Frosty is Legendary

Ok, if this isn’t the most awesome thing you see all day then that means either a) you are having a really awesome day or b) you are Neil Patrick Harris. This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that everything, and I mean everything, is made better by the inclusion of Neil Patrick Harris.

Also, congrats to long time blog fave and vague acquaintance Neko Case on her two Grammy nominations today. Middle Cyclone was a killer album and she deserved the recognition for it. She gets added to a surprisingly decent sized list of people I’ve met who have gone on to some actual fame. Ok, not cover of US Weekly fame but at least famous enough to be nominated for shiny award statues.

I’m still following the Tiger Woods story if only to see what other reality stars are caught up in the mix. Oh what I would give for a way to get Tila Tequila involved in this. It would be the ultimate connection between my love of sports and my love of really bad reality shows. Anyway, the focus now is on the prenup agreement (see, always listen to Kanye) and what additional money may be headed Elin’s way. Apparently cheating sets up some sort of incentive bonus structure where simply not getting divorced will earn her tens of millions of dollars. So at this point she is being paid to be an actress, which actually ties to a point that I wanted to make.

Again people are still raising this issue as to whether this should be news or is it a private matter. I still point to the fact that Tiger is a billion dollar brand for being a man who can hit a small ball better than other people. Hitting a small ball does not equate to a billion dollars of income. That money is the cost of fame for the loss of privacy. Here is my example.

The cast of Friends each received roughly a million dollars an episode at one point. 6 friends times 25 episodes gives us $150 million dollars to do a job that isn’t technically that difficult. Yes, acting is challenging I know but I bet you could walk down the street in LA and find six other attractive people who would do the show for a thousand dollars a week and would not get incredibly fat over the course of a season like Matthew Perry. So here is my question, if I told you I was going to replace the cast of Friends with random actors who would work for a grand a week what would you contribute to the cause to keep the original cast?

At its peak, Friends averaged 25 million viewers a week. Every single one of those would need to donate $600 to keep the cast members on the air. The math just doesn’t add up. You can’t justify what you are paying the actors for what they are versus a cheaper equivalent. So what are you paying them for?

You’re paying them to deal with being famous. You are paying Matthew Perry to deal with the fact that pricks like me are going to spend a decade cracking jokes about him getting fat and having an issue with prescription meds. You are paying Courtney Cox to accept the fact that for some reason people will care about what clothes she is wearing to the mall. This fame and attention is all tied to the show. Since Friends has gone off the air have you seen any tabloid articles on Lisa Kudrow? Yes, Jennifer Aniston gets media play still but that is due to her former marriage to Brad Pitt. She is still caught up in Brad’s price of fame, made even worse because she isn’t getting anything for it.

When you become a celebrity you lose your privacy. It is part of the deal. That is what you are being paid for. I’m not saying that it is fair or even ethical but those are the rules of the game and you have to learn to live by them.

Man on the Moon (if you believe)

When I was a little kid and just starting to understand football I would watch The Neil Armstrong show every Sunday morning on channel 2 in Chicago. I recall being extremely confused as to why the first man on the moon would go on to be the head coach of the Chicago Bears. As a seven year old I could not quite understand how one went from astronaut to football coach but I found it to be rather cool. As an adult I realize that they were two different people but having lived through both the Dave Wandstadt and the Dick Jauron eras sometimes I feel that I would prefer an astronaut.

My point, and I do have one, is that Neil Armstrong may be the most forgotten historical figure in history and he is still alive. Think about it; he is the first man to walk on the moon and I have no image of him in my mind other than a few pictures of him from the Apollo project. That might just be because I am a NASA geek. Most people probably cannot pull up a mental image of him at all.

Isn’t that bizarre? Today is Columbus Day when a portion of the country gets a three day weekend to commemorate the discovery of the New World, which came as a great surprise to the people who had been living there for thousands of years. But every single person knows who Columbus is and can recall the pictures from the textbooks and name his three ships. Even the pioneers of flight are well remembered. The Wright Brothers, Lindbergh, Earhart, all of them comprise our historic landscape and are still held up as excellent, barrier breaking figures. Heck, I can even discuss the Montgolfier Brothers who were the first to fly in a hot air balloon (partly because they are the answer to a trivia question but mainly because they appear in a Monty Python sketch (Episode 40: The Golden Age of Ballooning)).

Neil Armstrong may be one of the greatest enigmas of history. Here is someone who did something that no one else in human history had ever done. He stood on the moon and looked down at the Earth. It is an accomplishment that will be mentioned in history books for as long as there are history books. But with all of that fame, all of that acclaim, what does he do? He goes on to become a college professor and spends some time working on his farm. He has remained the perfect, clean cut Eagle Scout that led him to be chosen by the space program. No ego, no desire for fame, just a humble worker. It seems stunning in a world where being on a season of the Real World can provide you with a media career.

Fame is a strange thing. What most people don’t acknowledge is that it is so fleeting that it is rather meaningless. In three years you will mention Jon and Kate and go “who” in the same way that we mention that girl who was stuck in the well. You can be the center of attention and still be forgotten. But some fame, even unwanted fame, will last forever. You’ll always hear about Lindbergh and Armstrong. I just find it fascinating that the one person among us who will be known for the rest of time could walk past me and I wouldn’t recognize him whereas Paris Hilton would be mobbed by onlookers. Kind of sad, I think.