Blaine Mellon’s Top Ten List of People Who are Famous for Being Famous

There is a tiny sector of people in our society who somehow attract the attention of a surprisingly large number of other people in the broader grouping of our society. Yet the people who command this recognition do so for no reason that is apparent. They are not famous for any discernible reason such as talent, accomplishment, or even infamy. However, having inexplicably come to the forefront of popular culture at some time in the past, they seem to remain there, immovable; whether by cultural inertia or by some self-perpetuating phenomena of notoriety, many of those who keep them famous cannot even recall themselves why they do so. These are those who are famous for being famous.

• ·         Justin Beiber – I’ve been told that she is some sort of performer of some kind though to my knowledge none of his music have ever received air play and no one can name a single one of her songs. Nevertheless, this person (who I believe is a boy (or perhaps a girl)) seems to remain a constant fixture in the world of entertainment.
• ·         Kim Kardashian – Second in fame only to her own bum, this woman rocketed to stardom  for being the non-biological, non-adopted daughter of an Olympic track athlete from the last century who is said to be the 9^th best runner in US Olympic history. Building from this almost incalculably enormous life-advantage, Kardashian has achieved… well, nothing that anyone knows of. Apart from her perpetually new lines of fashion wear, lipstick, armpit wax, and scented bath towels (none of which have ever appeared in any store), Kardashian continues to not use her myriad unknown talents to keep herself in the spotlife of Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and other places that I suspect are probably in California.
• ·         Paris Hilton – I’m pretty sure she’s rich. Well, not her really, but someone in her family apparently is and it seems that she has a lot of access to this money. According to TV Guide, Paris (no relation to the town) has been featured on television programs that focused on her own ignorance of reality, morality, and practicality. This is fair enough since I must confess ignorance myself, albeit it my ignorance is of both her ignorance as well as of every other aspect of her life.
• ·         Bobby Brown, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Kanye West – In spite of his fame, all that is known of this man is that he has a drug problem, may or may not have spent time in prison or rehab, and supposedly has something to do with “rap music” (which I am told is something like music, only without instruments, melody, harmony, or music). Wait… hold on… OK, I’ve just been informed that these are actually three different people. My bad.
• ·         Ryan Seacrest – Of all of the people on this list, Ryan Seacrest is the most notable for being the name I have heard in TV and radio the most often and yet somehow remaining an absolute enigma. Initially, I suspected he had gained fame for hosting the reality show Survivor, but as it turns out that’s another guy who is even less important than Seacrest. A quick Google search made it clear that Seacrest is most likely famous for having stolen Howdy Doody’s grin.
• ·         Jesse Jackson & Al Sharpton – This time I am aware that these two are completely separate individuals (for whatever that’s worth). Both claim the title “Reverend”, though at no time has either ever been seen in a church, much less seen delivering a sermon. Somewhat mysteriously, both have also been elected “black leaders”. Those with this title apparently serve for life since neither have ever been known to engage in a re-election campaign. In fact, even more peculiarly, neither was ever elected to the office of “black leader” in the first place. Exhaustive research (yet to be undertaken) has revealed that the source of the fame for each of these individuals is that they decided one day that they wanted to be famous in order to be taken seriously, which has in fact caused some people to actually take them seriously. (No, seriously.) Somehow, the press has gone along with this self-declared fame and has worked tirelessly to help perpetuate the myth that anyone gives a darn about either of these two idiots. The lesson to be learned here is that in order to be famous, all one must do is show up uninvited to any newsworthy event and start running one’s mouth about things one knows nothing about.
• ·         Snooki – No one knows what her real name is. In fact, no one knows what a Snooki is either. The venue for this person’s fame is a bit more clear than some others on this list, namely that she was on a TV show entitled “Jersey Shore.” However, no one knows what this show was about or what Snooki’s role in it was since no one has ever watched it (at least no one has ever admitted to watching it). It may not be completely accurate to say that this person is famous since, now that I have given it some thought, I can’t think of a single thing to say about her other than that you and I have both heard her name, and more than once. But why???

Prisoner of Inertia

I was reminded today of a story of one of our old rabbit pets that might make you laugh. We have a two story house with the bedrooms on the second floor. The rabbit had free reign of the 1st floor, but we tried to keep her from going upstairs. However, as rabbits are wont to do, she eventually found a way to sneak past our safeguards and scale the stairs. However, when she finally decided to come back down she realized she hadn't a clue how to DESCEND stairs. She stood there at the top of the stairs staring down at us and trying to figure out just how to go about coming back down. 

At this point, I will say that the rabbit *did not get hurt* so I feel it is not inappropriate to laugh at what finally did transpire. 

