Newsmakers

After years of researching and writing about famous people, I have concluded that so-called "newsmakers" are the least interesting people to research. The celebrities and politicians and athletes you see in the news all the time... those guys have pretty uninteresting stories, a lot of 'em.

Mostly because so many of them have spent their entire lives wanting to be in the news. So their life experience prior to becoming famous is often a series of steps to becoming famous. There are exceptions, of course. But celebrities of the modern variety, from Britney Spears to Rudy Giuliani, often seem to have the same basic storyline. They went to the right places and made friends with the right people along the way and were determined to become famous and so... that's what happened.

I find more twists and turns when I research historical figures.

I'm not making any kind of judgement about it, really. There have been plenty of times when I read about some historical figure and it dawns on me that they were just like one of these people you see on VH-1 or E! They maybe go down in history as a great man or woman, but in fact they were basically showboaters and spotlight hogs as much as some of the flashy celebs seen on today's "red carpet."

I could write an entire new post on why I think Red Carpet should become our 51st state. Since we now formulate national policy on non-state entities such as "terrorism," I think there's a legal case for a 51st state being the stretches of red carpets famous for those celebrity forced marches prior to awards shows, screening, etc.