I read about the latest celebrity impaired-driving case the other day.
Note to self: Sounds like a great reality series. Celebrities Under The Influence!
We could get Lindsay Lohan to host as part of her perpetual community service requirements. I’d e-mail A&E about my idea to pitch it, but they got a restraining order. Apparently my previous reality TV show suggestions disturbed them.
They included:
1) Touched By A Kardashian
2) I Dream of Gene Hackman
3) Celebrity Boxing: Mike Tyson vs. Betty White
In retrospect… I can’t really blame them for the legal action, can you?
Anyway, the most recent celebrity to be arrested for driving under the influence is Jenna Jameson.
If you don’t know who Jenna Jameson is… good for you!
It means you’re a decent human being of high moral character.
Because I am not any of those things, I can tell you that Ms. Jameson is the star of a move called Zombie Strippers.
It is about (SPOILER ALERT!) strippers who become zombies after the government of George W. Bush releases the zombie virus to turn Americans into zombies to distract voters from economic uncertainty.
And no. I am not making this up.
Seriously. Somebody thought: Hey, you know what would be a good idea? A movie called Zombie Strippers. And wrote it. And then got financing and convinced people to act in it.
And then these people gave a portion of their lives to create this… this thing and then stood around and were shocked I tell you, shocked that it turned out to be a piece of crap.
But before you feel sorry for Ms. Jameson for being in such a piece of crap and getting arrested, you should know that she can console herself by rolling around in the giant piles of money she earns from her adult video empire, estimated at around $15 million a year from her website alone.
Celebrities seem to drive impaired almost as often as they change spouses.
And what I don’t understand is: Why?
You’re rich!
Here's what it means to be rich: You can get prom-night drunk any time you want… and you’ve always got cab fare.
I mean, when I go out with the guys after work to the closest bar, if I have one too many, it costs me 60 bucks to get home by taxi.
If you’re Jenna Jameson, Mel Gibson, Kiefer Sutherland, Paris Hilton, Nichole Richie, Ty Pennington, Vivicia A. Fox, Mickey Rourke, Daniel Dae Kim, Shia Lebouf, Heather Locklear, David Cassidy—or any of the legion of celebrities arrested for this particular crime—you’re not worried about 60 bucks.
You can afford—literally—to take a cab from a bar in Los Angeles to your summer home in Cape Cod, all the way across the continent.
I am, on the other hand, worried about 60 bucks.
I’m a married man who is not a celebrity.
Wives notice stuff like an extra 60 bucks coming out of the household budget.
Trust me: I’d rather chew poison ivy rather than have to explain why I spent 60 bucks on cab fare to come home from a bar.
“What's this 60 dollars to Checker Cab?”
“I was impaired. I couldn’t drive home.”
“Sixty bucks because you lacked the self control to say no to the fourth beer?”
“Um, it was more than four beers. There’s another credit card charge for that. You probably missed it because you thought it was so large it was a car payment.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Would you rather I drove drunk and got killed?”
That last is the Nuclear Option when it comes to spousal arguments.
Or at least it used to be.
When you’re 25, your wife gets misty-eyed at the very notion of her sweet baboo lying dead in a ditch at the side of the road, throws herself into your arms and sobs, “I’m so sorry! You were being responsible and I was being a jerk!”
Now she says: “I dunno. I’ll have to do the math. Compare how much you spend in bars and on taxis against the price of a funeral.”
But celebrities don’t have to have to endure these kinds of conversations.
For one thing, they trade in wives and husbands more often that I trade in my car.
You’re a rich celebrity, you have an argument with a spouse, you throw her back into the Celebrity Wife Pool and fish another one out.
For another, they’re rich.
If I was a rich celebrity who liked to drink, I could do one of three things.
One: I would hire a guy to follow me around and drive me places.
Two: I would use the power of my celebrity. Can you imagine, you’re sitting in a bar minding your own business and Lindsay Lohan sits down, and says: “Hey, buddy. I’m too drunk to drive. Want to drive me and my friends home?”
Yeah. You’d make sure she got home even if your car was in the shop and you had to give her a piggy-back.
Three: I would think to myself—If only there was some sort of privately-run service involving automobiles where I could say, phone a number, tell the person who answers where I am and then they would send an automobile to fetch me that, for a price, would deliver me to where I wanted to go. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if only there was something of that nature in world? Wouldn’t it?
Oh, hold on. There is. I could call a frigging cab!
My grandma used to tell me that just ’cause someone was rich, didn’t mean they were smart.
I guess Hollywood proves that to us every day.
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