As you wander aimlessly down the aisles of Trader Joe’s, you feel like the whole store is staring at you. An innocent-looking middle aged woman wearing a leopard-print blouse and a matching pair of glasses calmly approaches you with her iPhone in tow, shoulder checking an elderly gentleman as he reaches for the oatmeal. She quickly snaps a selfie photo with your unsuspecting mug crammed into the frame as if she has done it a million times, which she very well may have, what with her thousands of Instagram posts that constantly terrorize her friends’ morning scrolls at Starbucks. You have no idea what is going on as you try to find your way through the maze of the corn section as you forgot that you sprinkled that handful of psychedelic shrooms onto your giant slice of Costco pizza earlier that evening after an epic shopping spree that resulted in several outdoor ottomans, a six pack of lard tubs and a poncho for oversized dogs and undersized people.
You also forgot that you’re famous.
Everyone wants to be famous here. Los Angeles is the city of fame hounds. The NFL team should be the Los Angeles Fame Hounds instead of the Rams...who has ever seen a Ram on Hollywood Boulevard? People move here to be famous; that’s what you put in the “Reason to move” section of your taxes. That’s the only reason to live in this town unless you’re from here. The craziest people aren’t the ones who move here to be famous...they’re the ones who move here NOT to be famous (unless you are absolutely loaded and have money to splurge on a beachelor pad (a bachelor pad on the beach, probably Manhattan or Hermosa or Huntington.) People come to L.A. with stars in their eyes, pipes in their dreams and mothballs in their bank accounts. They come here to be somebody. Because when you’re nobody, you have the ability to become anybody - not just anybody but ANYbody and anything you want.
Why do people want to be famous? Is it a classic, hack American dream or a side effect of our win-or-die-trying culture? Are we not creative enough to come up with anything better? Is it a marker for success or is it, in and of itself, success? Is it the end of the road or only the beginning? Is it so we can lay in bed at night before we fall asleep watching ourselves on TV? Do we want to be seen as being on the same playing field as our role models? Do we think we deserve to be famous or at least deserve to try? Is it the restlessness of youth mixed with naivety and the self esteem movement? Do we want to secure a spot plastered on the walls of our old teachers in between Michael Jordan dunking from the free throw line and Larry the Cable Guy installing a TiVo in an unsuspecting condo in an early reverse-Punk’d reality show test pilot called Prince’d (in the final episode of the pilot season, Prince becomes a helicopter pilot and teaches Bill Burr to come to the dark side)? How did famous people start?
Jesus was the first famous person. A makeshift selfie stick was heinously wrestled together with tree bark, sap and tears of joy, capturing the entire experience and geotagging it in the Manger with a lit heavenly, halo filter on the fam and some peasant photobombing behind the crib so they stuffed him full of straw and put him in the front yard and that’s how the first scarecrow came about.
Is there an optimal level of fame? What is the optimal level of fame? The answer is yes and Justin Bartha. Who is Justin Bartha, you ask? Exactly. He plays Doug in The Hangover and Nicolas Cage’s sidekick in National Treasure. His largest credits are both from a decade-plus ago and while he isn’t the star of either film, they are both successful franchises that people love and love to make fun of (but mostly love...if you talk trash about National Treasure, I’ll forge your signature on the Declaration of Independence and have you locked up in the gallows (wait, wrong movie franchise). Justin Bartha has the perfect level of fame - he’s famous enough to be one of the stars in some major motion pictures and yet he probably only gets stopped a few times a week for photos and he can just go about his merry ol’ day doing whatever Justin Bartha does (nobody knows for sure, he’s like a gentle, domesticated mini-Sasquatch who tromps around the Whole Foods food court, silently calculating his next feature film appearance and perusing the dates (what’s a good date look like? One where I don’t get slapped - heyyyyyy!)
Anyway, Justin Bartha is the perfect level of fame and here’s a few other things that are the middle porridge of TMZ. The host of a podcast with 2,700 ratings on Apple. The local meteorologist. The 38th ranked professional golfer in the world. A travel blogger who has appeared on The Today Show with their own line of humorous coffee mugs that include, “Worst Dad in the World”, “Quit While You’re Ahead” and my personal favorite, “Don’t Talk to Me Before My Coffee or Even After...You Know What, We Should Probably Just Get A Divorce.” A regional animal enthusiast.
But what about me - is that what you’re shouting at your iPhone and hurting the ears of all the people surveilling your life? Sure, you can be famous too - join the fun. Actually, you already are! It’s called social media and the internet. Post all your content, become an internet celebrity, go on Hot Ones, anything is possible these days. Anyone and everyone is and isn’t famous but all that matters is that we are varying degrees of fame but we all agree that we want more followers, more likes, more views, more listens - but why? As the great philosopher Dave Dameshek once said a million times - To what end?
Well, it’s a trick. Sorry, but it’s all an elaborate hoax - here’s how it works. There are some super rich people in L.A. - let’s call them the Executives. The Executives only speak one language - the almighty dolla dolla bill, yo! So they created this fake, facade, Truman Show realty and called it Hollywood - the entertainment and creative capital of the world - thus establishing show business. Then they tricked some poor, innocent schmucks into being in their little creative projects - let’s call them movies. Now, you might be like, who’s the poor innocent schmuck - I would give my left pinky toe to be Justin Bartha or even behind him in line at the Whole Foods checkout. Well, that’s all well and good and might be fun for a few months, living that Bartha Life #BarthaLife, but the shine is sure to wear off. You know who’s shine doesn’t wear off? That fresh coat of Carnouba wax on the Executive’s daughter’s Porsche. They just keep churning out movies and TV - regardless of whoever is in them. They’ll make you a star, sure, but they’ll just as quickly rip that Aladdin rug right out from under ya - also you won’t even get to star in the new Aladdin! It’s a sham, an extended Punk’d episode - Hollywood will make Justin Bartha think that Justin Bartha is living in a Justin Bartha world and doesn’t give two Justin Barthas if you care. You think you’re a star - you think you’re the next Brad Pitt or Julia Roberts? That’ll never happen again because social media has taken away the mystique of celebrity - now we all just know that Danny McBride enjoys a morning stroll to Coffee Bean but are we better people for it and more importantly why doesn’t Danny McBride step his game up to the big leagues and start going to Starbucks? Social media has changed everything because it’s made the masses realize that celebrities are truly just like us! (Shout out People Magazine!) How come we don’t idolize and bow down to the best accountants in the world or best baristas or whitewater raft tour guides? Because we don’t know who they are because their face hasn’t been broadcast to millions of people around the globe. The Hunger Games is based on a true story - you get plucked and pushed into the spotlight. Can you handle it? Only one way to find out.
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