After reaching one hesitant paw down onto the next step and withdrawing it a couple times, she ultimately decided upon a course of action: Her plan, we realized in horror, was to run as fast as she could zig-zagging down the stairs. Unfortunately, this resulted in an utter loss of control as inertia seized her little body and she cascaded, half-tumbling down the stairs, crashing into the left and right hand walls like a pinball all the way down. 

She arrived at our feet dazed and confused and resolute never to go upstairs again. Until the next time she did so. 

So (don't you just love when people start a story with "so"?)... 

I'm lying next to Ben in his bed this evening telling him a bedtime story. When I finish, he informs me that he has a story to tell as well. He begins to tell me about how Spider-Man was living with this one particular family in a house in the jungle and how Spider-Man would sometimes make the family mushrooms to eat.

Then he starts saying how cold it was outside and how the family was cold. Next he starts talking about the *air pressure* of all things. I can't quite follow him, but it starts to dawn on me that my four year old apparently has theories about how air pressure is related to temperature. I'm flabbergasted as he goes on and on in his own words about how they needed the air pressure to warm the air up to a more comfortable temperature. I'm lying there thinking my son is a genius.

Then tells me that the family had two, one upstairs and one downstairs to make it warmer.

"Two what?" I ask, puzzled.

"Air pressers," he says.

Pompous Circumstances

Last night's Superbowl Halftime show was the most out of control bit of self-worship I've ever seen. Beyonce (if that is her real name) is marginally talented, sure. (Name three of her songs, if you can; I know I can't.) She's very pretty, but frankly she doesn't need me to like her because clearly she likes herself more than enough for both of us. From the huge lit up profile of herself that appeared at the beginning of the show, to the video effects of multiple images of herself dancing with herself, the entire show from start to finish was one long (very, very long) demonstration of just how much she thinks about herself.

If I'm ever invited to someone else's party, a party that is being thrown for the express purpose of determining a world champion and then celebrating their victory, I highly doubt that the time I'm allotted during that party will be eaten up with a hubris-riddled scene of me demonstrating how awesome I think I am. I hope I'd have the sense to offer what I could to the celebration and then go take my seat and shut up.

You can only take so much of someone's crotch (and that's not much) before you want to ask them to please put it away because it's frightening the children. Dressing up like a puttana and having 30 paid "friends" dress up just like you and dancing around you isn't a chorus line, it's conceit. Get a grip on yourself and reel your fat head in before it floats away.

Not only was the whole affair not entertaining, it was extremely uncomfortable to watch. Go stand in a corner and think about what you did.

Next Superbowl, instead of having some overpaid and under-talented fool parade their legs around and make eyes at the camera for 20 minutes showing us all how great they think they are, why don't we have some wounded veterans stand up at the 50 yard line and tell us why they love their country and what we ought to be teaching our kids to make them love theirs too?

Hurricane Sandy

Hurricane Sandy has come and gone and left Massachusetts relatively unharmed. Rather unexpectedly, once the storm made landfall along the New Jersey coast, it turned west and avoided coming through Massachusetts.

There are still people without power but thankfully I am not one of them. We had our little 90 minute scare yesterday, but praise the Lord, it did not last beyond that. What little bit of time we were without power really made me irate since, once again, the storm had only barely started and -- pop -- my power went out. It seemed like it was going to be a repeat of the storm last year in which a simple breeze took away our electricity for five days.

Five days. It may sounds spoiled, but frankly unless there are houses blowing away, short of nuclear war, there's just no way a civilized and populated area like greater Boston should be without power for five days. This isn't the third world.

So I'm at work today. Oddly, I can be grateful to Sandy for one thing: the ease of my commute. Very few people were on the roads this morning. I was able to drive Ben to school in Weymouth, turn north up through Quincy, and still get to Watertown in an hour. That's astounding. And it made me happy.

Fear Change

Damn you, Google, Facebook, SharePoint, and all the rest of you web services. Why do you never cease to insist on changing your interface and the tools you offer? Why must I continually adapt to your every whim?

I go away for a few months (a year?) of non-blogging and I'm brow beaten by Blogspot to change my blog. Leave me alone.

National Grudge

And thus, after 91 hours without power, National Grid finally restored our electrical service.

I'm pissed off. What if this had been a major storm? Assessments have already determined that the region had FAR more power outages in this storm then we did in the next most powerful storm on recent record. Why? Why is our infrastructure suddenly so much more fragile than it has ever been? Or is it merely incompetence?

I've heard story after story of people who, like myself, heard transformers blow up in the very opening minutes of the storm. How could that be? My entire family and I were on the porch enjoying the BREEZE when the one in our neighborhood blew out. Can I expect the next time we have a passing rain shower that the town sewers will overflow? We felt the distant tremors from that earthquake in Virginia. Why didn't our roads collapse into sink holes?

The fact there is some major stinkin' noobery going on down at the power company. You don't lose an enormous percentage of your power grid to a storm that was as mild as this one was without some serious asshattery being the cause.