Under Life's Bigtop

I've always been fascinated by the idea of being famous for being famous. It's a phenomenon that's only been around a decade or so, but already seems to captivate us at every turn. Paris Hilton, Perez Hilton, at least half of the entries on any given day in Page Six and, of course, Anna Nicole Smith.

I don't plan on speaking ill of the dead, but Anna Nicole Smith's death has now been on the front pages longer than Gerald Ford or Ronald Reagan. And while I was certainly no fan of either, a decade from now people won't say "Who?" when their names come up.

That isn't to say Ms Smith's untimely demise wasn't headline making. It certainly was, in that way that human nature loves a circus sideshow or a train wreck. Nobody wants to live next door to an Anna Nicole Smith or be related to one, but everyone wants one to talk about. The Anna Nicoles represent an important need in each of us... the need to feel better about our own lives. Because on any given day, no matter how crappy our own lives or jobs or or personal relationships are, at least we can sit back and say with an air of self righteousness, "Well, at least I'm not Anna Nicole Smith (or Britney Spears or Paris Hilton or Kevin Federline or whatever sorry SOB has pissed off the columnists today).

There is a vulture mentality that grips each of us when a story like this hits. We love seeing the bones laid bare and picked clean. We want to know all the dirty details, regardless of who is scarred along the way. No preaching, just fact. To us, these are creatures in a circus we can gawk at and laugh over for a few days, then forget about and resume our own sad pathetic lives, rich in the knowledge that for at least a few days we could feel superior to somebody richer and more famous than ourselves.

Such is the danger with being famous for being famous. There is no cushion of love or loyalty to protect these pseudo-personalities from the inevitable fall. Celebrities who have truly accomplished something have more than money in the bank. Like family members who sometimes stumble and fall, they have built up forgiveness credits with the public that they cash in when needed, provided they don't bankrupt the system.

After the quickly assembled books are released and the Lifetime movie is made, the Anna Nicole memory will fade. There will be no blockbuster film starring Meryl Streep and no Broadway musical. No college course on her life will be taught. However, someday, perhaps a century or so from now, somebody will pull a Daily News or New York Post or Miami Herald from a newspaper archive and see the newspaper headlines about Anna Nicole from this week. They will be totally clueless and will devote hours or days of research to finding out who this apparently quite important personality was who suddenly died in a Florida hotel room.

Won't they be surprised!