Fame's Misfortunes/ HOLlYwood's Slaves

This is from about a year back, but every once in a while I try and get new crowds to read this because I believe it is something that is always relevant. I'm currently working on an essay about the concept of "normal" but this will be something to read until then.

Fame’s Misfortunes. Hollywood’s Slaves.

Slogans copy written and voices mass-produced.
Did you really want to be famous?
Obsessions, fans mocking your every move.
Love letters cause mass jealousy of your other.
No privacy.
Swollen knuckles from writing your name so many times.
You’ve written it so much that you don’t even know what it means anymore ---
you don’t know who you are.
Hollywood amnesia.
The money becomes nothing and you need something more.
Uppers and downers, so nervous and rushed.
What time is it, where do I have to be?
You don’t even own your free time.
Foot massages and soft robes in exchange for your thoughts and
emotional labor.
Your sense of self is upon the market and your partial contemplations are
the cover of Newsweek.
You’ll be replaced in a month, a year if you’re lucky.
Don’t spend it all before you hit hard concrete bottom feeling the cold cracks in
the rain drenched ground.
You’ll need every dime for legal fees.
And whoever wanted to get famous?
A path of many roads like a tree of many vines.
You don’t always have to be the shriveled leaf fallen that once was
bright and life full.
A fake paradox and manicure do not ensure bliss.
I guarantee you that the soul making memories come from the “rest”
even though they have nothing they will always outlast the glamorous
elite who have it all but cannot share one positive tale.
From rags to riches?
I’d rather keep the rags to stay warm than to sell the rags
for faux godliness.













“…Got me locked in a cell phone persona
Quality programmed by the reality dream screen
Advertised to death, the youth is great market research
We can sell sex, hate and stupidity to all the toddlers and teens.”

The Media’s influence on our culture effects us all, and the youth is the easiest and most convincing target. One can deny the transition from expressionism to marketing but how can that person explain the complete grasp that the entertainment industry has wrapped around us day to night, our entire lives? The billboards staring down at you like your owner and influencer in the shadows of the city and highway side. The generation of logos and advertisements for companies that we pay to wear. A television screen 24/7 selling you the right look, the right thought, what to hate and who to worship. You’re too old, too fat, too pale, too dark, not Hollywood enough and definitely way too human. If this can make middle aged women obsess over botox and slay all of their wrinkles until their face sparkles or ensure that all men are that macho lumberjack fighting off bald spots and being the pimp of the world, then what is the impact this media has on our youth?
“Why not just escape it?” some might say. Is there an escape? You’d have to live in a tent to rid of
all the idea sales and thought bargains, then soon or a later the land you are on trying to get away
from it all will be paved away for some shopping center or gas station. Supermarket checkout line; I just want to get in and get out but before I am even able to set my items down on the conveyor belt, Blam! I am attacked by “Jennifer Lopez…Pregnant!”, “Paris Hilton fucks another kangaroo!”, “God is looking mighty overweight this year” and all of this superficial preaching. What war? What war? Never mind that, you are in a war of who is the prettiest, and we’ve been bombarded with all of this for so long now that it is completely normal to our youth and it is abnormal to not be in the know of hottest celebrity, greatest scandal, best shoes or any other source of inane information.

Is this normal? Well the youth is growing up with this mentality in their face, since before they can even walk. What is considered “normal” comes from the mouths of Hollywood movies, magazine excerpts, and companies that can make money off of our lives. If the media changes the standards of what is seen as normal then the youth will follow those standards of what the media portrays. It is a pattern where trends are changed, fads are created and people follow in every footstep trying to follow what’s cool, what to pay attention to, which movie is the best and what shoes are the most expensive. The distractions keep getting bigger and more of people’s lives are engulfed by monotonous things that make themselves feel more important to know but it usually has completely nothing to do with or to effect us. Things like celebrity scandals, ring tones, how much coke the newest rock star can sniff before dying young, flashy objects; so many subjects that switch so quickly but the important things that effect our near future are just “somebody else’s” liability and pushed off to the side to deal with later. Little things called w-a-r, a since of intelligence, respect for one another with different perspectives and our real lives, not the lives of stars we can live fantasies through. It feels as if reality is getting buried behind thicker walls with each generation that grows. The sense of viewpoint begins to change and along with it are the ways a society acts. Put 24/7 coverage of hate, vanity and consumerism through the news and what you will get back is a society of vain hateful consumers. Put 24/7 coverage of insight, solution and self respect and what would be reflected is an insightful respecting society full of solutions. The only thing is, that wouldn’t get any sales. If society was happy with itself, looking into the mirror with a confident outlook then who would sell the beauty cream!? Who would pay the extra 40 dollars for those slave labored sneakers and maybe people would start to look at the future today rather than the pop culture every minute. If you look at things through the eyes of the companies out trying to make a sale, the people who largely influence much of our economy, then if you didn’t have people hooked on materialism or looking at themselves with dissatisfaction then there is no way to make a sale. So to continue generations’ perceptions of consumerism as a value they can just go by what they know which is keeping the public dumbed down and distracted with a thirst for the latest craze.

