Celebrity Semiotic

When celebrities get involved with charity causes, be prepared to buy something after having it shilled to you -- but have we sunk so low with the celebrity cause that we are now considered children in need of Pied Piping into the River for the drowning of our national sorrows? You can't throw a rock in the air today without it coming down and hitting an advertisement on a Viacom network -- like MTV and VH1 -- and not be smashed in the face with celebrity pleadings for "StandUp2Cancer.org."

Is Lady GaGa a hermaphrodite?  Should it matter if she has a vagina or a penis or neither or both?  Are you aware of the intensive "Lady GaGa Cock Watch" movement -- especially in the UK -- that investigates that patch of flesh that makes up her groin?  There are serious efforts on the Internet to try to figure out if Lady GaGa is packing a penis... or not.

I confess to being a whore for American Idol.  I have watched the show every year and every year it gets worse and worse.  The pinnacle of its awfulness is now Ellen DeGeneres -- who wouldn't know funny if it ran up and bit her on the ear -- but I digress.  If you're an Idol fan like me, you know the show is never about finding the best singer.  American Idol is all about packaging a face and a body that can sell records -- and that's why I am telling you this year's obvious winner of American Idol 9 is Ashley Rodriguez.

Yesterday, The Learning Channel announced the quick cancellation of "American Chopper." The last episode will air tonight at 9pm Eastern.  Over the six-year run of the show, I watched almost every episode -- purely for the love of seeing Paul, Jr.'s designs come to life in metal -- but the one, universal, totem taken away from the program is the horrible reality of an alcoholic father who is envious of his sons and sabotages them at every turn week after week and year after year.  The constant threat of physical violence, coupled with emotional and verbal abuse, makes Paul Teutul, Sr. one of the most despicable men in the history of reality television as he not only strangled, but castrated, his most beloved and most talented son, Paul, Jr. 

Today, I propose the immediate ban on any celebrity using a "Baby Wave" -- the slow opening and closing of spread fingers closing into a fist with the palm facing you -- that red carpet fame carpetbaggers like Paris Hilton and Penelope Cruz and many others routinely use instead of a proper, flat-handed, wave that pivots on the wrist from a visible elbow anchored to the side of the body.  In the image below, we have the perfected example of a proper Baby Wave -- from Heath Ledger's daughter Matilda-- and since the Baby Wave is from a celebrity baby, we're fine its flexing and extension.

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the government response was slow and inadequate -- as we well know by now. The ensuing celebrity response was amazing. Photographs of Brad Pitt helping out really touched me. There's something about when a celebrity really messes up in the eye of the public and then shortly thereafter does a tremendous act of charity that makes me wonder why said celebrity did it.  Now the suffering in Haiti is in the midst of the celebrity cause.

In the biggest recantation since New Coke and Coke Blak, NBC/Comcast are rumored to be reversing their ridiculous removal of Jay Leno from "The Tonight Show" and pushing Conan O'Brien back into the late night boneyard where he belongs.