you're gonna live forever

know how you can say a word over and over and over and over again until it doesn't really make sense anymore? for example, if i were to say bologna a hundred times ... like this ...

bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna bologna

... it loses all of it's meaning. as if "bologna" had a lot of it in the first place. there used to be a store in erie called "loblaws" that got a lot of ridicule among students. there's a word you don't even have to say in order to render it meaningless. here's another: celebrity.

i fear that our nation's definition of celebrity is in grave danger and a commercial i saw for "skating with celebrities" drove it home. did you know that dave coulier is a celebrity? i had no idea full house was still so popular. maybe i 'm wrong. maybe any lesson you can learn from a show co-written or produced by bob saget is timeless ... and maybe every former child star/anorexic crack addict is worthy of our praise and respect whether or not she's in rehab. the truth is dave can make funny voices and the twins now have long hair and high credit limits.

we all know about our 15-minute fame allotment, but that hasn't been accurate since our society became one in which portion sizes became four times larger than what's healthy and we multi-tasked ourselves into perpetual states of ADHD. despite our attention spans, our 15 minutes have somehow grown exponentially into weeks and months. did you know that a goldfish's memory is only as long as its trip around the bowl?

i said, "goldfish." still with me?

thanks in part to reality TV, we have an ocean brimming with infinite "star" potential. since it doesn't take much to make a star anymore, there are few requirements for longevity. to get the most out of your stint as sand in the public eye, all you have to do is pick a fight, take off your clothes, get engaged, fail miserably, or eat something totally disgusting on camera. if watchers are still talking about you a month later, which they will if your spectacle reappears sporadically in People and on Inside Edition, which it will b/c they love to remind us of stuff we should have forgotten months ago (or shouldn't have known in the first place), you'll be invited to participate in a reunion or "best of" show - thereby hurtled closer to the walk of fame for no reason other than your adventure in idiocy didn't wind up at the level of mark burnett's feet.

don't get me wrong. i love reality TV. besides Days of our Lives (zack didn't have to die! he was just a kid! stupid show.) it's really all i watch and all my perpetually short-term memory can handle. just ask denise ... if it's not a movie, i can't devote more than about 80 minutes to it.

anyway! it's fluff and i doubt (hope?) it was ever intended to produce any kind of quality star power ... not that it has. what it has produced is a new segment of popular americans ... that's fine. please, tho ... let's not call everyone a celebrity. a celebrity should be someone of note, a hero, and award winner who is for example theatrical, philosophical, musical; it's someone who's contirubed something (preferably positive) to the world. not trista, dave coulier, or omarosa. they're just goofballs ... regardless of how well they dance.