When I look at the main aim on the youth, there is a fine line of a difference between the male
marketing and female marketing. But one common theme that is used to sell is definitely sex. It has been where the male is the macho figure, the more aggressive, afraid of expressing any true emotion and the women is treated as the object. She is encouraged to have her body exploited and represent her existence, as if she has no thoughts of her own. Even somebody with the most beautiful voice is encouraged to dress daring and engage in a sexual aura using visualization as the communication rather than the music. Cultures went from kings and queens to thugs and bitches, brother and sister to rock star and groupie.

Most young girls will feel negative about their own looks if they are different that others rather
than embracing the individuality. Jean Kilbourne, who has studied the female image in advertising for over 30 years, states that advertising is changing what we think and feel about what is pretty and sexy more now than ever due to the desire of companies to sell and advertise their products. “The more adolescent and pre-adolescent girls read fashion magazines, the more likely they were to diet and feel unhappy about their bodies” researchers at the Brigham and Women’s hospital in Boston have found out. The more an image of being a stick thin materialistic girl that the media pushes onto children, the more normal it will all seem to them because of the giant influence that celebrities play onto people’s lives. Celebrities are looked up to more than anybody else in the media, this includes and is majorly pop stars and actors. Looks and beauty will become everything and the youth has not only bought that as their standard, but haven’t had much else of a choice.

As I studied mainstream artists it is very obvious that there are many repetitive steps that are played to sell materialism to the fans. No matter what genre it has become apparent that you can sell the music through either two outcomes; a rebellious style of music that sells a sleazy image to the youth or a clean cut style of music that sells a conforming image and lack of questioning to the youth. As for the latter, that type is lacking of the party hyped and drugged lifestyle but often has very low enthusiasm for the listener to think for themselves. The clean cut style often comes attached to a sort of upper and high class viewpoint, imagine a snooty New Kids On The Block tour bus full of the world’s latest and greatest pop sensations. The more common style are the rebellious artists, well, they are called rebellious but don’t dare make a move that their manager wouldn’t approve of. This is the kind with the half cut halter tops, choruses about “drinking, fucking, shooting, sucking.” It sells a controversial image to the youth and whatever pisses the parents off is gold.

Are we robots? When will we say “Wait a minute… I am not a product, a shell with nothing inside. I am not the bitch of Rupert Murdoch or Summer Redstone.” Rather than being programmed or sold what is normal and acceptable, somewhere along the line we may be able to use our own judgments and distinctions again. The distractions are what keep most in the mindset of being influenced by materialistic objects and vanity. Maybe we’re too busy with our cell phones and technological trinkets to see that each time we spend we sell ourselves as the products, the objects, the barcode. Maybe we are
products, objects, barcodes… robots. We are treated like such and allow ourselves to be treated like that. It has become the new reality for today’s youth. We’re here to help the company, when not working for the company or paying debt to the company. If we don’t like the concept, we’ll just get programmed by the freedom of choice. The freedom of Pepsi or Coke, American Idol or Survivor, Britney or Paris, Idiocy or Stupidity. It has all been leading up to become more and more of a market asset.

What more effects the youth than the almost “holy” glow that transmits from this little box we
call TV? It’s where you can take your life and turn it into something else. You can turn it on and become the perfect model - skin to the bone, the heavily armed crime fighter who always dodges bullets and always gets action from the damsel in distress, a cowboy, an Indian, the overly smarmy news reporter with the exact right thoughts… you can click a button and make your dream come true. Each night the streets turn blue from the glow of wonder boxes lighting from the windows from the country’s heart. Quality programmed into the dream world, but what is hard to face is the real world apart from reality. Some will forget the things going on outside of the illustrious glamor that Hollywood slips into your drink. Instead of growing up and leaving the house to experience the outside world, families will just stick their kids in front of the box and let them live their lives through somebody else. It has become so normal that it’s like the side effects don’t even matter anymore. We’re hooked. The easy chair is the hospital bed, the electric signal is the drug and the transmitting rays into our domes are the IV’s feeding in.

