The [Welcome] Death of Celebrity (2024)

There are certain things you should just find yourself resigned to. If you are reading this more than likely you will never not know who Madonna is or what she is doing, so dedicated is she to not letting you/us go. Same with Tom Cruise whose entire being, when not being squandered on the questionable premise of Dianetics, is to worm his way into the very fabric of our beings.

This is not celebrity, this is something darker and more desperate and very possibly what fueled the actions and activities of my ex-boss, financial fraudster Carlos Watson (who would thrill at being mentioned amidst the above names of note): a hunger for the kind of fame that bestows being, and therefore meaning.

On fame, it was the famous artist Andy Warhol himself who had prognosticated that in the future (now our past) everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. Probably/possibly a throwaway line but it gained traction. In the past. Now in the present of the Hawk Tuah Girl who is famous for miming a sloppy blowjob on TikTok, or Kyle Rittenhouse who shot more people than he’s had dates, it’s not nearly as exciting as it first may have seemed.

But then again no one had really measured the depthless desire for notice ushered in by social media. On the one hand as first I was hipped to by the late, great Steve Albini, it was a total benefit because all you needed was a cellphone connected to wi-fi to be able to find and listen to music that would have been unavailable to you even 20 years ago. Sure, you’d make no money from it but musicians, largely, have not made much money from their music anyway. So better the reach than the reach for the cash and so for Albini social media, as I understood him to understand it, was a good thing.

Want to see a man famous for eating worms without having to go to a carnival? Sure you do! Women farting? Uh hunh. Or what about sassy cats? Right.

And that’s before we even get to, g-d forbid, the Dark Web. Or Joe Rogan.

Steve was talking about music though. And more than likely noncommercial music. Which is really just the tip of a much more gooned-out iceberg. An iceberg constructed of hairless apes wanting other hairless apes watch them do whatever their hearts desire and can film on the phones in their pockets.

Want to see a man famous for eating worms without having to go to a carnival? Sure you do! Women farting? Uh hunh. Or what about sassy cats? Right.

And that’s before we even get to, g-d forbid, the Dark Web. Or Joe Rogan.

Our hunger for some sort of significance in the eyes of others is unquenchable and, I have to say, sometimes OK. For the voiceless, and occasionally deserving, it’s kind of like Steve said, a net positive. Insofar as they bring us some measure of joy, this is not at all what should, or would, be considered a waste of time. Joy is hard to come by and given how much time I spend embracing Brazilian jiu jitsu memes well, to each their own.

Which is to say I’m not really punching down here. The exact other way I think.

What do I mean?

Simply: Why are Ben Affleck, Brad Pitt, Will Smith, Kevin Costner, Zac Efron and half a dozen more “celebrities” still part of our lives? (Notice I mention no women? Hollywood is ruthless when it comes to its female celebrities extending even a minute beyond their sell-by dates.)

But the men? They just hang around and around and around, so that I start to feel like Travis Bickle, and my head aches with the stink of their refusal to leave me alone, so much so that it starts to get worrisome.

I would have traded 10 more years of Don Rickles to get 10 fewer years of Jerry Seinfeld. I’d easily have taken another decade of Flip Wilson or Redd Foxx over another lazy attempt at being significant launched by a Dave Chappelle.

Comedians though can hang around, as long as they remain funny. Or regular. I would have traded 10 more years of Don Rickles to get 10 fewer years of Jerry Seinfeld. I’d easily have taken another decade of Flip Wilson or Redd Foxx over another lazy attempt at being significant launched by a Dave Chappelle.

However, actors? Listen: once you hit and have enough money to fuck off, please…fuck off. No more chatter about your craft, unless you’re a steady hand like a Jack Lemmon or an Al Pacino, actors who you got a sense didn’t really even exist outside of acting. Don’t want to hear anymore about you putting the work in. You stretching yourself. You being bored with yet another press tour.

One of your best, Daniel Day-Lewis fucked off. Before he died, Marlon Brando fucked off. Liam Neeson fucked off about 10 movies ago but hasn’t noticed since those last 10 movies have all been the same movie.

The rest of those quasi-celeb types need to find something else to do and leave the rest of us alone. Which puts those of us who like film in a pickle. Directors who are not Michael Bay or James Cameron, can healthily be considered to be real artists, but to create their so-called art they must get cash to do so and to get cash they must assure those with cash that they can pay the cash back.

A guarantee of cash return would clearly be pandering to what’s worked before since no matter how many times I’ve read “The Bremen Town Musicians” to my youngest kid, she still wants me to read it. You know who doesn’t want me to read it to them anymore? My kids in their 20s.

So it goes: I’ll see a Jim Jarmusch movie even if George Clooney isn’t in it. I’ll watch a Pedro Almodovar movie without Leonardo DiCaprio, in a second. Scorsese is now on notice but healthily so since he need not have done any thing other than Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and/or Goodfellas.

What I want though and what will happen…? Well there are some twain that will never meet. So I’ll close with something I know something about: music.

A friend of mine found herself somewhere near Times Square. Remember that: TIMES SQUARE. When she spotted a one Mr. Michael Stipe (from REM, if you don’t remember). So she stopped to watch and what she watched was Mr. Stipe trolling for attention. The kind of attention that turns the celebrity into a “oh no…they’ve recognized me” douche.

But New York City did not recognize him. Or if it did, it didn’t care.

So…Mr. Stipe then dons a red and white Cat-in-the-Hat stove pipe hat. It’s about four-feet high. That and a red and white striped scarf.

And still New York trundles on. Unconcerned and disinterested. Not to be undone Mr. Stipe then jumps up on a lamppost a la Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain.

Yeah, you got it: crickets.

Mr. Stipe eventually fucked off, older, and maybe just a skosh wiser. And New York? Well, you never fail to make me, a native son, proud.

Translation: if US or People magazines are writing about you and have been for the past, oh, five years, take your money, and when it’s enough to live on without despoiling the rest of us, please fuck off. Please. The rest of us have TikTok videos to watch and your endless appearances on our newsfeeds is fucking that all up.

So, good day, sirs! And don’t let the golden doorknobs hit you.

AND here are the REAL DATES and links for tickets. More to follow…..

08/21/2024 Washington DC @ Black Cat - TICKETS

08/22/2024 Brooklyn NY @ TV Eye - FREE SHOW [But note. There ARE…VIP Tickets for this HERE.]

08/24/2024 Boston MA @ O’Brien’s - TICKETS VIP ADD-ON

08/25/2024 Providence RI @ Askew - TICKETS

OK…So you have ordered the memoir A Walk Across Dirty Water and Straight Into Murderer's Row, from Amazon…Or the Bookshop.Org dealie: Here?

Might you consider giving it a review in either of those places?

I’ve been told it matters, somehow. So please: review away! Unless you think it sucks. Then, maybe, just keep that part to yourself. At last count there were 66 reviews…so yeah…GET AT IT!!! Every one helps, if everyone helps. Or so they tell me.

If you already have one and want it signed? Bring it on over to any of the above shows. I’ll do it. And might even spell your name correctly when I do.

FINALLY…and now that I have time on my hands…if you’d like to book a book show? Please DM.