Great Works Paper: Stage Door

    Historical contextualization and Critical Analysis:
      “Stage Door” is an entertaining, thought-provoking play, which takes place in New York during the 1930’s. In it the women struggle with financial issues, home situations, and giving up their ideals in order to cope with reality. Through four different characters within the play, we see how some people would have dealt with the economic instabilities surrounding them.
      One of the characters, Kaye, copes poorly with her situation. She is one of the newest girls in the apartment with a mysterious past. When her story unfolds, we learn that she had an abusive husband, left home, and was really struggling to find work and money. By intermission, she sees no escape for her predicament after losing yet another job and not being able to pay the rent. She winds up putting a gun to her head, causing the audience to take a much more serious attitude in looking at the problems presented. Kaye felt she had no way out, so she committed suicide.
      Another girl takes a less dramatic way out of her situation, but still gives up her ideal to achieve financial security. Ann seems like an elitist snob for most of the play until we discover her own story. When her mom comes to visit, it is clear Ann does not receive all of her financial support from her parents. Uncovering her dress coat, we learn Ann has become essentially a prostitute to a big business man on Broadway. Although he has a family, and she would most likely rather be doing some alternative work, she is forced to find money in a less-than-respectable way. Here we see someone who has a dream but is willing to achieve it through less desirable means.
      One of the men in the play is also an example of someone who achieves a financial dream by lowering his standards. Billy is a budding playwright hoping to write the stories he wants to write. He talks idealistically about his plays and ideas dreaming to better the world by revealing social hypocrisies. Terry finds this admirable and begins helping him write a play expecting she will be the star of the play when it hits the stage. Though both are excited when a director chooses to perform his play, Billy explains to Terry that she will not be chosen as the lead role. Pat agrees to let a movie star play the part. Later, he even moves to Hollywood to write sappy love stories for the movie screen. Terry of course is very disappointed. Again we see the kinds of sacrifices some people have to make while in difficult situations. In this play, they have to give up much of their ideals and accept something mediocre simply in order to gain more financial security.
       Though most have to abandon some ideals, Terry is able to maintain hers and find security. Throughout the play it seems that opportunity after opportunity presents itself and Terry always rejects it. She cannot find good enough reasons to discard her own ideals and standards. At the end of the play, she is finally offered a star role and becomes the love interest to a wealthy Hollywood producer gone Broadway director. She is one of the only characters to actually obtain economic success while holding onto her high ideas perhaps showing us that after struggle and endurance come the blessings.

The Great Depression certainly had an immense impact on people during the 1930’s. This play reveals some of the hardships people could have and probably did go through during this time. It is interesting to observe the different ways people coped with the trials and also inspiring to see how Terry never lost sight of her goals. 
     Personal Reflection:
     I enjoyed the play overall. I liked how the play was usually witty and quick, but there were definite serious sides to it as well. I was shocked that one of the characters committed suicide, and it made me think a little more critically about the situations presented here. Though it was hard to keep track of all the characters in the play, I thought they had great personalities. Some of them, like the Mary Bennet-esque character, were outright hilarious.
     I did not like, however, the colors of the makeup and set. The directors apparently wanted to make the play appear to be in black-and-white like films from that time. I thought it made people look blue, gray, and glittery. It is an interesting idea, but it did not convince me. Much of the makeup and hair were not quite the colors they should have been, and I thought it was more annoying than effective. On the whole, though, I thought the play was well done and gave me quite a bit to think about.

3 of NPR's 100 Songs

NPR did a special The 100 most important American musical works of the 20th century
I chose to listen to "Kind of Blue, " "Tapestry," and "Rapper's Delight." The original songs are posted in my music playlist if you want to listen to them.

