Hypocritic Oath: Or, How a Non-Fat Mocha Can Make ALL the Difference

I can't shake the feeling that we in America are living our lives according to some false pretenses. As a man, living in LA, I realized that to fit in with our celebrity-obsessed culture I really need to purchase some REALLY gay looking jeans-something with embroidery on it. I mean, that's what Adrien Grenier wears. Oh, and so does Sprencer Pratt and Dave Navarro. I saw them in US Weekly and these things are SOOOOOOO cool. I've got to get a pair of those. And i need an iPhone, too! I read a write up on it on MyYahoo and that is so the phone that Paris Hilton has. AND they were giving them away in gift bags at Cannes. If Shai Labuff has one, then i need one.

The problem is, I can't afford these things, and if i am going to max out my AMEX (Seinfeld has one of those), it sure isn't going to be for gay jeans or a $90 trucker hat from Ed Hardy that i MUST wear cocked to the side (no, really, they make them so you MUST cock them to the side by 10 degrees-any more than that and you are trying way too hard). I am just sick and tired of everything being an advertisement. I like movies and i like TV, but i really don't care that my favorite actor is wearing D&G jeans and an AX shirt. i really don't. How about this: I go see their movies and i let them live their lives?

And about their lives. Why are we stressing out so had on who Blake Lively is dating and where they went and who she was seen with the next night? Who is Blake Lively anyway? No really-I have no clue who she is. It's not like these people are saving the world or curing cancer- they look good on the screen and a very small percentage of them display a modicum of tallent. That being said, we are all responsible for these celebrities' downfalls. Not only for the morbid fascination we derrive from their ultimate failure, but because our attention can drive them over the edge and the constant discussion of some aspect of their lives can really cause some damage to these people. Most of the time, this preocupation can lead to self-fulfilling prophecies.

Case in point: Mary-Kate is on the cover of US Weekly with a headline Billionaire in trouble, or some such nonsense. The article-if you can call it that- discusses her income and carrier and the home she lives in-concrete things that we all know and can see. Then an unnamed source close to her "camp" voices concerns that she may not be eating. Then every magazine features articles to this effect, plastering unflattering photos of the girl looking skinny, two-fisting mocha frapucchinos (oooooh, that sounds good right now) in peasant clothes carrying a $4,ooo purse. Later in the magazine Mary-Kate is shown next to Eva Mendez and Mandy Moore, carrying this expensive (and therefore trendy) bag with a caption stating how you, too, can obtain this look on the cheap. Then, three weeks after the stories die down, a publicist offers a press release stating the starlet is seeking treatment for an eating disorder. Magazines run the release, allong with slues of IS HOLLYWOOD TOO SKINNY issues, whose "covergirls" are picture, ribs poking out, collar bones accosting the camera, hair ratty, but in the latest fashions, which could be yours if you turn to the buyer guide on page 57.

Seems rather hypocitical, don't you think? But I realy DO want that Mocha Frapucchino-but non fat milk though. My iPhone can't fit in my tight, gay jeans.

I'm just saying. . .