True Celebrity

Something really horrible happened last night. We’re talking really really wrong and horrible. Like up there with the worst things that have ever happened ever. I was watching the end of Jonathan Ross and Lady Gaga was on. No, wait, that isn’t it, despite her wearing a phone on her head and singing a song that sounded like several cats were stuck inside a dustbin. No, what happened was worse. She said something during her interview that I fully agreed with. I shall leave a little pause here for you all to decide whether you should ever read or see anything I ever do ever again…….

……Thanks for sticking with me, though I fully understand if you’ve left. I’ll be honest, as I typed it, I retched a little and contemplated suicide. What she said was that she dresses like she should be sectioned and creates her image because she thinks that the true idea of celebrity has died with current stars revealing all in magazines and having their private lives spread all over the public eye like celeb eye paste (I’m paraphrasing there. Well I say paraphrasing, but I think my words are better). By her being this image, this ‘icon’ (her words, not mine) she creates a pop star image that hasn’t been around since Michael Jackson, Prince, Madonna in her early days etc. At first I laughed a bit, mostly because the word icon sounds like the fraudulent part of Apple, but also because how can anyone wearing a stupid phone on her head hold any gravitas with what she says? It wasn’t even a new phone, it was an old one like Tom Craine has that looks all cool and retro but really hurts your fingers to dial. But then I had an epiphany (bless you) and totally realised she was right.

My idea of a proper celebrity is Gene Kelly in Singin’ In the Rain. There he is, a talented man who has that classic celeb status of being someone the public look up to and respect. And, I’ll say it again, he has talent. Talent. You read that word. Talent. There it is again. In that film the untalented woman is found out and has her career ruined, while those who can sing and dance are revered, and then don’t have pictures of them in Heat with sweaty groins or whatever else to make them exactly like all us publics do, with our sweaty groins. That is what celebrity should be. We shouldn’t care about their private lives, we should just revere in their talent and why we’ve decided to give them celebrity status in the first place. I suppose the problem with this however is all those talentless twats we’ve allowed to become famous that unless we show pictures of them with no make up on, falling over without any pants, then they have nothing else to show (pun intended) for their fame.

So I’ve decided that if I ever get famous, no one will ever get to know anything about me ever. I will remain mostly anonymous and dress up as a giant question mark or other enigmatic clothes, and only walk in shadowed places, using a pseudonym instead of my real name. Then people will revere me not for my philanderings with ladies, or my drunk driving. No those will be swept under the rug, and the papers will only speak of me when I do something well good. Oh god, I’ve just realised. Essentially I’d be Lady Gaga. Excuse me while I go back to contemplating suicide.

Last night I gigged to the Mayor’s of Basingstoke and Havant. I did use the joke that I presumed they would misbehave as when it became evening they turn into real ‘Night Mayors’. I’d just like to apologise for this. To them, to you, to the person that invented language. Or actually I shouldn’t apologise at all. I should just sing a song called ‘Appollo Geez’ while dressed as a lampshade. That my friends, is celebrity.