Carly Simon couldn’t have said it any better. And by the way wouldn’t you feel the same way too? We have elevated every manner of celebrity to the pinnacle of all that is worldly and then some. Sports people, entertainers, newscasters and politicians alike. Who in their right mind would swoon adoringly at Bill, Hillary, or Bill O’Reilly? I gotta get a drink.
I would like to think we are in unusual times but I then hearken back to Grecian and Roman times. I can see Socrates as Time’s Man of the Year way back when. Cleopatra would be all over People magazine of the day. And what better on the cover of Men’s Health than Samson or Gluteus Firmus, the current gladiator rock star.
The Renaissance brought us a combo of artists, sculptors, royalty and Popes. Louis and Leo Umpteenth not only got adulation but if you weren’t singing with the choir there was a chance you would appear next minus your head or at least be condemned to hell. All the while people looked in and thought these characters had it made. They might have had it all wrong.
Now today we go the the far side. Lady Gaga at the recent musical extravaganza in Austin had a woman swallow something really foul and then throw up all over her spangled body. She called it art and I call it very strange. There was not a dry eye in the house…literally. We cheer and protest over murderers. We cheer for their lawyers. We cheer for the jury. Everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame. Does anyone think this has gone a little far?
This is not anti Clintons but would anyone in their right mind pay either one of them $200,000 to talk for 45 minutes? What could they possibly have to say that would be worth $3300 per minute? Lawyers don’t even make that much. Oh I forgot. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Now I can sleep much better knowing that my financial resources are secure in the hands of these rocket scientists. I think we should bring back TARP.
Let’s take it from the top. You are a wayward soul that gets a part, a show or elected. You were a nobody but somehow you are all of a sudden interesting although you grew up in Queens. People hang on your every word. You acquire a posse that tells you night and day how cool you are as long as you keep footing the bill. You make money big time and spend it on a house, several cars and clothes. Sooner or later you really start to believe this crap and then you want people to make an appointment to see you. You Vant to Be Alone. Can’t a guy or gal get a little privacy?
Now the diva or male counterpart kicks in . You want only red and green M and M’s in your office or dressing room. You have to have your water flown in from France. The finest antiques and granite from somewhere in Italy has to adorn your palace. And there is a couple of Italian guys laughing their asses off over how much you paid. But you didn’t really pay. The schmucks who pay $15 for a movie ticket, $5,000 for court side seats, $4,000 for a campaign fundraiser or $150 a month cable bill are the ones footing your luxury tab.
That to me is where it really gets weird. I haven’t figured out if it is idolatry of their achievements or just because they are famous? Deep down do we really want to be them? They have all the fame and the money and the stuff and somehow do we think that would really make us happy? Right now I have to ask how many happy people there are in Hollywood or your local arena? Do they really seem well adjusted? And as the icing on the cake how are those kids handling their parents fame and fortune? I know my answer.
It should be just an interesting sidebar to life but somehow I think we have really pushed the envelope. Especially among young people who view them as the end all and be all. It’s a free world but there was an article in the paper this AM about young girls having a cosmetics party akin to Tupperware or a trunk show. They were 11-13 years old! Kim Kardashian had liposuction on her toes so she fit into her shoes on her 10th or 11th wedding day. Teens today are getting plastic surgery for anything from boobs to hips. Come on TTG it’s just good clean fun. Right.
If it was just that I would laugh and say, Big Deal. We have amped up everything in our culture. Social networking adds an aura that you and I really can’t control. The impersonality and anonymity of it make it so easy to tease and torture. Today every kid is being held to social standards that are next to impossible to meet. Bullies and bitches can wipe out a whole lot of love you have worked so hard to nurture.
And their role models? Look around you and tell me whom you would like them to be like? Who makes your People magazine or cover of Time? Just leave it out there on the coffee table for you and your kids and grandkids to aspire to. But then again, you probably don’t think this song is about you.
As always
Ted The Great
Factoids:
Oprah Winfrey grew up in poverty in rural Mississippi.
Madonna worked at Dunkin’ Donuts when she first came to NYC
Sex guru Dr Ruth was a trained Israeli sniper. No kidding.
Donald Trump was paid $1.5 million for a speech at a real setae expo. There were 17 of them.
Rudy Giulliani get $270,000 per speech
Bill Clinton was paid $750,000 by Ericsson to give a speech in Hong Kong. He and Hilary were broke you know.
Ted's Head 
Another out of the park homer- hadn’t heard the Lady Gaga story- she says it’s not a show? If it’s not she has lost her mind
Pablo
Insanity is relative but fairly obvious
T
I am tired of the anti-lawyer stuff. It is the bad guys or the unthinking who seem to propagate it, suggesting always that it is offered: tongue in cheek.
American Lawyers should take six months off and watch to see if on your own everyone does better during that sabbatical.
What would you call yourselves: “Problem solvers”; “Society’s Guardians”?
Shakespeare’s fictitious character, Jack Cade and his cohorts, Dick, and other hooligans, wanted to KILL all the lawyers so that they could impose a lawless and brutal regime on society. See; Scene 2 of Henry VI: Part 2.
As a lawyer, I would urge those interpreting that quote to apply the “context rule” before interpreting it. In context, you will discover that the bad guys wanted the lawyers executed as they believed lawyers would prevent them from perpetrating the injustices they sought to inflict on society.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, why did their leaders call an outfit in Chicago, IL to get help writing a constitution for their hoped for democratic state? No, they did not call London, Paris, Ottawa, Tokyo, Pretoria, New Delhi or elsewhere. The Soviets’ lawyers wanted to probe the collective experience of analytical literates here with the objective of replicating the Constitution our Founding Fathers authored to protect all of the citizens of the United States, even those who might seek their destruction. Yes, I have read, that they called The American Bar Association.
In a “Man for All Seasons” the character Sir Thomas Moore, a lawyer, is alleged to have said to his son-in-law who wanted Thomas to accede to King Henry’s demand that Thomas commit what he believed to be heresy: “I give the devil benefit of law for mine own safety sake. For when you cut down all the laws and the devil turns round on you how will you stand in all the winds that will blow.”
I became a lawyer because I hate bullies.
Justin J. McCarthy, Esquire Exton, PA
Justin:
Like cops there are good ones and bad ones. I have been involved in two lawsuits. One was a real estate transaction that after several hearings and several depositions the judge said there was absolutely no reason that I should be involved in the case. That was after $40k. The lawyer had named a bunch of people to be defendants. They said that was part of his tactic.
The other cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend. My lawyer from a big firm in Chicago had 80,000 documents Xeroxed in Denver and then Fedexed back to Chicago. Once again after all this money and time spent I was adjudged not part of the case. The response was:”You have insurance don’t you” as if that should make it okay. I didn’t t say in a conference room in Phoenix while eight lawyers opined for almost 10 hours all making $350-500 per at the time. I could have summed it up in ten minutes.
Lawyers are extremely important for certain things but frivolous law suits and class action suits are an abomination which the loyal members of the bar ought to police on their own. I have absolutely no doubt you are a more than honorable man and a more than capable barrister. I have unfortunately been involved with too many sleaze balls. I am sure that is true in all walks of life. Thank you as always for reading and providing thoughtful comment.
TTG