Insomnia: Pity the Poor Celebrity

Not to worry faithful readers, work on Chez Fatt has been completed, and all is well. The underground bunker/discotheque is beyond my wildest dreams, and that new layer of cork was just what the master suite needed. Let us now continue our study of celebrity culture with an examination of the celebrity's favorite excuse for substance abuse: insomnia.

Witness the pedophile fancy dancer Michael Jackson. We now learn that his addictions to multiple benzodiazepines, narcotics, and anesthetics (propafol) arose out of his terrible, unrelenting insomnia (of course none of the recent revelations--concerning bizarre sleep and dietary habits, terrific substance abuse, and general all around wackiness, came as a surprise to anyone who read my June 27th post about Jackson). As to the contention that insomnia lay at the root of his addictions Baby Fatt can only say: duh!

The real question is whence came this insomnia. Celebrities always complain about insomnia. From Howard Hughes and Elvis Presley, to Heath Ledger, insomnia is the whiney, poor pitiful me excuse of choice whenever a celebrity ends up hooked on downers. What these idiot celebrities refuse to accept and acknowledge is that their insomnia is part and parcel of their fame and fortune, and the best cure for their insomnia is quite simple: it's called a job.

I've had insomnia since I was a child. As a little kid I would lie in bed at night unable to turn off my mind (it didn't help that I was trying to process all manner of cognitive dissonance accruing to life in a West Texas hellhole of racism, homophobia, and detestation of all things 'hippie'). I would toss and turn, and finally doze off a couple of hours before the opening refrains of Harry Holt's morning show would echo from my father's AM radio throughout the house, signaling that it was 6:00 a.m. and time to get up (Harry Holt would drone in his monotone the report from the previous day's livestock markets: 'feeder cattle closed at sixty eight cents in Big Spring, in San Angelo feeders closed at sixty six....'). Thus would begin another sleep-deprived day.

It only got worse in adulthood. Most weeks I'm lucky if I get one good night of sleep. But here's the thing: if it were not for the structure provided by the 8:00 to 5:00 job I hate, my insomnia would likely be worse. The structure of a job forces me to practice sufficient sleep hygiene to be able to function at least somewhat normally.

Now imagine that I were rich and famous. Rather than going to bed at the same time every night in order to get up at the same time every day, I'd spend my nights going to night clubs, or watching videos, or hanging out with various sycophants and cocaine dealers. I'd go to bed at dawn one day, at noon another, and then go for two or three days with no sleep whatsoever. Then would come the one day I had to be somewhere on time, and lo and behold I wouldn't be able to get any sleep beforehand, so let loose the whining.

Next step is a doctor's office, where I would be given all manner of really good prescription drugs. Now I've tried, as a non-celebrity, to get prescription drugs for legitimate problems like insomnia and pain, but am invariably directed to exercise better sleep hygiene or take something over-the-counter, like Benadryl or Advil. Celebrities, on the other hand, get pretty much whatever drugs they want from doctors, because the docs know that if they don't give over the prescription, then the rich and famous person will go around the corner to a doctor who will, and who, after all, does not want to have a relationship with a famous person?

Then, if you're really rich and famous, like Michael Jackson, you can hire your own personal physician to live in your house and give you big honkin' speed balls anytime you like (at least, whenever he can find a vein, given that so many of them have collapsed). Then, one day the celebrity has a really, really hard time getting to sleep, and so whines and cries until an extra dose is administered, and all the years of anorexia and unnecessary surgery and drug addiction finally catch up and the celebrity's heart says no more and stops.

Oh well. So sad, too bad. But it wasn't insomnia that led to all of this, it was narcissism and greed and self-pity and sycophancy. It was because of a constellation of symptoms and disorders the cure for which has always been the same: a fucking job.

Chez Fatt

To my multitude of readers (both of you), Baby Fatt may be offline for the next few days. Major renovations are going down at Chez Fatt--work continues on the underwater grotto and bar, the underground bunker/discotheque, and the latest layer of cork in the master suite (this will make four). I'll be back online as soon as my private security force has swept the manse for listening devices, and all members of the work crew have been "disappeared". Ciao.

Totalitarianism for Christ

Baby Fatt is hot on the trail of "The Family", a secretive fundamentalist cult that operates a boarding house for right-wing politicians on C Street in Washington DC (including multiple right-wingers who routinely cheat on their wives--Sanford, Ensign, Vitter, et al.). These christo-fascist dolts believe that Jesus doesn't care about the weak or the poor (the Sermon on the Mount notwithstanding), only about the rich and powerful. They also believe that anything the powerful do is fine--lying, cheating, greed--so long as Jesus (as represented by The Family) gets his cut.

Research continues apace. I'll run these cretins to ground like a terrier on a fat rat. The lamentations of their women will be music to my ears. Watch out, Baby Fatt's on the case.

To be continued.

Racist America is Coming Undone

The latest battle for the soul of America is happening at the American "Town Hall" meeting. Idiots from near and far are showing up to shout down and disrupt local congressmen who are there to talk about healthcare. Mostly, it's an excuse for the idiocracy to indulge in some good old fashioned mob passion. What it is not about is healthcare; what it is about is racism.

It's not about healthcare because most of the people there have absolutely no idea what any of the issues of healthcare reform are actually about. For example, at one such meeting the congressman (whose name I disremember at the moment) got control of the meeting long enough to ask the hoi polloi how many of them were against socialized medicine. Of course they all shouted in opposition to this Red Menace. He then asked how many were on Medicare, and most (all the old ones) raised their hands. Thing is, Medicare is socialized medicine, but we'll see how many of these dolts give it up out of principle.

What this whole sideshow is really about is the color of our president's skin. The election of 2008 was a crushing defeat to pissed off rednecks everywhere--the idiots who listen to the radio and cable bloviators and who worship a blue-eyed, fair-skinned Jesus. Their nightmare scenario is of an America that no longer looks like them--fat, edentate, with Confederate flag tattoos--but rather is multi-hued, urban, and with no idea of who the fuck Toby Keith is. They cannot stand the fact that it will soon be whites who are in the minority, and not a second too soon for some of us (would be hard to mess things up as badly as white people have through the century).

Obama really does represent change--demographic change. The weak will always respond to change with fear, and out of anxiety is bred rage and violence. We've seen the rage at the Town Halls, and the violence in the numerous recent "lone wolf" shootings of minorities and women by lily-livered white men who perceive themselves always to be the victim of "the other". It's a very dangerous time in America, but also a very exciting time. I, for one, am hopeful (yes, a tiny ray of hope shines upon the face of Baby Fatt, the misanthrope's misanthrope). I am hopeful that the politics of resentment is losing its power, and that the redneck racists who have held our country hostage since its inception are finally dying away.

Meanwhile, however, be careful: the racists are everywhere, and they are going to become more angry and violent in the short-term.