So here we are on the cusp of knotting up another year. This means that people are in a shopping frenzy, a decorating tizzy and in a state of baking mania. Parents with waaay too much time on their hands are doing precious, clever and generally creepy as hell things with their children’s elves. Teenagers are taking exams and foaming at the mouth over what their Christmas get is going to be. Working adults are wringing their hands over their “holiday bonuses”. But news rags and publicity pimps have been busy compiling their lists of the most “Intriguing/Interesting/Fascinating” people of the year. They got rolling en mass this week. People Magazine and Time Magazine hit stands, Barbara Walters did her televised celebrity lap dance and again I was amazed just watching her frozen Joan Crawford eye. And America’s aging sweetheart, Katie Couric, got in the game and did a wrap up of the big news of the year, too. Isn’t that nice? Honestly, Katie’s recap was a bit too legit for me. I like to read or watch trash and then feel all highbrow and sanctimonious by blogging about it later.
Barbara Walters ran down her “10 Most Fascinating People of 2011” this week. Of course, I have issues with it. Didn’t catch it? Not to worry, that’s what I’m here for. Big Daddy and I made our own predictions last week. We nailed six of them. That is a big, fat D-. I guess my expectations were a bit too lofty. Since I blogged 2010’s list here and here, I figured you people would be expecting a recap again this year. In keeping with her usual droll style, Barbara picked mostly jack-wagons. And another thing? Barbara needs to learn how to count. There weren’t ten people; there were fourteen. Well, except one has expired, so really it was thirteen. It went down like this:
Katy Perry: She is fascinating for being the human embodiment of an overly frosted and jimmied cupcake. She dropped out of high school, kissed a girl…and she liked it, and married a former heroine addict. Bravo! She’s kinda cute and harmless, I guess. But one of the most fascinating people to come across my radar in the last year? Maybe if I lives in a paper sack or in an Occupy Anything tent city.
Simon Cowell is honest, generates a load of revenue and makes people’s dreams come true and yet, he’s still a tool. He admitted that he wanted to get busy with Paula Abdul when they were on American Idol together. The best I can say is that he would have been able to save the cost and liability of slipping Rohypnol in her drink.
Pippa Middleton is fascinating because she rocked a bridesmaid dress. Really? Baby is fascinating because she got back? I am certain that had Sir-Mix-A-Lot been asked to weigh in on this topic he would have said, “Aw hell no! Maybe if she’s 5’3″.” God, help us.
Shucky-ducky, Herman Cain made the list! I wonder if he would have made the cut if he hadn’t suspended his campaign amid lurid skirt chasing rumors. Would Barbara have found him fascinating were he in a position to Obama bash while on top of the world?
Amanda Knox has actually held my attention for the past few years. However, Barbara didn’t manage to score a sit-down with her. Instead she just showed a newsreel mash up with Barbara’s own voice over. That’s a fail.
Donald Trump allowed Barbara to tug on his coiffure to prove that it’s not a piece. Who actually thought that follicular mess was fake? No one would manufacture something like that. I kinda half expected it to spring to life and bite her though. I never thought it was a toupe. I always assumed it was a yellow ferret draped across his pate.
Duo Eric Stonestreet and Jesse Tyler Ferguson, you know them as openly gay couple Cam and Mitchell from “Modern Family”, were featured. Are Eric and Jesse fascinating, or is it their television characters that we clamor for? Well, straight Eric plays the flamboyant Cam, while the more reserved Mitchell is played by for-real-duh-gay Jesse. That’s not fascinating. It’s acting. I guess I can be thankful that Babs didn’t try to shove the cast of “Glee” down my throat. That would have bumped the 10 turned 14 even higher.
Derek Jeter, thankfully, refused to answer Barbara’s probing questions about his romantic dalliances. She’s such a dirty old lady!
Now, much has been made about Barbara’s hard line tactics with the four main chick Kardashians. That’s right, four train wrecks for the price of one. Reuters reported of the segment, “Walters actually went there, telling Kim, ‘You don’t really act, you don’t sing, you don’t dance … you don’t have any — forgive me — any talent!’” Wow. She really went in deep. That was such a risky line of questioning. I wonder if anyone has ever pointed out that Barbara also neither acts, sings nor dances.
But the mostest fascinating of them all? Steve Jobs. Barbara said that he was intended to be her number one all along, but he crossed over the rainbow before she was able to score some face time. I don’t want to put words in the man’s now silent mouth, but that is one way of having to avoid intrepid questions like, “If you were a tree, what kind do you think you would be?” Too soon?
This week, Time Magazine released their annual proclamation of their “Person of the Year”. I didn’t think they could get any lazier than that 2006 gimmick, when they named You as their top pick. Remember? The magazine cover had a shitty reflective panel on the front so that you could gaze at a distorted version of yourself on the special cover! Aren’t you so important? Aren’t you just the most special little snowflake? Puhleese. It was like a participation trophy for grownups. No, this year Time proved once more that they could just dial it in when they crowned Protesters as their whatever in the hell it is that they are calling it now. Protesters? I doth protest! They didn’t even whittle it down to a type of protestor. I protest about crap all. the. damn. time. Hot Tub protests by walking mad to his room and then slamming the door. If he isn’t sure that the message was received, he’ll open the door and slam it again, extra hard, for good measure. Store clerks at Toys-R-Us protest with a colossal eye-roll if you ask them anything other than where they get their crypto-gel done. Don’t we all protest? About work, other people, The Man, our health, the weather, school, our kids? Without being specific about the type of protestor, we all just got Person of the Year again. That means that everybody is special, which to those of us who don’t live in a jar of glitter know means that no one is special. Congratulations, Time just made us all blah. Again. Awesome!
Really, this whole matter of an end of the year naming of people to lists of fascination is really just a roll call for the main players in the country’s own News of the Weird. These aren’t necessarily people who are truly intriguing or have accomplished much of anything besides distracting the collective from the sputtering economy, expanding health problems, abductions, child murders, foreclosures, overweight kids, neighborhood meth labs, garden variety jihads, and personal responsibility. To that end, I am aghast that, by far, the most fascinating rose of all was not plucked for the Top of the Everything list:
Sixteen-year-old child bride Courtney Stodden is like something created in the basement of Perez Hilton while tweaking out on a meth-mushroom bender with a side of speed-ball and Lindsay Lohan assisting. She is so fantastically awful and over-done that I can not turn away! And her fifty one-year-old geezer husband gives me some serious heebie-jeebies. I have yet to dedicate a post to Mrs. Hutchison, because I just don’t think that I can summon the right words to capture all of my feelings. You understand, don’t you? I vow, though, to spend a chunk of 2012 bringing her story of courage and love to the people so that next year, Courtney will take her rightful spot in Barbara’s hot seat.
Hot damn, Charlotte Ann! 