dead dogs and false gods

So I'm sitting in the Oxford in downtown Missoula between the god-forsaken hours of three and four, enjoying the bent remains of a cigarette over a steaming cup of coffee and a half-eaten fried egg sandwich. The ladies behind the counter banter easily with the customers, mostly greasy late-night blue-collars and small packs of frail, giggling emo kids.

The whole night probably would have gone unnoticed, unremarkable and par for the course, if I had not been idly eying the muted television in the corner of the room. As it was, I happened to be watching when news of a now-homeless octuplet mother was suddenly interrupted by the red and flashing announcement of “BREAKING NEWS”.

So yeah. I can honestly say that I remember exactly where I was sitting when Mickey Rourke's dog died.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Mickey Rourke. Aside from the role of Marv in Sin City, where he did a fantastic job, I can honestly say that I do not have an opinion about Mickey Rourke one way or the other. I'm sure he's a great person.

That being said, why should I care about his dog?

Did this dog perform any heroic feats during the course of its life? Doubtful. Was it a rare breed slowly dwindling into extinction? No, it was a chihuahua, a miserable breed inexplicably far too plentiful in this country, a quivering pseudo-rat mutant. As far as I can tell, the only thing special about this creature was the fact that it just happened to belong to Mickey Rourke.

What I can't figure out, what I keep coming back to, is why this nonsense is being tossed around, publicized, and openly discussed as though it is actual news. Newsflash: dogs die. For some reason, old and sickly dogs seem to die more often than young, healthy dogs. What we're really discussing here is not the fact that a good dog died so much as the fact that a dog belonging to a celebrity died. The only way I could be more irritated is if I saw this amount of publicity when Paris Hilton's neglected mongrel finally choked on a used condom.

Has our celebrity-worship finally come this far? These people are not gods, or even anywhere close, as much as Tom Cruise would like to think so. They are human beings who are paid ridiculous amounts of money to entertain you and, according to some schools of thought, keep you stupid and docile. They are not special, they are no better than any one of you. Some of them are even arguably worse than the average scum on the street, and because our culture elevates them to the status of heroes, they are able to shrug off the consequences.

So why do we put up with this foolish nonsense? In this time of struggle we have people starving to death in gutters within a mile of where an actor or sports hero is grudgingly selling their second or third home. On one end of the country a couple wonders how they are going to pay for a life-saving surgery, while on the other an oversexed rap artist settles out of court, parting with three times the cost of the surgery without batting an eye.

I've proudly told many people that one memory I will always treasure is seeing Paris Hilton wail like an abused child as she was carefully loaded into the back of a cop car. This is why. You treat someone like they shit gold for long enough, they will begin to believe it. This is a group of people so adapted to our devotion, they don't even have the decency to be embarrassed by the attention they get.

Why do we allow this to continue? If we choose to continue believing that everyone gets a fair shake in this society, can't we at least be reasonable when it comes to our economic worth? If anyone deserves to be paid ridiculous sums of money just for getting up in the morning, why not someone performing a vital service instead of an entertainer? Doctors, cops and teachers all over the country scrape by as a drug-addled rapper drinks fine wine from a jewel-encrusted mug.

Strangely, I've noticed a similar pattern pertaining to senators. I'm sure it's merely a coincidence.