Football/Celebrity Culture

Done being Bill Simmons. For all of you reading this who were looking for picks this week I'll give to you but I won't give an explanation. The Bears and the Jets are getting 3.5. I'm taking the Packers, and the Jets. That's it. Just so you know.
I almost just went on a tirade about Anne Hathaway being cast to play Catwoman. I recalled the tirade I ushered against Lebron James, and then had this thought? Wait. These are people. I've heard people argue that if folks like Hathaway and Lebron are going to have public personas' then they shouldn't complain when they are bashed. They should accept bashing with the same grain of salt with which they accept praise. To be fair, many celebrities bask in negative press, because "all press is good press". I agree with all of this. I don't want to hear celebrities complaining about being bashed. They basically ask for it. None of this means that I have to bash them. Opinions, decisions, and actions are open to be criticized, but I feel that me, a non-member of the media has as much right to bash someone I don't know on my blog as I do my personal friend. It's not talking about them behind their back. But its still gossip. It's like hanging flyers all over your high school about who so and so slept with when they were drunk Saturday. I realize that these people will never hear me, and don't care about my little blog, and that I have an infinitesimal influence upon global culture, but its the principal. The honest truth is that we act as if these people are not people. We act like they're ideas, that just pop up on screens, or make noise on i-pods. It's true that they ask for it many times, but that is said, I suspect, as a rationalization for saying things about our fellow human beings that we would never say about our worst enemy. Well, we might say it about our worst enemy, but the point is that our entertainers exist in another world for most people. They are gods. We like some of them, we don't like others. They're invisible, but they're real. We offer them the sacrifice of our time, and often our praise. They often exist as idealistic figures of the people we would like to be, never minding the fact that they are usually acting, and that includes musicians. They are at heart entertainers. If they are not our gods, they are at least our muses. I have some more critiques of modern American culture based on these kinds of observations. For now this will suffice.
Also, I wouldn't mind the Bears winning the Superbowl. Anybody but the Steelers. And also the Jets would be annoying. I already have to listen to one of my best, but most obnoxious friends gloating about their Fantasy Football victory until next December. I'd rather not listen to Rex Ryan all that time either. Wait, did I just bash Ryan. Well, I'll say if he has a problem with what I said he can comment on this blog, and I'll say it to his cyberface.