Saturday, May 12, 2012

Self Promotion


Today’s topic is tooting my own horn. I write for this great news parody site www.dognewsteam.com and they posted a video this week that I wrote and also a couple of joke status updates on their Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/dognewsteam

(See the Ann Romney and the Avengers status updates. Yeah, I wrote those).

Here’s a link to the video:
http://www.dognewsteam.com/2012/05/09/scandal/

You have noticed that I just added a couple of features to more heavily monetize the blog. Clicking on the ads is not generating enough revenue for me to get paid, so I have added the Internet equivalent of an open guitar case to collect donations (please do not chuck in Dunkin Donuts wrappers). While I am waiting on the new employer to clear me for takeoff, so to speak, I do need to bring in some kind of income and this is a way to do it. I have a Brussels sprouts habit to support and Yaz (my faithful car) likes gas and oil changes.

Speaking of shameless self-promotion…

I commented yesterday (via a wonderful Willy Wonka meme) on Bristol Palin criticizing the President’s statement on marriage equality (He’s for it, in case you missed it due to a sugar coma).
Bristol Palin. Passing judgment on other people. Generating a LOT of Twitter and Facebook and press attention. Most of the teenaged moms I know (or those who became moms as teens) are too busy raising their children to spend time and energy sticking their noses into these issues more than to say something to their girlfriends.

I listen to Adam Carolla’s podcast and a few weeks ago, he was talking to Penn Jillette about his recent (that week) ouster from “Celebrity Apprentice.” Penn was part of the same crew (and lasted longer. I don’t watch the show, so I don’t know what the status is). Both men had been on “Dancing With the Stars” (different seasons) and were discussing the “fame whore” tag that has been applied to them because they seem to be making the rounds of these shows. Mr. Jillette made the following remark, which I found intriguing: “People don’t realize that it’s our job to stay in the spotlight. It’s our job keep our names out there.” (I know I probably screwed up the quote, but the thrust of his comments are there). Penn Jillette is a magician, actor, writer and entertainer. Adam Carolla is an actor, writer and entertainer (and emerging Podcast Emperor. Every member of the Carolla family has a podcast except for Molly the Dog  and that could just be a matter of time).

Back to Bristol Palin. In reading some of the articles generated by her comments, I discovered that the Lifetime Channel is presently filming a (brace yourselves) reality show around her. Thus the need to attract some press.

This is a cultural point even lower than the Whoredashians.

First of all, Ms. Palin is not an actor, writer or entertainer.  Whereas Mssrs. Jillette and Carolla provide value for the dollars paid to them in terms of creating entertainment, Ms. Palin…does not. The two gentlemen built careers by paying their dues in performing over the course of years and creating solid bodies of work. Ms. Palin jumped to overnight notoriety by being the unwed pregnant spawn of a failed politician. While the gentlemen use the reality shows as a means to promote their other endeavors (Vegas acts , podcasts, TV shows they’re producing and writing), the reality show and the lecture circuit are Ms. Palin’s sole projects (unless you count a running feud with her baby daddy).  While she and her mother have screamed from the rooftops about “leave the families out of it,” Ms. Palin has seen fit to pose for the cover of People in her high school graduation robes and with her (then) infant son. Hey, when you push yourself into the public eye, you become fair game. We’ll leave the baby out of it because he’s not of the age of consent.

 Like the Whoredashians building an empire out of a sex tape (because, otherwise, who would have heard of them except as Robert Kardashian’s spoiled children?), Bristol Palin is building an “empire” out of the fact that while her mother, as Governor of Alaska, was pushing an “abstinence only” curriculum for sex ed, Bristol was showing her mother’s complete lack of leadership by not only foregoing abstinence, but clearly also foregoing birth control of any sort. (When my parents said, “Don’t,” I didn’t and trust me, I’d have put my father up against the Quitter in Chief any day. I think my mother could even take her).

Were it not for the accident of a famous mother, she’d be supporting herself and her child working in the local fish cannery for that’s the highest skill level she possesses.

I think it’s time, America, to take a look at who we’re “idolizing” and why. Do we love the Whoredashians and BP here because they’re getting rich and famous for doing nothing except to compromise themselves and their honor? (It should matter) We have a young woman passing judgment on others; perhaps it is time to pass similar judgment on her. Unlike her Facebook page. Unsubscribe from her blog. Contact the Lifetime network and tell them that since they’ve sunk so low in their programming, you’ll be watching something else or just turning off the TV. Americans are regarded as fat, lazy, stupid slobs by the rest of the world. Time to change that.



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