12:56 am - FRI 4/04/03
Did Someone Say Something About A War?

Watching NBC, you can't avoid seeing promos for the new "reality show" America's Most Talented Kid.

There are any number of "reality shows" I find stupid and/or appalling in some fashion, but this show pushes one of my particular "buttons": I don't like performing kids.

I never have. I don't find them entertaining; Actually, I think it's creepy when a 10 year old kid belts out a show tune like some 40 year old Vegas headliner. It just seems weird and wrong to me.

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I'm not really an Avril Lavigne fan--I've heard the cd, and I think it's catchy, tho I'm about 30 years past the desired demographic--but when I saw her on a magazine cover awhile back (I think it was Teen People), I remember thinking, "This is what a teenage pop star should look like".

Looking at her picture, and having seen pictures of her before, I don't find myself looking at her, as a 41-year-old man, thinking "Boy, I'd like me some of that..." (And if you're a 41-year-old man and find yourself thinking that...well, I guess that's your own business, but you might consider seeking counseling...). She looks like what she is, a cute kid, and not a porno star.

(Britney Spears was in the store recently, btw. I missed her by about half an hour, but the report from the male portion of the staff was that she basically looked like any cute girl you might see at the store on any given day.)

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Reading a very enjoyable book, a collection of New Yorker essays by Anthony Lane called Nobody's Perfect.

If you are already familiar with Mr Lane, or you choose to read this book based on my recommendation, you will see the kind of writing I would aspire to, were I a writer (Basically, he writes just like I do, or just like I would, if I were smarter, funnier, and had seen thousands more movies and read thousands more books).

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Well, as events that don't really concern me tend to do, the war has receded into the background of my life. Something of some interest, but not nearly as important as my day-to-day misadventures here in Tinseltown.

In other words, people might be dying, but the real issue for me is "When the hell am I going to land a commercial gig?".

I've thought about this a lot, but failed to mention it in here because I'm uncomfortable admitting it; On an intellectual level, I feel the war is wrong, but if you take away the fear I have for my own safety--Being afraid this action will have the effect of making me feel less safe in the long run--I don't feel the wrongness of this war in my gut. I don't stay awake at night worrying about our troops, or the Iraquis, because basically--here it is, kids--I don't know them.

There. I said it--If it doesn't have to do with me personally, or with someone I care about (Which I guess is the same thing), I can't work up more than a dry, intellectual sense that something is wrong. I know it in my head, but it doesn't ever seem to work its way down to my heart.

But I feel guilty about it. Does that count for anything?

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