Kind of Blue:

    I have not listened to a lot of Miles Davis, but I wanted to know why this album was so important. The NPR clip talked about trends in jazz music at the time this album was recorded. Bepob was fast, had complex chords, and lots of instrumentation. In this CD, Miles Davis strips the instrumentation, the harmonies, the pre-made melodies, and the chord structures right out of the songs. I was really impressed to hear that none of these songs had actually been rehearsed before. It was completely improvisation with sketches of chords and possible scales.
I can see how this would be a reaction to the music at the time. Big bands seem really commercialized and contrived compared to the raw quality of Miles Davis’ band. The instrumentalists do not play melodies together that were already created and rehearsed. They each take solos and explore the kinds of melodies they can make. Apparently Davis even took out common chord patterns by simply playing in modes, which allows more freedom for the soloist.
We talked about this in class, but thinking about Davis’ style again reminds me of Jackson Pollock. We often talked about Pollock as being sensitive to line and the boundaries of the canvas even though his paintings look really random. Davis alsoseems to be careful about each note he plays and has a sensitivity to what the others are playing. Kind of Blue feels very free, but the instrumentalists still seem consciously restrained, aware of limitations, and do not want to “over do” the music.
I like how relaxed the album feels. Like the NPR clip mentioned, it is the kind of music you listen to when you are alone and in a contemplative mood. It feels poised and graceful, real and self-expressive; not contrived, complicated, polished, or commercialized. The rawness of the music and the intense focus on melody really appeal to me as well. Knowing a little about the context the music comes from makes Davis an inventive and creative genius of his time. He was stripping down the music as well as exploring the form. It’s a great album. 

Tapestry:

     This is one of my favorite albums of all time, so I had to hear what NPR said about it. I have heard Carole King’s songs for a while, but it was not until I got older that I realized how many radio hits were on one album. Almost all of the songs from Tapestry play on the radio and are very well known. Not too many albums have so many hit songs.
I liked how NPR talked about Carole King’s career before Tapestry, how she wrote songs for other people and made up demos for the song. She took some of that stripped-down feel from her demos and put it into her album. NPR also suggested that one of the most liked aspects of her album was the vulnerability she expresses. This is often a trait found in singer-songwriters since then. I kind of wondered about this statement. I have to think other singer-songwriters have also expressed vulnerability before her. Although maybe the others were simply not as famous as King. I guess she could have been one of the first famous singer-songwriters to make that a big part of their music, but I do not think she was one of the first ever to sing about insecurities and vulnerability.
    Like Miles Davis, King seems to contain a real refreshing rawness in her music. The instrumentation does not feel overdone, the solos add great melodies, and her own melodies are catchy but do not feel commercialized. Her voice even feels a little unpolished, weathered, like a real tangible person with a story to tell. I liked hearing that she would create songs while taking care of her three children, and that she was a normal, nice person; not obsessed with fame or money, just writing her music. I often got that feel from her music before, so it was nice to hear NPR validate those “vibes” I would get from her music. Even though her music is pop, it does not seem so concerned with selling the music. It feels more like the pure expression and creative hunches of an artist.

Rapper’s Delight:

    This was a fun song to listen to. I probably have not listened to the original fifteen-minute recording, but I have listened to enough of the song to know what it sounds like. My mom showed me this song when I was a little kid, and she told me it was kind of the beginning of rap. According to the NPR, that is kind of true. This was the first rap song to be commercialized. Apparently there were DJ’s and MC’s in New York who could rap and free style for hours, but they had not recorded and distributed their music. One of the problems was they did not know how to record it, where to start the rap and when to stop. The Sugarhill Gang kind of solved the puzzle and produced this CD, which gave all other rappers a template for their records. From that, commercial Hip Hop was able to grow and spread.
    Knowing this about the song, I can see why Hip Hop culture had some problems commercializing their music at the start. Even though “Rapper’s Delight” shortened hours of rapping, the kind of rapping found in New York clubs, it is still fifteen minutes long! The rhymes also just sound like a group of MC’s in a club getting on the stage and free-styling about the nice clothes and cars they have. There are not too many themes or connections between each of the rappers and no chorus either. It could literally go on forever, but they were the first to make it into a purchasable product and that made all the difference. One thing I wonder about after listening to NPR is if the song was doing much more than recording a rap record. It seems like any person who recorded their rhymes to sell on CDs would have achieved the same fame and recognition as the Sugarhill Gang. It sounds like they simply captured what was already happening and packaged it, and that they were not so much doing anything innovative or special with that type of music. If that is the case, it is kind of amazing it has remained such a popular song, that people have not criticized it so much for not being a more true artistic expression. I think the main point of the song is fun. The guys who made it were not trying to express much else, and I think it still carries that appeal.

