Lost in the Scent of Marilyn Monroe's Slacks

The church of celebrity flashes its netherlands...

Writing about the view of a rock singer's holiest of holies (for a jovial use of this phrase, watch the film Pulp Fiction) on her night out with Paris Hilton or the burying one's nose in the crotch of Marilyn Monroe's checkered slacks --- this is the work of journalists today. Alas, the LA Weekly once devoted itself to real news. But now, like a bored dog and the scent of Bukowski's sweaty mailman butt crack (see his novel Post Office where a German Shepherd sticks his nose in deep and Buk had to ease away) we bottom feeders are reduced to SNUFF SNUFF SNUFFLING for news.... that is, deeply inhaling the scent of a long-stored star's slacks, and then taking our readers on a journey into celeb-stimulated illusions.

Two weeks ago I wrote about the great book In the Studio by Todd Hignite and pointed out that the media (which has been carefully contained and restrained in its coverage of the war in Iraq) is for the most part just a big ole spectacle designed to distract us from real social and political issues (snuffle of celeb crotch). Writers for USA Today and many other publications have devoted a lot of journalistic time to commentary on the (accidental?) revelation of Britney's lovely netherlands (when she was out club hopping) yet veer away from saying anything of substance.

In a column prior to that one, I critiqued Rachael Ray, the bobble-headed talk show host who said she wasn't going to bother to put experts on her talk show. Let's face it, folks, experts would bring viewers down, just as scientific reports on global warming would bring us all down if we didn't have former publicists from the oil industry editing those reports and removing everything scary (as was done on government science reports in the Bush years). (See the book Armed Madhouse by Greg Palast for more on this. Palast, a former corporate fraud investigator, finds and reports facts about what's

really going on. As you might imagine, the major media outlets in the U.S. were not friendly to him, so he has had to report for the BBC.)

So--- what of our great American weekly free papers that were once the alternative to the mainstream (controlled and restricted) news? They are slipping too. For example, instead of something of more substance, the LA Weekly has a big story about German fellow named Bellinghaus who collects Marilyn Monroe do-dahs this week -- see:

http://www.laweekly.com/general/features/immortal-mayhem/15364/

Why is this big news? Well, it's not. It's distraction. It's spectacle. The poor fellow who collects all the Monroe stuff thinks she's a religious figure. This is common these days. Celebs are substitutes for gods and goddesses. They are our modern gods and goddesses.

There is the Church of John Coltrane, but that's more real. His music transports us. John Lennon said that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus, which bugged some people. Now this from the LA Weekly: “I want to free Marilyn and make her image public domain,” he says. “Some day Marilyn will be bigger than Jesus!” Bellinghaus has already put his money where his faith is by purchasing the domain name ChurchofMarilynMonroe.com.

Ah, well. Let's think about this. Worship of Monroe. Venus. The goddess. Spectacle. The politics of culture. The religion of culture.

We need Superman! I mean, we can look at the writings of super theorists like this dude Jean Baudrillard. This guy said that we live in a hyper reality, a simulation, much as the people in the film The Matrix do. See, we don't see. We see only imagined things. We are

living in a dream created by our society and our media. (See the book: Simulacra and Simulation (Simulacres et Simulation in French), published in 1981.)

The original film script for the film The Matrix actually included a reference to dear Baudrillard. Baudrillard said the film had nothing to do with his work, however, it does work as a metaphor for the idea that we all live in a simulated world.

Hmmm... and the LA Weekly? Snuff, sniffy.... slacks of Monroe...alas... We are in the realm of dreams.

And will thinking about it all help us wake up? Will reading books by French cultural theorists help?

Perhaps. Or perhaps it is too late. Even as we read the French boys we are living in the Church of Marilyn.

Or the Church of Britney.

Or the Church of (name your fav celeb or politician or porn star or sports star).

Church of Tiger Woods?

Church of Clint Eastwood?

Yes, all of the above, and more....