Musings on the Rich and Famous

You know what? I'm just going to say it: Amy Winehouse makes me want to vomit, and I wish she would disappear. Go somewhere where people can't take pictures of you, and where you can't act like a complete tool. Preferably go to rehab..buuut really, just go away.

I used to kind of feel sorry for her, buuuut cripes, now I'm just annoyed. Clearly she has issues, but she also clearly does not feel like she needs to deal with them. I'm tired of her making my Perez Hilton reading experience a little bit too depressing. Cause girl is depressing as hell. I'm not into the trainwrecks. Sometimes trainwrecks are funny, in a "oh my god, brit shaved her head" kind of way, but oftentimes it goes a little bit too far, and leaves me feeling a bit ashamed of myself for reading and gossiping about people I don't even know, and shouldn't really even care about. Fame is a weird thing.

Amy Winehouse has one heck of a voice, but she is wasting it. And that is stupid of her. I'll take your voice please Amy!

This has got me thinking about role models for young people today. I'm not saying that young people's role models should be people in the media, preferably it would be a teacher, a parent, family member, or someone in the community, but let's face it, the media consumes many aspects of our lives, and it is kind of inevitable that youngins are going to find someone in the media to idolize. And hopefully it's somebody like....Miley Cyrus as opposed to...Jamie Lynn Spears or Amy Winehouse.

"ohhh, buuut mom her big hair and black eyeliner are just SO COOL".

While I'm even entertaining a post about famous people, which won't happen all too often, let me say this. I think Miley Cyrus is pretty okay. Especially as a role model. That whole Vanity Fair controversy? So stupid. It was pictures of her bare back, get over it! Yeah, she's 15, but I'm pretty sure she wears bathing suits in public, and probably even on her show (that I never ever watch weeknights at 5:30 on the family channel), and a bathing suit is a whole lot more revealing than a picture in which her back shows, and she is covering herself with a sheet. Gawd. Is there nothing more important happening in the world than Miley Cyrus' bare back? That whole week of news was redonk. Breaking news I think not.

I think I was eventually intending to lead into a paragraph about media role models I had when I was a kid, buuut I sure can't remember any. I don't think I had any Hannah Montana or Zoey 101 equivalents in my day. Jodie Sweetin? Candace Cameron? Great show....but I wasn't too interested in emulating either one of those girls. how rude. I think I was probably outside skipping, building makeshift go carts, exploring ravines or having fake garage sales. Much more exciting stuff then was ever on television. I think the media was less *everywhere* then, and it didn't have quite the effect it does nowadays. And my parents were more apt to tell me to go play outside.

I do however think that famous people, especially famous people of a certain age group, need to realize that they appeal to a certain demographic, and thus act accordingly. Yeah, maybe people shouldn't care quite so much about their personal lives, but the fact is, they do. They need to realize that a responsibility comes with the fame and fortune they get to enjoy. mmmmhmmm.

Anyway, this post has succeeded in making me feel quite old, and quite nostalgic, and wondering how long I will be able to stand looking at that Amy Winehouse photo on my blog.

Spicing Up My Life

During the last little while, it has become a theory of mine that almost everyone has a deep down secret love of the Spice Girls. Regardless of whether or not she cares to admit it, every girl between the ages of 12-30 has pondered which Spice they would be if they were in the group.
The Spice Girls back together? I was suspicious from the beginning. At the wise old age of 24, I could now see that the whole group just screamed of merchandising. I called bull on the whole Spice Girls machine. I saw through this scam, and was slightly offended by it. They had their run, and it was all well and good back when I was 14, but now, it just seemed a little old. A little desperate almost.

“You’re going to see the Spice Girls….are you joking?”

Okay, so five months later, there I was buying tickets to the whole charade. I was still skeptical and slightly cynical about the whole thing, but the 14 year old in me practically begged and bullied me into buying tickets, so I did. As the concert crept closer, I will admit, I started to get a little excited. It was a long time coming though. 10 years later, and I finally was going to see the Spice Girls live. They hadn’t seemed to change much. Or perhaps they had changed, but for the purposes of making some money, they pretended they hadn’t. Whatever the case, it worked.
Whenever I told people of my big adventure to come, I could detect a sense of mocking in their responses. “Yes, I am going to see them, and it is going to be their last show ever. It’s going to be great!!” I would say, secretly thinking, oh lord, the 90 dollars I spent on that ticket could be put too much better use. Food perhaps. Bills. Boring adult things.

“Okay...right. Have fun then!” Same response every time.

Underneath everyone’s I’m too cool for that exterior, I suspected they were all secretly jealous. They just couldn’t get past the, been there, done that line of thinking.

Back during the true reign of the Spice Girls, it didn’t take long for Spice Fever to hit me and my friends. So what, we thought, if their lyrics were simple, their clothes skanky, and their declarations of “Girl Power!” trite. We were 14 and we ate it up. They didn’t need to be great singers; which they by no means were (or are); they were relatable…and fun. We soon developed a weekly routine of watching Spice World, and we began to refer to each other as our assigned Spices. I was Sporty; less because I had any athletic ability, and more because I had long brown hair, and owned ADIDAS tearaways. I, and my counterparts, Ginger, Posh, Baby and Scary, otherwise known as Lauren, Tiffany, Leah and Sara, knew all the words to every Spice Girls song, as well as the accompanying dance. We even entered a Spice Girls look-alike contest at the mall. We didn’t win. The summer of Spice was one of my best ones yet, and looking back on it, I think it would be pretty hard to top. So there I was, 10 years later, going to what may be the last Spice Girls concert ever.

I suppose one could understand why I felt slightly nostalgic, yet conflicted about the whole thing. A little bit like I was compelled to let the 14 year old me go to this concert.
And besides, maybe “Girl Power” is not so trite. In the Spicy sense of the word, I got to thinking what it might actually mean. It is about friendship, it’s about love, about support and mostly it is just about having fun. It doesn’t need to go any deeper than that. Perhaps the Spice Girls were never meant to be a feminist movement. It was more of a get up, dance and be with your friend’s movement. A celebrate life movement. And that summer when we were 14, we embodied that.

So there I was at the concert with one of my best friends (who oddly enough was not one of my aforementioned dance partners of yesteryear). The cynical 24 year old part of me was still there when we got to the concert. She was there all the way through the snowstorm we drove through to see the concert, and she was there when the hour spent preceding the Spice Girls entrance was spent being inundated with messages to check out our merchandise stand! Buy a t-shirt…they are only 50 bucks. Buy a book, buy a button, buy a headband, and so on and so forth. I stood there thinking, aha! I knew it…they had this whole reunion thing planned from the get go! The t-shirts were probably made back in 1998. They would let themselves fade into obscurity, only to one day come rushing back with their cries of “girl power!”, and rake in millions. They would charge exorbitant prices for their merchandise, and pimp out their solo careers. Mmmmhmm, I thought, sucked in again.

But then they rose from the stage, starting to sing “Spice Up Your Life”. The excitement bubbled up in me. The 14 year old in me told the 24 year old in me to shut the hell up, remember what Girl Power means, dance, sing, and let her enjoy this. So I did.

The Spices put on an excellent last show, full of energy, colour, and nostalgia. They acquired a whole new generation of fans, and they assured their old ones that girl power will live on long after the last chords of “Spice Up Your Life” have ended.

Let’s face it: I’m not going to lie. If in another 10 years they decide to tour again, I’m totally there. If there is one thing I’ve learned through my journey with the Spice Girls, it’s to stop thinking so much, and just have fun. And that’s my 24 year old self saying that.