Bob Dylan's Unknown Beatles-Influenced Song

 In 1964, the Beatles and Bob Dylan met. At this point, they were both well-known and liked but still budding artists. Inspired by the meeting, they went their ways with some new ideas in mind. The Beatles started writing more thoughtful lyrics, and Bob Dylan started playing around with the electric guitar. For my project, I decided to rewrite Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" as if he were negatively effected by the visit. In other words, the song became more poppy, more shallow like the Beatles' songs at the time. Here was my write-up on the project:


           Bob Dylan was (and is) a folk style singer-songwriter most famous for his songs from the 1960’s. He was originally very interested in Woody Guthrie’s music and decided he would become a Guthrie disciple. During the 1960’s, he was an icon for the protests against war and inequality. His lyrics were many times politically charged, thought-provoking, and often contained some ambiguity to allow different interpretations. Bob Dylan had a real honest, thoughtful, and natural way of writing lyrics. Often, they felt stream-of-consciousness but I also heard he would quote classic works and keywords of literature very intentionally. He sang about events happening at the time, and made them meaningful, often in contrast to the rock music one hears from the same period. According to our class model on folk music, Bob Dylan was an alternative to the commercialized folk musicians and the rigid purists of the day.  He originally was more of a purist playing acoustic guitar and harmonica, as well as singing in a rough unpolished voice. However, he became more experimental in his music, even “plugging in” in 1965 which upset many of the purists, but it allowed for many other possible sounds and songs. He continued writing for the next 45 years.

I also melded the Beatles with Bob Dylan in my project, and essentially looked at the lyrics from their earlier years. In 1964, they had written “Love Me Do,” “From Me to You,” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” At this point, the Beatles were the new exciting young rockers from England. They brought a lot of energy to their performances, but their lyrics were essentially about love and girls without many new insights or twists. Girls loved them especially because they were a bit rebellious, charismatic, and genuinely likeable. Their career went a completely different route, however, soon after when they really began experimenting with different sounds, instruments, styles, and lyrics.

Dylan and the Beatles have had a huge impact on our society especially within music. I think folk music is often used today to protest or criticize society. Usually folk music is not the most popular, but it is almost seen as more intellectual with original and thoughtful lyrics. The Beatles also presented so many different styles of music, melodies, and harmonies that often get quoted in music today. They had a huge influence on popular culture. People followed their lives, saw their movies, and wanted to be like them. They were probably some of the first real big international rock stars.

The song I picked was “Blowin’ in the Wind,” which was a song about peace, love, politics, the war, and the Civil Rights Movement all rolled into one. The song made Bob Dylan popular among the anti-war scene. It is a really good example of a political song by Bob Dylan. Like his idol Woody Guthrie, Dylan also criticized government and American ideals through music. It was definitely a song anti-war activists could rally around. Right after it first came out, other artists started doing their own renditions of it. Peter, Paul and Mary for example, made their own version, but it feels much sweeter with full, lush harmonies. It kind of loses the original coarse or raw quality Dylan himself performed. “Blowin’ in the Wind” seems to be used today kind of as a historical document of the political unrest and flower child protestors from the 1960’s.

