Normally I enjoy nothing more than introducing a bit of crushing reality to the start of an otherwise carefree weekend, and mining the tabloid minutiae for stories of schadenfreude, rampaging ego, and foreboding decisions in the entertainment world… But I don't know. Right now it all seems just a little more trivial than usual, doesn't it? It's been sort of a rough week for pop culture (not to mention the world in general), and the obits have been piling up around here at an alarming rate. Whatever your feelings on Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, Sky Saxon, et al. (and from reading your comments, I'm well aware that we're nowhere close to a consensus on that), you have to admit that their deaths have forced us to put things in perspective—and while we could go through the motions and talk about why, say, Perez Hilton is the ipecac poured down the gagging throat of a nation, evidenced by a week that saw him not only trying to justify calling Will.I.Am a "faggot," but also reporting on Michael Jackson's death by accusing him of pulling a "stunt" in order to get out of playing his tour dates, it just seems sort of pointless. I mean, Perez Hilton: Who the fuck is that guy anyway, right? He's just one more idiot howling into the void, and it's disingenuous to pretend that hearing further confirmation of that is going to stack up against all the rest of the sad news. To put a finer point on it: There's not much "buzz" to kill right now.
So let's take a breather, if that's cool with you. Talk about this week below, if you want. We'll come back soon, when the regular trickle of news has us feeling not so superfluous.