As I do my best to survive day-to-day the side effects of this clinical trial for treatment of the Hepatitis C virus, I am amazed at how American popular culture reflects the itchiness of my rash. Is there anything more annoying than the endless drivel about Kim Kardashian and her wedding/break-up with basketball player Kris Humphries? Yes, Kim filed for divorce on Halloween after only 72 days of marriage and the biggest celebrity television wedding since the Royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. It all feels like a sign of the apocalypse and almost makes me forget my own itchiness as I watch our society scratch this constant itch. It is almost a relief when the ugliness of our national media and obsessions with useless celebrity provides a consolation from my own suffering.
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| Such A Desperate Manipulation And Pathetic Grab At Fame & Notoriety |
I choose this topic because it is the only thing that seems right now to be as disgusting as my rash and as difficult to escape. Whether in the supermarket aisles or on every cable channel not focusing on the trial of Michael Jackson's mad doctor, we are plagued by this money-grubbing greed of this awful family. I mean, I know I am being a judgmental asshole, but this is how I truly feel and this is how I think most of us actually feel about this abuse of ethics and mental space and the institution of marriage and the sacred beauty of love. This family manages to reduce everything to ego and vanity, pissing on our popular culture and making me ever wonder why I even pay for cable television. It is just gross. Then again, when you think about it, it is kind of amazing that Kim Kardashian is able to reach a lower plateau than she did in the past with her sex tape with Ray J.
From a personal perspective, I feel abused by the family because it makes me take a deep look at Bruce Jenner in an utter violation of one of my childhood heroes. When Jenner won the Decathlon and the gold medal in the 1976 Montreal Olympics, I was nine years old and it was the first time I was aware of such an event. Jenner became one of my first sport's heroes because he won an event in which you had to everything well. Even the idea of it seemed incredibly intimidating to me, and I loved watching him win the final sprint that sealed his victory with his hands raised in the air and that big USA on his red running shirt. For the first time, I understood what it was to be an American, to be part of something greater like a citizen of a country, and I relish that moment. And it has been poisoned by the Kardashians.
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| Bruce Jenner Winning The Decathlon At The 1976 Olympics |
Honestly, I could give a shit about Kim Kardashian and the rest of the family. I find the Lamar Odom marriage to her sister somewhat interesting, but really just another blip on the pop cultural radar. But Bruce Jenner's marriage to Kris Kardashian makes him part of the media landscape, and I am forced to experience what a plastic surgery wreck the man has become over the years. With his skin taut against his skull, it looks like he has had at least two or three face lifts with multiple botox injections and all the rest of the vanity bullshit. Rather than looking like a hero, the man resembles a living ghoul, a zombie-in-the-making who pollutes the very notion of his past victory. Yes, everyone should be allowed to age and looks fade and we all grow old, but what about a touch of grace and acceptance. No, with the Kardashians, such human qualities are not allowed as they reduce themselves to plastic dolls and cartoon-like monstrosities. And they actually expect the American public to love and appreciate them?
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| Why Do We Have To Have Such Vanity Thrust In Our Laps? |
Okay, I know this blog is a bit extreme and maybe even unfair to that family, but I have little patience for such a popular culture rash when my own skin is red and splotchy and itches 24/7. It just makes me think that we should be so much more and simply decent and why are we focused on such crap when there are real problems and issues to face and confront. Then again, the Occupy Wall Street protestors are doing quite an incredible job at shaking things up and being part of the largest mass American protest movement since the Vietnam war or maybe the anti-Apartheid movement. But the corporate media doesn't want us to focus on those questions. Instead, they provides us with the modern day opium of the masses that is the Kardashian family. And it is just as heinous as any addiction and just as regrettable.
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| Yes, I know this to be true and yet still I watch and I complain and I itch... |
Such television is a weapon of mass deception, and I will no longer allow it to occupy my mind. I am trying my best to keep the itching below the level of consciousness and ignore the reality of my rash so I do not needed any added bullshit in my life. Forgive the language, but fuck the Kardashians and their itchy infection of American popular culture. They do not have the power of opium. After all, I have been a heroin addict in the past and I know intimately the horror of that slavery, and I will not allow anything to take over and enslave my life again. I have tasted freedom beyond the opium, and I am no longer a faceless number of the masses. I embrace a certain authenticity, moving beyond the Kardashians and the itchiness of this rash, and accepting the reality of my responsibility to be good and decent and creative with the extraordinary gift of this rare human birth.
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| Yes, the same can be said of the Kardashians. We choose our own poisons. |
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