I actually did gain a better appreciation for Bob Dylan. I already liked him as an authentic musician (although I found out he changed his name, but I guess it was out of wanting to be his own person rather than following the name given him by his parents) and admired his ability for writing lyrics. However, when I was carefully studying his lyrics and the lyrics of the Beatles, it became so obvious how much more intriguing and thoughtful Dylan’s are. Although it is unfortunate I completely forgot the words halfway through my little performance (just a bit embarrassing), it took me a while to figure out how to blend this song with Beatles’ lyrics in a clever and hopefully funny way. I enjoyed taking a closer look at this song and its lyrics. I understand more about its politic messages and social criticism.

Lyrics

How many roads must a man walk down

before he can hold your hand?

How many seas must the white dove sail

before she loves you....yeah, yeah, yeah?

How many times must the cannonballs fly

before you'll let me be your man?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,

the answer is blowin' in the wind.

How many years must a mountain exist

before I can buy you a diamond ring?

How many years must some people exist

before they've got that something?

How many times must a man turn his head

to say you can't buy lovc with money?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,

the answer is blowin' in the wind.

Bob Dylan's Voice

 So, I used to not like Bob Dylan's voice when I was a little kid. I know my mom still can't stand it when his singing sounds more like talking really loudly into the microphone, like he's not exactly sure how to hit all the notes right. I remember a girl in high school who who was going to sing in a recital and to help calm herself down she said, "Well, if Bob Dylan could do it, I guess I can too." She wasn't the best singer, but she did okay, and she was right. She pretty much sounded just as good as Bob Dylan.

After all the singing Bob Dylan's done, you'd think he'd "get better" at singing. You also have to think that he must have wanted to sound that way, it was a stylistic choice. Instead of having that clear finished tone, he wanted to maintain a rough, unpolished quality. His untrained voice does contain a sense of originality and genuineness in his songs. It's not perfect, not so commercial. Still I sometimes totter back and forth between enjoying his singing style and then getting really annoyed with it, but there are a lot of people who have picked up on that unpolished, authentic sound that I do like listening to. Examples:

David Gray

Mason Jennings

Josh Ritter

Gillian Welch

Ryan Adams

Joshua James

Donavon Frankenreiter

None of these people sound exactly like Bob Dylan, but you can definitely hear the more rough quality of their voices and even small twang-ish ways of saying the words like it's coming straight out of Dylan's pronunciation guidebook. Even though Bobby doesn't sing with a pleasant traditional-sounding quality, he definitely adds a kind of organic, soul-expressing earnestness to the music. He has certainly influenced the singing style of later folk singers and the new folk music that is still being produced. The new singers don't imitate him exactly, but it does seem like they are looking back to Dylan as the standard from which they can build their own styles.

Maynard Dixon: The Lonesome Journey

Maynard Dixon lived during an interesting time in America’s history. Born ten years after the Civil War ended, he saw the country’s identity shifting from rural to urban. He lived through both World Wars and the Great Depression always feeling a discontentment with the corruption and dishonesty of city life. In the art world, modernist views and abstract representations were gaining popularity, and Maynard felt a pull from both the realistic honesty of past traditions and the new interesting styles of the present. This personal conflict was shown in a letter to Millard Sheets in 1949 when he wrote, "Long ago—about 1915, when 'modern art' first 'hit the USA'—I had to make a hard decision.   Should I go along with the 'new movement' [Modernism] adopt a novel and fashionable point of view, get my ideas 'imported'—or should I look at my world with more candid eyes, be plainly honest with myself and so achieve something perhaps not startling but at least sincere" (“Desert”, 251). Evidently from his work, he incorporated both realist and modern qualities, though he certainly wanted to portray the West honestly. Dixon’s “Lonesome Journey” shows an American nostalgic reaction to modern ideas through subject matter and its interesting mix of modern and realist compositional elements.