We’re hooked. The studies of television lead to many domino effects on today’s society. Alcohol is one of the most consumed beverages on primetime television shows. The characters on TV are to have drank alcohol twice as much as coffee or tea, 14 times as often as soft drinks and 15 times more often than water. The result: Students spend around 5.5billion dollars on alcohol a year which is more than what is spent on soft drinks, tea, milk, juice, coffee and books all combined. Another result: A typical Saturday or Sunday in America produces at least one dead teenager every two hours from a car crash involving alcohol. I wonder why so many songs rotate around the aspect of 40 ounces, vodka, fast cars and fucking in the majority of top ten songs but not one refers to gathering a higher state of mind. Too bad healthy products weren’t advertised and drilled into our brains as often, but then maybe we wouldn’t be at such a blur to realize how influenced by the media we are when it comes to spending. Less money made that way. The beauty and perfection of television life compared to reality also comes with more examples. In ‘93 the average child had seen over 10,000 murders assaults and other forms of violence through TV which has risen to 12,000 in ‘97. With a generation taking what they see from TV and linking it to normal behavior, you can only wonder why there is so much violence in society and why when people hear about it more and more, it just becomes less shocking. An unproductive violent blur, it doesn’t have to be that way.

Maybe a look at how much time we spend in front of this advertising machine will help us want to break out. Another study in 1997 shows that the average child watched TV 25 hours a week. 260 full hours of watching just advertisements were concluded in a full year of television viewing. This takes time away from other formats of learning such as reading or questioning what is presented to them. The IQ level of children is slowly declining and you don’t have to look far to see a rate climbing of submissive and apathetic youth. Harvard University conducted a study where the odds of children becoming obese raised 12 to 20% for each hour of TV that was consumed. It seems that the term quality programming really fit’s the definition. How much more of an impact will the media influence our youth and society? If all of this is deemed as normal for our current generation now growing up, then when they pass their values onto their children with the movies, magazines and pop stars still circulating then the amount of billboards, violence, distraction and negative effects will be too much to bare. Currently it is proposed to go to war with Iran and the current lack of interest in this reflects onto the younger ones, so with all of the violence in television it will be next to nothing to see bloodshed, bombs and hate. The nation’s idea of normal is molded by what we are allowed to believe as normal. This endless cycle will not be stopped until we allow it to be stopped, so let me be the first to start the trend of taking a brick and smashing it through
my TV screen. As a world with growing numbers and countless distractions, it is our true responsibility
to take action on our planet and put down the TV remote. When speaking of your past and sharing memories does the fixation and worship of the gadgets and plastic celebrities sound like your life summary, or does the awakening of our youth to make their own decisions sound right? There is
no tomorrow because it is always a day away, so let’s get it right now and change today.








The opening quote and attached writing are written by myself.
References
“Blonde Is Beautiful Mystique” Usa Today Jan 19, 2006. Pg. 11a
Siklos, Richard. “Meanwhile, At Viacom…” Fortune Oct. 01,2007. Vol 156 issue 7.
Motluk, Alison. “Section:This Week” New scientist. Reed Business. 2006.
Kelemen, Lawrence. “The Truth About Television” To Kindle A Soul: Ancient
Wisdom For Modern Parents And Teachers Aug 01, 2001 Targum

Half-Attentive Corpse

This is a preview to a short story I am working on every now and then, entitled "Half Attentive Corpse."

Half-Attentive Corpse In The Back Seat
[unfinished, uncertain to ever be finished]
by Leemonster. 10/2008.

She came up to me and said “Lee, You look like shit.” I said “Well, thank you, But I just want to play piano, God Damnit..” “Plus, If you had a Soul, I’m quite sure it would be just as devastating as your perception of me” I reclaimed. How sure could I be about how she knew my name, or whether she was just some girl with the same name as I, and just overanalyzing her appearance in verbal self-reflection? Well holy shit, either way.. I tapped one key with my index finger and sipped grape juice from the straw. I’m not here to entertain or talk to people, and she may not have talked to me, But I stared her in the eyes through my round edged shades, and as she knew I was looking at her, she sat down next to me and started nibbling on my ear. “Leee… Leeeee!”

