Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

Absolutely Unbelievable

So I'm getting ready to catch a little Monday Night Football last night on the local ABC affliate, hoping that the rabbit ear reception will be clear enough that I'll be able to make out the players from the static. My MO on such evenings is to tune in a bit earlier so as to make the necessary antenna adjustments so that the signal comes in with slightly more clarity that a George Bush policy speech on the environement. On this particular station, one of those trashy entertainment "news" programs is aired just prior to the game and usually I just hit the mute button and focus on getting the picture as clear as possible while avoiding brain damage or blindness. Unfortunately, due to my post weekend ride fatigue I wasn't quick enough with the remote and heard two words that grabbed my attention like a pit bull on a mail carrier's calf and wouldn't let go; "Butt Facial".

Yes folks, that's right. Apparently, ET or whatever was doing some sort of segment on what the stars in Hollywood do to "enhance" their appearance While I found out things about Tom Cruise that make it even more unlikely that I'll ever spend a dime of my hard earned money to see him "act", what really floored me was this idea that the stars take time to have other people actually do all the things to their hinders that they might have done to their faces so that they might look younger and, well, firmer. I swear to God that I'm not making this up. They call them butt facials and they cost on the order of $500 a piece and are done monthly for the average Hollywood star or starlet. Now, that adds up to around $6000 per year just to have someone message, cucumber wash, hot stone treat, exfoliate and whatnot the one part of your body you're most likely going to cover up and then sit on.

Perhaps you saw the Jesusland Map (http://members.shaw.ca/ianking/junk/usa.jpg) that was floating around the web just after the election. I remember taking a look at it and getting sort of depressed that some people thought that there was this great divide in the country based on whether one holds a position of faith that might influence who one votes for or not. I thought that we aren't that far apart as a country that we have to make fun of the "red states". I was wrong. We are that far apart. How many kids would a year of butt facials provide health coverage for? How can anyone actually think that spending that kind of money on your ass would do anything but make you seem like one? Are the values of most of the country different than those in the parts of the country that endorse and encourage the butt facial? Yes, absolutely. I can't imagine anyone in Ohio (Florida is another story) going to get a butt facial. In fact, I imagine that if I asked most Americans what they thought a butt facial was they wouldn't think of some cosmetic enhancement but rather they'd imagine some rather sophomoric prank one fraternity brother might play on some poor pledge. Even more stunning is that the upkeep of the average Hollywood personality is around $130,000. Now we know where Madonna's take from the Bush tax cut went.

The only problem I see with the map is that I'm pretty sure the Canadians don't want these guys either.

On a related note, George Will has once again put it so perfectly in his "Last Word" column over at Newsweek that to try to say it any other way would be to dilute the message. Check it out at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6478819/site/newsweek/. My favorite point is that the party that thinks that Americans are too stupid to know how to invest is the party that supports a woman's right to determine whether or not to terminate the life of her unborn child regardless of how ignorant or uneducated she might be.

Nice.

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