The Golden Ticket

I was busy making semi-precious-looking-stone earrings (hush, spinsters love crafting), and watching CNN. A young man who had received tickets to Michael Jackson's memorial service tomorrow was being interviewed. It was like he had won the lottery! The CNN anchor actually said, "Congratulations!"

Hello? That man didn't win anything. He's going to a funeral, not a rock concert. I know Michael Jackson was the King of Pop and Thriller sold more copies than the Bible and Elvis' daughter is his ex-wife and Bubbles and the hyperbaric chamber and the Elephant Man's bones...but a news organization is really reaching when it interviews a would-be mourner like a contestant on The Price Is Right.



I know something newsworthy is going on--Honduras? Health Care? Sarah Palin and the collapse of the far right wing of the Republican Party? Reports say the Wilshire Grand Los Angeles Hotel is almost completely booked tonight and tomorrow. It's like the Inauguration or something.

We're at a place in our culture where the respect and regard of the people around you are no longer enough. Folks need to be seen and known by everybody with a television. It doesn't matter that you haven't cultivated a discernible talent, just as long as the spill of the spotlight shines a little on you.

SMH.