***A Post Where I Rag on A Couple of Publicity Hounds and Don't Once Mention Whitney Houston
***
Recently a couple of "celebrities" have been in the public's eye.....a couple who have a LOT more in common than you think!
*Paula Deen.
She is the maven of butter...which isn't necessarily a bad thing....the butter I mean!
Ms. Deen has promoted an unhealthy way of cooking and has given Southern cuisine a very bad wrap for many years now. Being a GRITS(aka Girl Raised in the South)myself, I find her take on traditional Southern cooking offensive, as we don't all cook her way and if we did, Southerners would have died out a century ago.
On a side note.....My Hubs ate at her Savannah restaurant a couple of years ago, while on a business trip to that city. He will tell you that what he ate there was nothing to write home about. Bland was the word that he kept using...
She is NOT a trained chef by the way, but a Southern country cook....not that THAT is a bad thing either.
But find me a Paula Deen recipe that even comes close to being "good for you" and I'll cover myself in mayonnaise and roll around nekkid in hush puppy mix.
As for her good points, the woman has a large personality that translates well on camera. She has parlayed that asset and her ability to sell into a multimillion dollar empire. TV shows, a thriving restaurant business, book deals, personal appearances, endorsement deals, her own line of cookware(well not HER designs but a line she gets paid to put her name on), food products(ditto the food items), all make her one wealthy woman.
Currently she is experiencing quite a firestorm of criticism after it was discovered that she kept her diabetic health issue a secret from the public and her fans for THREE YEARS, while continuing to cook & promote food choices that would be especially detrimental to a person with type2 diabetes.
Paula Deen only last month stepped forward to reveal her diabetes diagnosis after securing a pharmaceutical deal with a maker of a high-end Diabetes medication. Oh and she went on national morning tv shows to "explain" the situation, which I give her bonus self-promotion points for doing. In addition, she parlaying her unhealthy way of cooking into a new show for her younger son, Bobby.
Diabetes is the health condition that for the Deen clan just keeps giving and giving more gifts, doesn't it?
All the media attention surrounding her having hid her health condition until she could use it to provide an additional income stream for herself(and one for her kid too), has caused more attention to be paid to all her other business outlets and have garnered her even more sales for those products and services(and those she is employed by *
coughFood Network* and those at odds with her in the public eye *
coughAnthony Bourdain*).
Now a less cynical person than I might think that it was
mere coincidence that she kept her health information secret(since it would be counterproductive to her cooking show recipes)until her diabetes could make her some more money(the pharma deal)with product endorsement and free medication(which I hear tell runs approx. $60K per year for this particular drug).
But I never said I was a less cynical person, did I? ;-)
*Madonna.
Which brings us to the Super Bowl halftime show of about a week or so ago. This year's performance was non other than Madonna, the 'Like a Virgin' Girl who gained the public's eye in the 1980's, and has continued to give us an eye full(if not an ear full), since then.
While I have never fallen under the spell of Madonna(as someone who has had vocal training and studied singing on a serious level I can say with some level of authority that she is not a singer, she is a performer), I can appreciate her for what she is.
And that would be a very crafty and highly successful promoter of all things Madonna.
What Don King was to professional boxing, Madge has been to her own Madonna brand.
She parlayed her mediocre singing into an entertainment empire of recordings and world tours. She has reinvented herself more times than the wheel....or David Bowie.
When the world changed and pop singing divas went out of fashion she tried her hand at films, at popping out babies, at invading another English speaking European nation and taking on a proper "cultured accent", at covering herself with piety and the esoteric rabbinical teachings of Kabbalah and making it fashionable, at adopting third world children from countries that don't allow out-of-country adoptions(unless you are a ultrawealthy superstar it seems-let's not mention she could have set up a trust fund for the kid and left him with his blood relations in his home country to make a difference there as an adult of means), at writing children's books, and at going back into the studio as a nearly senior citizen to shape up her gams and voice to thrill the world as a "woman of age" who can hold her performing own against the likes of entertainers almost one third her age(with the help of hormones, trainers, potions, pills, cosmetics at the least).
You go girl!
She has kept her eye on the prize the whole time......the prize of self-promotion at all costs. The prize of being one of the wealthiest people on the planet by being ubiquitously everywhere in the media.
While many saw your halftime show as a wondrous Madonna spectable, some of us saw it for what it really was.....an attempt to keep yourself in the center of media attention and rake in more millions of dollars into your already bulging coffers.
While Madonna didn't receive a salary for her appearance, the backers of this Super Bowl shindig shelled out all the costs to put on this performance--they paid all costs for the musicians, performers, singers, costumes, lighting, props and for the food/lodging/transportation costs for the crew and the performers(as well as a goodly number of hangers on and entourage persons). She had a blank check to create whatever show she envisioned without having to think a whit about what it cost in real money terms.
But don't feel bad for Madonna for not being recompensed for her appearance. She has a World Tour and a new album coming out in the Spring and this Super Bowl was but the vehicle to drive her new musical efforts to her bank accounts(probably offshore ones at that!).
Oh, and surrounding herself in the Super Bowl spectacular with fresh, hip musical artists like LMFAO, Nicki Minaj and M.I.A.? Not an accident at all! A well thought out ploy to position her old "been around the block" schtick in viewer's minds with these young current up-and-coming stars. And these stars are thrilled to be used in this way by an "icon" of the business, so it's win-win for all!
You may love them, you may hate them or you may be like me and have not much use for them in your lives, but you have to admit this.....Paula and Madonna(along with a few other women in our current society-
*coughMartha and Oprah* come to mind right off hand)are masters of narcissistic self-love.
We could go on and on about the healthy or unhealthiness of the extent of their narcissism but I won't here.
I'll just conclude that there is a large portion of the population, though they admire these Gals for achieving their goals, they wouldn't mind if they stepped off the Planet for awhile....or at least took a break from bombarding the world with their
craft crap.
Yes,
I am part of the 60% that is tired of y'all and we have better things to do than to worship at your feet.
Paula Deen and Madonna....two examples of why these crafty and cunning foxes are not so crazy!
Sluggy
A Before shot of part of #2 son's room from Sept. 2011
Throw it on the pile and call it 55 spoons now......*sigh*