    Unlike urban modern paintings at the time, the subject matter of “Lonesome Journey” is focused on the grandeur of the American West. The entire canvas is filled with red rock, sand, and sage brush. Nature is the powerful and awe-inspiring subject of the painting, not sky-scrapers, man’s creations, or urban social problems. This painting could not be more removed from the happenings within the nearest city. Even though it was painted in 1946, a time when cars and even airplanes were common, the man is in a horse-drawn buggy completely dwarfed by the red-orange cliffs and dark contrasting shadows. As Donald Hagerty wrote, “From experience, Dixon knew the frontier had faded and that rapid urbanization and industrial progress offered distressing implications for the future. But…his paintings stand for the radiance of the West’s natural world, the dignity of creation, and the elemental infinite things” (“Art”, 11). Dixon could have been more concerned with representing the modern progression of his time, but he instead chose in this painting, as in so many of his other pieces, to focus on nature.

    The subject matter also shows an American nostalgic longing to connect with the land. Though the viewer is kept from seeing the greater stretch of the landscape, the man seems to be completely alone in this desert wilderness. No other person is in view, and there seems to be no other movement by person, animal, or wind. This man is able to observe his natural surroundings in silence. Even the carriage allows him to see a great deal of the land in a very personal way. In contrast, a car or train would create physical boundaries between the passenger and the outside. The fast speed would also cause the nature-observer to miss the landscape’s simple details and formations, but a carriage travels on the land at a slower speed. Also, by seeing the man juxtaposed with the canyon wall, we are reminded of man’s feebleness compared to nature’s timeless power. With this reminder, we see ourselves in the painting. Next to those rocks, we look that small. The painting seems to promise to us a desired silence found in nature, an ability to forget about the cares of the modern world and again return to something more real. After moving away from a rural culture, the appeal to Americans of going back to the Old Frontier is captured in “Lonesome Journey.”

    The compositional elements of the painting show a mixture of modern and realist influences. Modernism and abstract art were developing within the cities during this time, and Dixon incorporated some of these qualities in his own style. A few modern qualities in “Lonesome Journey” can be seen in the over-simplification of the cliff walls. The details of the cliff face on the left half of the painting are sparse. One could count the number of dark lines painted. The shadows of these lines are also quite simple. The perfectly dark shades seem to be the result of a very dramatic sun. The somewhat geometric blocks of color also border on abstract. The shadows on both the left and the right are rather angular, the cliff face is a massive block of fiery orange, and the sage brush look more like dots of color rather than actual plants. Especially in contrast to earlier realist paintings, this painting looks much more abstract. 

However, though there are these modern qualities within the painting, the realistic elements are also important and help create that nostalgic feeling. The viewer is easily able to recognize the red and purple blocks as cliffs and cliff shadows in a desert scene. Though the person and horse look somewhat cartoonish, they are real enough for us to understand what the figures actually are. The lines of the cliffs do not look contorted or twisted. They look like they follow the natural undulations of weathered rock. The colors are bright and vibrant, but rocks with similar colors are found in areas like Southern Utah. The sage brush blues and greens also look natural. The lighting is a bit dramatic, but we know where the sun is actually located. The lighting is not unnatural, and the shadows seem to be natural consequences to the afternoon light coming from the upper-left side of the painting. Dixon captures the sandstone texture of the cliff face with visible brushstrokes in lighter yellow colors. It looks rough but not jagged. In short, the painting has abstract qualities, but the subject does not look abstract. “Lonesome Journey” portrays a more simplified version of an actual American desert landscape, which allows the American viewer to identify with the recognizable scene. Because the painting looks like a part of the American West, we are able to sympathize with the man in the buggy. We understand what it feels like to be enclosed within those red walls.  

In conclusion, “Lonesome Journey” is a great example of how Dixon’s subject matter and mixture of modern and realist qualities create a sense of nostalgia within the American viewer. Though our culture has grown more and more urban, there still remains a longing to return back to a simpler and truer way of living by connecting with the land. “Lonesome Journey” shows a single man’s personal moment in time as he continues towards an unknown shadowy future. Though Dixon was not sure about America’s future, he certainly captured an important part of America’s past, the West.  According to Hagerty, “Maynard Dixon was the American West.  He was sort of the embodiment of what we think about, all the good things about the American West, the great landscapes, the far horizon, the steady hand on the helm so to speak.  I think that was Maynard Dixon” (website). Instead of following the popularity of abstract modernism, Dixon reacted against it and chose to return to his American roots in order to find something more fulfilling.

