Scandals

Amber Heard was part of the NBC Nightly News teaser.  Apparently, she's quite upset about the jury verdict last week.  There was a picture of Johnny Depp that made me sad - he's puffy and exudes an aura of disrepute that's more tawdry than adventurous.   Beyond that, I have no facts. 

Kim Kardashian and Kanye West and Pete Davidson were the subject of an otherwise unintelligible article in this month's Vanity Fair.  The article highlighted late night tv's scandal jokes.  I knew nothing.

It's not that I don't read the news.  I can tell you the most minute details of the January 6th hearings, of the Watergate hearings in the 1970's  (50 years ago.... but that's another post), of the debate surrounding Arizona's redistricting map.  I have no trouble remembering the characters and their characteristics. I can keep a timeline in my head.  I care.

But these two scandals, which are in the paper and on the news, which are brought up in conversation, which are reference points in discussions of social policy, which seem to have infiltrated every corner of of American life, are nothing to me.

I still haven't figured out which of the Kardashians is Kim.  I've written off Kanye West as a hopelessly damaged soul who needs therapy not publicity; he's quite easy to ignore.  Pete Davidson amused me on SNL and touched my heart with his own struggles with mental but his involvement with these other two has somehow escaped me.  All I really know is that there's a child out there whose name is North West, and that makes me sad.

I liked Johnny Depp's pirate persona.  I've always admired the depth and breadth of his career.  I'd never heard of Amber Heard.  When the court case began to intrude into my space I made a conscious decision not to care, not to surround myself with lies and mendacity revolving around people who were totally irrelevant to my life.  When the verdict came down, when NPR spent several segments discussing its effect on the #MeToo movement, when Amster wondered where I stood on the issues, I had nothing to say.  

The Cuters were useful in situations like these.  I used to pick things up by osmosis.  But TBG watches ESPN not MTV, and so, I am adrift.

I don't feel too sad about it at all.