Much has been made of Cindy Adams' recent attack on celebrities (specifically Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt), via her normally staid column - and for good reason. Whatever crawled up her ass came back out in the form of brilliant vitriol. Cindy is a stately 79-years old and she's been at the gossip columnist thing longer than most of our ages combined. Basically she's earned the right to say whatever the hell she wants - and she's taking full advantage. Regardless, it sure has gotten her a hell of a lot of press! Details, via her column in the New York Post entitled "Brangelina Doomed":

[FOR movieland couples, nothing is ever enough. More photo ops, more nannies, more security, more p.r. people, more homes. To try to seal in their temporary potency while youth slips away, there is the continued need to have more, own more, feel more than anyone else. The only thing they can't acquire more of than anyone else is years. For that, there's drugs. Cocaine lulls them into feeling younger, sexier, less fearful, less worried about the next teenage pretty face crawling up the line.

The Hollywood mantra. First it's, "Who's Angelina Jolie?" Then it's, "Get me Angelina Jolie." Next up, "Find the next Angelina Jolie."

After clawing out of anonymity, these are people who live behind gates, behind dark glasses, behind spokespeople. Behind yes men. With the industry perks -- CDs, DVDs, marketing, product placement, videos, international distribution, percentages, books, documentaries, TV shows -- actors make more than $20 million a picture. With that kind of money, who's going to argue with them? To tell them, no. You can't. You can't do this, can't do that. Even parents keep still. Parents need that income. An assistant can't tell them. An assistant wants the salary and Rolodex and connections and access and castoff clothes or guys or freebie goody-bag gifts. And managers want the commission.

SO maybe you have to be wacked out to be a Hollywood star. Maybe you have to be like Angelina, who has tattoos probably even inside her ovaries, who once kept a vial of then-husband Billy Bob Thornton's blood in a vial around her neck, who doesn't speak to her father, who's reported to frequent a London sex shop. Maybe you have to be like Brad Pitt, who went from splendiferous to always always wearing a dumb baseball cap and looking like Ho Chi Minh with that scraggly beard.

Of course it wouldn't last. Remember those song lyrics, "Too hot not to cool down"? So people -- in the wake of Haiti, unemployment, bank failure, health care, Madoff, Obama, Albany, swine flu, Ahmadinejad, bin Laden, high subway fare, high taxes -- are all asking themselves, is it true? They splitting? Well, put it this way. If not today, wait a few minutes.]

Ah, a woman after my own heart. Click on the NY Post link above for the article in its entirety - it's quite entertaining. Of course there are loads of hypocrisies in the column, but there's also truth. The irony is that we pay people like Angelina and Brad that much money because they distract us from real life. Most of us don't want to think about all the pain and suffering in the world on a daily basis. We'd much rather daydream about when Brad is going to shave that damn goatee or who Angie will lure into her web next. In many ways we should thank Brangelina - and then take a some time to focus on the environment before there's no Earth left in which to follow these mortal gods.

[Photo Credit]

When Old People Attack!

Leave a comment