FITS AND STARS

Once again, reactions like rapid heartbeat, upset stomach and

I'm starting to miss the days when
J. Fred Muggs co-hosted the morning news.

pulsing headaches have put me on the no-news diet. And how much better I feel!

Not that I've cut myself off entirely from the world. My phone gives occasional updates and I look at the headlines on Drudge twice a day (to make sure we haven't gone to war for political reasons). If you ever find yourself feeling like crap -- and you haven't been diagnosed with COVID -- try cutting the news out of your life for a month or so.

Now, entertainment news is another thing entirely. Never have dull headlines about people I've barely (or ever) heard of been so entertaining. And if it's pointless non-news is what you're looking for during

Don't you dare tell me this doesn't
look good.

these virus-ridden days, Yahoo Entertainment is the place to go. Just the name tells you that the stuff you're ingesting is utterly non-nutritious yet wonderfully satisfying, like a fried chicken sandwich in an iced donut.

Take this headline: Catherine Zeta Jones' Daughter Carys, 17, Models White Slip Dress While Walking in a Garden.

If you've got a daughter, you might have a similar photo -- if your daughter had a $3000 dress, posed like a professional model a decade older than she is, displays her 17 year-old cleavage, and posted it on Instagram for all the world to see. If the not-so-blind gossip sites are correct, mom and dad have encouraged this kid to get in the spotlight for years -- family business and all that. Well, God bless her -- Hollywood kids always breeze happily through life.

Here's another one that got people yapping:Kanye West Says He and Kim

Just to explain the joke.

Kardashian Considered Aborting North West During Campaign Rally.

There's more to unpack here than the Chan family's luggage. Is Kanye going after the pro-choice or anti-abortion vote here? Did they consider aborting her during the campaign rally as the headline states? Is the name North West a tribute to Alfred Hitchcock? And why did anybody take this seriously as a presidential campaign rally (as Kanye claimed) when it was just an elaborate promotion for his new CD?

Again going to the visually-challenged gossip... the Kardashians are behind all the press leaks about Kanye's mental health (as if his behavior wasn't enough of a tip-off). Their ultimate goal is to get control of his finances. If you're going to marry a crazy man, make sure he's rich. Oh, and good luck with genetically preventing North from inheriting the crazy from daddy!

In other celebrity marriage disasters, the "He said he'd kill me/She said she'd kill me" marriage of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard took another new unbelievable step in court today:Amber Heard denies Johnny Depp's claim she married him for money, fame: 'I hadn't seen his movies'.

Johnny and Amber in pre-drunken, drugging
finger-severing fights days.

Forget about the first half of Heard's claim and focus on the last. For sheer, forehead-slapping What kind of a fool do you take me for? bullshit, this statement takes the devil's food cake, along with Yoko Ono's "I never even heard of the Beatles". Every fucking actor in Hollywood has seen every other fucking actor's movies at one time or another, either at a premiere, a studio screening room, or on a living room wall during an orgy. (Wait, I'm thinking of Lionel Atwill and porn for that last one.)

And if you were ever a teenage girl with stars in your eyes, you were particularly inclined to watch Johnny Depp movies on video during sleepovers. The climax of Edward Scissorhands probably caused more adolescent female sobbing than the death of Bambi's mother -- even if, as in Heard's case, the sobbing came from bisexuals.

Johnny, of course, wouldn't be in this mess if he had been content to stay with his common-law wife in the French countryside with their kids. But once he met Amber on the set of a lousy movie nobody remembers... and she flashed those baby blues at him... and she whispered something like, "Johnny, do you mind if my girlfriend and I come over tonight? She's really hot, I think you'd like her"... Johnny went middle-aged nutzo. And did I say there was a 22 year age difference between them? I hate to blame the victim, but...

Y'know, there are some good folks out in Hollywood... as they want to

Give yourself some room so you can pat yourself
on the back.

remind you with the subtlety of a 5.4 earthquake: Zelda Williams honors late father Robin on his 69th birthday with donations to homeless shelters.

This is the kind of snark that (perhaps rightfully) irritates my wife. But hear me out! First, to give Zelda her due, that's a cool name. Second, donating to homeless shelters is a worthy cause. Even if you're being cute by donating $69.69 to "as many homeless shelters as I can," as she said.

But why do celebrities feel the need to announce their generosity? Telling the world (or, in Zelda's case, her 200,000+ Twitter followers) about how wonderful you are doesn't make you wonderful as much as much as it does how wonderful you think you are. The only person who knows about my charitable contributions is our accountant, and the only thing he cares about is if we pay him in full on time. (By the way, Zelda Williams has 200,000 followers because why?)

For God's sakes, can't you leave your poor kids
out of your publicity machine?

Famous homewrecker Gisele Bundchen is pulling a similar stunt by boasting that she's planting 40,000 trees to celebrate her 40th birthday. Well, no you're not, Gisele, even if you did plan on doing so in the Amazon rainforest until that whole nasty COVID thing spoiled your vacation.

Get a load of that photo of the family. Planting a tree -- without one speck of dirt on their hands or spotless white shirts and sneakers? We're not fooled, damn you!

Gee, I'm glad that celebrity news makes me so calm.

                                                 ****************