The year in Russell Simmons

Recently I volunteered how Russell Simmons struck me as a “big phony,” despite scant evidence. Just a gut feeling.

Score one for my gut.

Since then we’ve seen Simmons defend woman-beating thug Chris Brown and identify with Occupy Wall Street (even though he owns a house with a gold toilet and peddles pre-paid debit cards that exploit the poor). Now the self-identified yogi is sticking up for Kim Kardashian, excoriating the public  for questioning the motives behind the fame whore’s 62-day marriage.

I knew before it hit the press and exploded into a media firestorm of speculation and rumors that Kim Kardashian was going to file for divorce from her husband Kris. We had a heart to heart talk just a few days prior where we shared our thoughts about life, love, celebrity and well, actually Occupy Wall Street (my current favorite subject).

So of course I wasn’t surprised by yesterday’s news but what I WAS surprised about was how many people believed her marriage was a fake and the divorce a media ploy to push her already famous face further into the minds of the public while making off with the motherload in the process. … To those people I say shame on you. …

The truth is, Kim is human just like you.

Except that she’s not a hater like us non-celebrity scum.

The chick from ‘Just One of the Guys’ salutes lip-syncing Disney product

D-List drag queen Lady Gaga, looking suspiciously like Terry (“dresses like Elvis Costello, looks like the Karate Kid”) from the 1985 gender-bending classic “Just One of the Guys,” was the big winner of the MTV Awards last night. The prep school graduate also took time out to honor an legend, an “icon” who, according to Elvis Macchio, “taught us all how to be fearless.”

Thank you, Britney Spears, for showing us the way. If not for your bravery, we would’ve missed out on another manufactured personality embraced by fame-hungry whores and gullible homosexuals.

Hollywood vs. the kids

The cultural right’s fixation on permissiveness misses the real threat presented by the entertainment industry.

Fame is the leading value emphasized by television shows popular among 9-to-11-year-olds, a major change from the past, according to a study by UCLA psychologists released today.

Fame was 15th among 16 values in similar studies conducted in 1987 and 1997, before topping the 2007 study. Community feeling — being part of a group — was the No. 1 value in 1967, 1977 and 1997 and second in 1987, but 11th in 2007.

In other words, the narcissistic preening that permeates our culture is only going to get worse. Pray for a backlash.

Related articles

• Popular TV shows teach children fame is most important value, psychologists report; Being kind to others fell dramatically in importance over 10 years (sciencedaily.com)

A suicide in 140 characters or less

Not surprisingly, Carlos Estevez is involved.

Last night, 22-year-old Kacey Jordan—the woman best known for smoking crack with Charlie Sheen, suggesting she aborted Sheen’s baby, and winning Howard Stern’s “Charlie Sheen Porn Star Pageant”—locked herself in a hotel room in Chicago and, over the course of five hours, tweeted a bizarre, long cry for help