    

Sargent's Watercolors

John Singer Sargent was a master of portraits. You can't help but look at these paintings and be impressed by their beauty, elegance, and feminine confidence. He paints them all in fashionable, delicate dresses, usually looking straight at us firm and unafraid.

 

    Sargent knew his audience, knew what his subjects wanted, and he was very good at giving it to them. No doubt he made people look better on canvas than they did in real life (he did need a salary), and though he may be criticized for being influenced too much by his patrons and subjects, we are often exposed to mainly these portraits. We usually are not so familiar with his non-portrait paintings that don't really seem to be painted for other people, especially the works created towards the end of his life. He created many beautiful watercolors with varying subjects including members of his family and friends, scenes of Venice, and different landscapes from around the world.

It is incredible to see the way he understands light and texture. The painting on the left convincingly shows rays of sunlight reflecting off of the ripples and the colorful stones at the bottom of this shallow pool. I like how the subject is very simple and something you can easily find in nature, but he makes it into an interesting scene.

  These paintings have a much different feel to them than his portraits. They seem less pressured to produce polished paintings interested in making something look more attractive, and more content to sit and observe the natural beauty of the surroundings. They have almost an impressionistic feel, seem to capture small moments from daily scenes that entice one to stop and admire and ponder, though his style is more realistic than impressionistic.

    Like most artists and people, Sargent had various sides to himself and his art. He is known for painting these rich and glamorous people, but he was also interested in painting nature and scenes from more everyday experiences. I'm sure most people like me are not so aware of his watercolors, but he definitely understood the medium and was obviously very talented in it. It is pretty impressive he was able to paint subjects that are so different from one another and in such different styles.

John Singer Sargent is just that good.

The YouTube Dream

    New videos were displayed on the familiar YouTube homepage: “Jude Law for Internet for Peace,” “Ohio State Mascot Brutus Buckeye Attacked,” “Gaga for Tight Booty Workout,” and “OK Go – White Knuckles – Official Video.” The videos represented just about every possible interest a viewer could have. With a click on the “search” box, two teenage girls giggled at Will Ferrell’s impression of George Bush, watched the trailer for the new Harry Potter movie, glanced at a homemade video of a cat dancing to “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”, and commented on how cute those clips were from cousin John’s fifth birthday party. It was obviously a little too much time on the computer, as the mom of the house pleaded with her daughter to “do something more productive.” The mom, however, grudgingly gave permission to watch just one more video (anything to coax her off of that computer and, most likely, onto her iPod or cell phone). Immediately, they found the catchy Justin Beiber music video, “Baby ft. Ludacris”.

    This was, to say the least, a well-watched video. Twenty minutes before, it had reported 331, 097, 742 views. Now there were 72, 020 more. Justin Beiber was a YouTube hit, a baby face with the voice of a pop angel. Admittedly, it was a bit girly, but the way he could sing those melismas so clearly without the aid of electronic adjustments made him even more impressive. At least, that’s what Usher thought. The girls loved the way Justin’s hair flipped perfectly up the side of his face. It reminded them of High School Musical’s Zac Efron, but Justin Beiber was only sixteen years old and had only become a celebrity the year before. In fact, next to this blue-tinted video icon of Justin dancing in a low-lit bowling alley was another video entitled “How Justin Beiber Was Discovered,” an interview posted by CBS. The girls decided to watch this instead; they couldn’t remember why Justin Beiber was famous.

