Ryan Seacrest, the host of America's Top 40 radio show, today implied that either Cameron Diaz or Jennifer Aniston is engaged to either John Mayer or Paul Sculfo - as 30 million teenagers hop on the Google to find out it's Diaz who's got the ring from Sculfo. How's that for free advertising?
So Jen's goanna have to wait for the real thing. But in terms of actual media coverage, for some reason Aniston & Mayer are the match made in publicist heaven. Since I can remember, there's nary been a supermarket checkout counter that's gone a day without a picture of Aniston. The past year, her mug has been accompanied by Mayer's name and perhaps a smaller shot of the two of them smooching at a pool somewhere.
At first I thought to myself, "I couldn't care less." But then I thought, "You know, maybe I'm not trying hard enough." You know what I mean? I could try harder to care less. I'm not sure I'm applying my ambivalence to it's fullest potential. Clue number one: the fact that I'm blogging about it right now means I probably could care less. I care about it to the same extent that I care about other things in the mental environment that annoy me. I could just ignore it, like lots of guys my age. But I'm a noticer. It's kind of what I do.
So the question I am wrestling with, is it possible for me to notice things without actually caring about them? Or is that like stubbing your toe and choosing not to acknowledge the sharp pain shooting up your body? Could you just say, "Oh, there's a utterly fake and cheesy exploitation of the American attention span - filling our heads full of useless information," and then just move on?
It would probably mean divorcing myself from the emotion of resentment that generally follows such noticing - resenting the countless publicity people and paparazzi that shove these semi-fake stories about real people in our faces at every single opportunity. Then it would mean divorcing myself of the frustration that I feel that I let my eyes rest on such drivel and read it. It would mean stopping myself from pondering the lives of those people who actually LIVE for these stories and wondering how they fail to see what life is actually all about. It would mean I would have to stop myself from feeling disgust for my own culture. On the plus side, I would also mean I don't go to the next logical step which is to conclude that clearly I'm an elitist and that I should be ashamed of myself. Sigh.
I don't think I can care less. Damn it.
Damn you, Jennifer Aniston and John Maher. Damn you to the fiery depths of hell.
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