Stayed up until about 3 in the morning last night watching The Who's Tommy, just because I had never seen it. Ummm . . . .huh? Such wonderful songs when The Who performs them, but the way they are being presented in the movie is just . . . is just . . . But no, it's an interesting concept, but one of those films which, if it had been done in the 60's instead of the 70's somehow would have been way more cool. You know? Something about it just seems tired, kind of on the level of that ridiculous Bee Gee's Sergeant Pepper thing with Peter Frampton. Remember that? But anyway, the good thing is now all those excellent songs are going through my head. Put in your ear plugs, put on your eye shades, you know where to put the ball. na na na na na.
Plus the Marilyn Monroe / Eric Clapton segment was cool – got me thinking about our celebrity culture now. So, since everyone else is talking about Lindsey Lohan I figure I'll put in my two cents. I keep reading how she is the "New Robert Downey Jr. of her Generation," [First of all, you can't have a NEW Robert Downey Jr. people, He is a one-of-a-kind timelessly excellent respected actor. And speaking of Downy, I finally saw Zodiac. Oh my god. What an amazing performance. The cool thing was I was sitting next to an older guy from Iraq on the plane while watching it, and he leaned over at one point and told me RDJ is his favorite actor and he loved him in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and I'm like, Oh I know, and we ended up having a really nice long conversation about movies, and then politics, history, religion. See! Downey can bring nations together!] But ANYWAY, what's amazing to me is level of attention she's getting. When Downey screwed up, unless my memory is serving me incorrectly, I think I would hear about it on entertainment shows, or, if it did make the evening news, they at least waited for the entertainment section of the news. I don't remember it being headlines, for crying out loud. The level of fame which is bestowed upon young people now just seems more intense than anything I remember witnessing in my lifetime. I mean, I know it's happened before - Elvis was this famous. Marilyn, The Beatles. But, it seems like the big difference is that then, at the height of their fame, people actually LIKED Elvis and Marilyn and the Beatles, Maybe it's just my narrow social circle, but I have never personally met ANYONE who admits to liking or having any interest in Lindsey or Britney or Paris. So how the hell can they be so famous? The internet? That must be it. After all, the internet knows where you've clicked. It knows all. It keeps constant tabs on us. Everyone can SAY they don't care, but at the end of the day, when the hits are tallied up, it turns out everybody, man and woman, young and old, apparently likes to look at pictures of cute young women. And here comes Uncle Ernie to guide you TO, your very own machine . . . na na na na na And then it becomes a vicious circle. Advertisers realize how secretly popular these people are and start pushing them into prime time news, etc, which makes them even more clickable on the internet, etc.
Anyway, 'nuff about that. In other news, I'm still enjoying Chicago. Having a great summer, and I'm actually glad I'm not traveling so much any more. I'm in CHICAGO. Why would I need to travel? Just the other day I went to the China Town here and got all the delicious dim sum and bubble tea I could consume. Just like being in Taiwan.
Listening to you. I get the music. Gazing at you. I get the heat. Following you. I climb the mountain. I get excitment at your feeeeet