Grumpy With Celebrity

GRUMPY

Grumpy is Tsunami apprentice celebrity columnist and freelance scribbler Lee Bemrose (leebemrose@hotmail.com). Want him to wash your car in his undies? You couldn't afford it.

This whole celebrity thing has gotten a bit weird, hasn't it? I don't even know who most of the celebrity population are. Why are they celebrities? What did they do to become celebrities? And why do they seem so desperate to remain a celebrity? A celebrity sounds like an awful thing to be. I mean it's nice to get a bit of attention from friends and family on special occasions and when you've done something they can be proud of, but modern, full-blown celebrity seems to be a result of the complete opposite of these things. Get arrested lots of times for drink driving and you're guaranteed to stay in the pages of celebrity gossip mags. Make a celebrity sex tape and leaking it to the internet, ditto (have you ever seen celebrity sex tapes? Mostly they are poorly shot, there's little by way of plot and the dialogue is terrible. Apparently).

You can even become a celebrity by killing lots of people and going to jail for it. For a while there just after Carl Williams was bashed to death (by a guy who I'm sure is now some kind of underworld celebrity), mainstream media were reporting the story and referring to this murderous scumbag as 'Carl.' Surely first name basis is a term of endearment, no? I was waiting for the day they started calling him 'Our Carl.'

Oh and I have a confession to make; a column or two ago I referenced a celebrity in a joky way without even knowing properly who she was. I was trying to prove a point and said something like “It was like bumping into Kim Kardashian at a Mensa meeting.” At that time I didn't have a clue who this Kardashian person was. I needed a name to make a point of how unlikely this thing was to happen and the name Kim Kardashian came to mind. By the small amount of information that has made it into my mind by osmosis... let me re-phrase that: by the small amount of information about Kim Kardashian that has made it into my mind, I thought the idea of bumping into this particular celebrity at a Mensa meeting would be comically unlikely (as comically unlikely as the implied suggestion that I might ever be in a position to bump into someone at said meeting). But I really didn't know who she was or why this should be funny. Maybe she is actually really brainy, as well as having big boobs, a pretty face and a shitty TV show.

Something else that made it into my mind by osmosis is a thing... a terrible, terrible monstrosity called Celebrity Apprentice. Have you seen it? Oh dear. I saw a bit where another baffling celebrity, Pauline Hanson, changed into undies to wash some guy's car. Forget the damn car – use that power water gun to wash my eyes! Nothing – absolutely nothing – about this was entertaining. It was not funny. It was not sexy or even risqué. It was just dumb. As dumb as the entire premise of this show. It highlights just how desperately some celebrities cling to their celebrity. They have had their 15 minutes years ago but will do anything to rise from the dead and, well, do anything if it means getting their head on telly, vomiting up the last microbes of their dignity to cling with gnarled, bony claws to their precioussss, precioussss celebrity.

No doubt the gaggle of celebrities parading their buffoonery on this vacuum of intelligence, sophistication and dignity would say, “Grumpy – lighten up. It's just a bit of fun. And besides – look at the ratings. That many viewers can't be wrong.”

No, and a million flies can't be wrong, right?

I've said it before and I'll say it again – you humans, you baffle me.