cruise and that Chris Klein is the father. I think this seems probable. If you can remember back to the spring of 2006 when the whole world was on TomKat baby watch, Katie's belly got bigger and smaller everyday. Could it have been a prosthetic belly towards the end because she already had the baby? That could also explain the delay of the pictures and public sightings of the child until she was well over 5 or 6 months. That could have been done so we couldn't tell she was older than she was. And Suri sometimes resembles Chris Klein as well. But she always looks like Tom? I don't know. This is just a hypothesis.

There is no way that this baby is only 16 months. Before she was one she had long hair and she was photographed running and laughing about. Shiloh Jolie Pitt, who is just one month younger than Suri, still looked like an infant at the same time. I have been around a lot of babies and Suri Cruise looks and acts much older than her age.

I could be wrong. Suri could actually be their natural (haha) born baby. TomKat could have conceived her the natural way. Katie might NOT be brainwashed. Who the hell knows. All I know is that Suri Cruise is a cute little Sim baby and she sure as hell is older than they claim.

Now let's put this all in prespective, shall we? Does any of this really matter? Do I really care? Absolutely not. In the grand scheme of my life, these people will not play any signifant roles . . .but it sure is fun to think about how fucked up these rich, pampered celebrities lives are compared to my boring one.