“LEEEE!”… “HUGH!?, What!?” “LEEEE!! Watch the fucking road!” Holy shit! I flip the high beams on and wiped underneath my eyelids with one hand, adjusting out of my dream and going back into what was labeled as reality. I don’t know how these freaks got into my car, but they were there. One in the front seat, passenger, and one in the back.. well kind of; Head rag full of blood and… conscious? Possibly. I knew one for a while, and as for the half attentive corpse in the back seat, well he was unknown until tonight, just after making introduction and deciding it to be a wise idea to see how far one can go barefoot down an ice frosted porch carrying in each hand a cat carrier containing obese felines. The cats were fine, but he ended up--- well, as the head rag full of blood in the back seat. And I don’t even know this town, and Ernie, to my right, is awful at explaining directions. Try going three nights without sleep, trying to make it to the hospital, let alone none of us having any form of ID on us, and tons of swerving going on between the luckily empty yet icy road lanes. Surprisingly, no police had pulled us over, probably due to football reruns airing all night. We made it to the hospital finally, after constantly wiping fog off the inside of the window with my fingertips and hearing inaudible noises that seemed to be coming from that half attentive corpse in the back seat. “Iuuuwwwwaathhh, mmerrrrrRRHHhhhhh. Diiidwhhhee gheeet too the plaaay sshhh yet?????” “Huh!?” I asked. “It’ll be alright buddy. We just got here” Ernie said, opening up his door as we both got out, and he grabbed half attentive corpse’s legs while I slipped bandanas around my hands, grabbing his shoulders as we lugged him into the emergency center like two Chihuahuas carrying a piano up a mountain on their backs.

Probably one of the only qualities of rushing a barefooted man with a massive head wound into a shoddy hospital is that you can actually whiz right by all of that “How’s the weather?” bullshit and be able to just get straight to business.. Well, Sort of. “Holy shit! What the hell happened to him?” “him? Him!? Well, he’s had a hard life. Short supply of paper towels as a kid, Mother never loved hi---” “--No, You idiot!” Ernie shouted. “Oh, She wasn’t asking about you? Oh, Oh!! Himmmm… He fell down the iced-up stairs. ‘Been bleeding ever sense… I think, umm... I think he might not be well.” I blurted. The walls were stained yellow, with traditional brick walls and now, red flooring. A stretcher came out and took ‘ol half attentive corpse in the.. Hospital stretcher away, Thus beginning the loveliness of what is known as hospital waiting room trauma… Something, that unlike many injuries, cannot and probably will not ever be something to recover from. Ernie stood by the chilly doorway, with winds blowing inside to where I was sitting, annoyingly asking me if I wanted a cigarette, and then proceeding to the leaf covered wonderland outside, Knowing damn well that I can’t smoke because it’s impossible for me to seem to get addicted. I just lay there in the plastic and cushioned chair as poor half attentive corpse in the hospital bed lay there either dead or with shots jabbing into his arms, I.V.s circulating goo into his body and an even dizzier state of mind from all the painkillers dousing through that poor red head. My palm was attacked by my eager to rest head falling down against it, crammed into the waiting room chair with a piece of bread filling my stomach, as a shiny bald headed, middle aged man with various moles on his forehead and glasses in his hand occasionally glanced over at me, as I continuously yawned and my eyes closed shut like horizontal elevator doors. “Whatever happened to wearing shoes” I thought. And “Why the hell did he carry two cats at once?” The blurriness proceeded and all those dick headed questions seemed less prominent.

“It’s your turn to ride the kangaroo” “It is? Alright!! But when it turns purple you’re not going to like me very well.” “That’s completely understandable… Now Ready, Set… Go!” The line of kangaroos took off.. I clenched onto it’s back, wearing my red helmet and looking over to the competitors beside me, all riding different colored kangaroos and trying to joust me off with their wiffle ball bats. “Giddyup!!” Yah! Move on!” I encouraged the kangaroo, heading down the trail. “We can’t lose this one, The bets are up, the stakes are high!”... “Nooo, No, don’t tip!!! Fuck, we’re sinking, is this quicksand!!? I can’t believe I’m gonna lose!” “I can’t.. "

“You can’t lose what??” It was Ernie.. Back from his cig fix and baring with him the juvelescent cold outside air. “Ernie!!! What the hell!?” I woke up, finding myself sideways, halfway laid against the floor, Fallen prey to the lack of rest once again. “Oh… Just some.. I passed out again. How’s he doing in the room?” I asked. “Might be a few hours.. Granted they don’t fuck up and replace his eyeballs with goldfish or something” Ernie stated. The shiny bald headed man leers over at us above his opened up magazine rag with a disapproving look, as we stare back in an awkward state and then proceed out to the car in the parking lot, as I pierce my hands into the under flaps of my jacket trying to avoid the dry cold air. “Fuck! Look at how sauced up the seats are!” I immediately said, throwing my arm against the side bar of the backseat door. “Well it could be a lot worse” Ernie said. “We could have gotten pulled over.. The cats could have gotten out.. It could have been daytime.. A bear could have attacked us…” “Okay, Ernie! I get it, It could’ve gotten more fucked.. But, Fuck! This is fucked!” Fuck, this was fucked! And now all I could do is wait for half attentive corpse in the hospital bed to become half attentive freak in the head cast, and until then, get some rest.

[To be continued??]