    After watching the video, a duration of two minutes and thirty-eight seconds, fame seemed more attainable than ever. Justin Beiber came from an obscure town in Canada without too many luxuries, just a couple of musical instruments and posters of his music idols. He was interested in pop music from a young age, and his single mom must have encouraged him every single day to practice singing and believe in his dreams. He never thought he would be famous. He simply liked to sing for his own entertainment. He was exactly like any other kid who liked to pick up a microphone and pretend he was the star of a music video. However, unlike any other kid, Justin Beiber’s internet videos produced, practically overnight, a fan club and a manager who felt he had some talent. Soon after, the pop kings signed him to a label, and he became a nation-wide teenage sensation selling out concerts and raising the blood pressure of every thirteen-year-old girl who screamed when he scooped up to those high pristine notes on the loudspeakers of the 'R & B' stage. Justin Beiber was a real Cinderella story to all those dreamers wishing to spring from lowly troubles into rich, famous glory. He bypassed the problems of mortgage and unemployment at the age of sixteen. He probably even had a private jet by now.

    By the time the girls finished talking about his story, wondering what it would be like to wake up famous, the mom herself had some business to attend. Clearing out the girls, she sat down in front of the glowing computer screen and quickly noticed another video at the right bottom corner. It showed a man in his mid-twenties, wearing an old blue t-shirt and a dark baseball cap, sitting on a brown sofa most likely in his living room. The video was probably recorded with the built-in camera found on his computer and was entitled “Why It Sucks To Be Famous.” It was not very popular, as it had only been watched 15 times, but it intrigued the mom, and she clicked on the icon of this unmistakably attractive male. The movie didn't waste any time. The man started talking a mere millisecond after the play button was pressed.

    “I don’t know why everyone's so obsessed with being famous,” he ranted, confused, as if someone had just told him he needed to try out for the sixteenth season of “The Bachelor” after breaking up with his long-time girlfriend. He’s obviously jealous he isn’t famous, thought the mom. He’s not that good of a performer, either. I can’t even see his eyes beneath that goofy hat.

    “We see tabloids at the super market about what Brad Pitt’s doing and where he’s going to adopt his next kid from, Miley Cyrus posing half-naked on the front of Vogue at the age of sixteen, all the weird results from Oprah’s latest diet, TV shows about problems of spoiled stars, their weddings, why they got divorced, and what happened to their kids after they split, Mary-Kate’s latest drug rehab and Lindsey locked up in New York City, the lives of celebrities. It sounds cool, right? Can't get enough of it.

    “Well, you know what, I'm sick of reading about famous people. Why do we care? Okay, I admit, I did watch those stupid movies when they were kids. You know, but when they were kids, they were different -- the Olsen twins in “Full House,” Lohan in “The Parent Trap,” even Michael Jackson in “The Jackson 5.” They had talent, and they were innocent, but something changed. They got older, they got richer, they got more fans, they were in more movies, had more concerts, sold more merchandise, got more money, got more friends, got more greedy, found drugs, found guys, found girls, compromised, complained, partied, lost control, and all the sudden, they weren't that innocent anymore. They had big problems, big like their big names, and we just ate it all up, just made them get even bigger.

    “That's what being famous does to you. It makes you stupid. It makes you scared to stay inside because people will forget about you. It makes you scared to go outside because people won't leave you alone. It means you're always following someone else's schedule. It means you start thinking you're something, something bigger than everybody else, bigger than the world. It means you worry about keeping up your image, whatever that is, instead of worrying about your actual self. Being famous isn't an improvement. It's a joke.

    “I know all of you on the other side of this computer screen would all like to get your 15 minutes of fame. Everyone knows the YouTube dream comes true every once in a while when the stars align and the Red Sox beat the Yankees, and I can't tell you not to keep dreaming or whatever, but just so you know, if you keep making those videos and keep posting them on YouTube and keep getting your hopes up and all that, you just might get what you want. Yeah, you just might end up someday with your name splattered across all those real classy magazines at the nearest gas station. Dreams come true. It happens, right?”

    Then the little box on the screen went black. That was the end? It was kind of unexpected, and not very well-done. The mom looked around to see if the girls had heard. They hadn’t. They were upstairs listening to pop songs on the radio. “Good,” she breathed. People could put up just about anything they wanted on the internet.