Last night, on the otherwise dreadfully dull American Idol (come on, singing the cheesy, bombastic songs of a guy who wrote the lyric “I am I said. To no one there. And no one heard at all. Not even the chair.“) a medicinally-addled Paula Abdul provided the show’s solitary moment of genuine entertainment by negatively critiquing a performance that had yet to occur.
What I found rather curious about this is that Paula was not relying on that swirling stew of half finished sentences that compete to escape from the relentless confusion in her cranium. Instead, she was reading from prepared notes. This struck me as odd, as the judges were told that they would only critique after each contestant had sung two songs. The fact that she had notes prepared to critique both songs after only one song — and that her comments were as close to accurate as the poor thing can ever be — makes one wonder how scripted this increasingly tedious show really is . . .
While the Lord Jesus may have churlishly withheld the gifts of being able to sing a song — or articulate a thought — from sweet, muddled Paula Abdul, He has apparently made it for this deprivation by giving her the uncanny ability to see in the future.
Of course, He also gave the rest of us the abilities to see into her future — and it’s not pretty. It involves either rehab or being found on a sidewalk, vomiting up pain pills and bromides of effusive, confusing encouragement.
Las Vegas (which, according to Marge Davis, means “The Vegas” in Mexican) was only incrementally more like Hell this afternoon when a fire broke out at one of its vulgar, faux-someplace-actually-nice hotels.
Star Jones can always be relied upon to raise her holier-than-thou snout in disgust over something she will eventually wind up doing herself, given sufficient time or the prospect of publicity. Who else would go on national television to denounce the idea of having a gay spouse (“I don’t want nobody with a hint of mint”) only to turn around and get one herself? To save time, Star is apparently no longer waiting to contradict herself. With resourceful dexterity in logic, she is now denouncing things at the very same time she is doing them!
Look, for example, at Star’s blog on the Huffington Post. With her usual, acute percipience, Star Jones’ response to thinking people in the media are writing too much about Heath Ledger is to be a media person writing more about Heath Ledger.
She adeptly and opportunistically uses the tragedy to score some attention for herself, while all the while blathering on about how unsavory it is when other people do precisely what she is doing. It smacks of a certain pastor at Landover Baptist Church who famously denounced prostitution while receiving oral sex from one of my gals in my Christian Crack Whore Ministry!
Star writes:
“The scene outside his apartment on the night Ledger died made me sick to my stomach.”
Well, fortunately for the residents of SOHO, that isn’t quite as sick as it would have been several years ago.
Heath ledger is dead. And for the most foreseeable cause possible for a young celebrity: drugs. Everyone in the entertainment industry knows about the heroin, the coke, the excess. But no one cares, just as long as an entertaining junkie doesn’t get so strung out he loses the studio or network cash. Then, and only then, will the concept of intervention be bandied about. And rehab? Don’t be quaint; that’s something your agent tells you to do only after you get caught.
When Britney Spears smashes a car with a golf club in a meth-fueled rage, TMZ gleefully prints the pics, Mary Hart exclaims “Goodness!” with a delighted smile and Britney rushes to the nearest nightclub bathroom for another bump of blow. If you’re pretty like Kate Moss, talented like Amy Winehouse or just merely famous like Paris Hilton, you can snort your way through a buffet of illegal pills and powders without ever worrying about those pesky things the little people call laws, much less a tap on the shoulder from a friend or coworker telling to you slow down.
Naturally, I absolve myself of any responsibility to intervene. I don’t know these show biz druggies – and, besides, talking to narcissists only invites tedious, relentless monologues. But, surely, the “friends” and coworkers who do know them have some opportunities, if not power, to at least try to help. All but for the sycophantic impulse never to risk exile. Maybe finally getting rid of that annoying nuisance Anna Nicole Smith lulled everyone into thinking that sitting back and watching the famous teeter so shamelessly on the edge of overdose had its benefits. But it’s sad to lose someone with talent. And even sadder when it was so foreseeable.
