I guess we all love a train-wreck

Until well into the 19th century public hangings were much the vogue as entertainments in Great Britain and other western countries. Legions are those today who love to go to demolition derbies and other vehicle competitions, because they cherish the wrecks. They don’t ‘really’ want to see anybody get killed or maimed, but they’re not averse to the idea that such things happen.

Yes, it’s human to like our ‘train wrecks’, and we take mute fascination in the consequences of bad choices.

Hence our uncalled-for fascination with the egregious, short and pathetic life of such a person as Anna Nicole Smith. A newspaper columnist on the weekend wrote that Fox News granted more airtime to the utterly inconsequential death of Ms. Smith than it did to the recent demise of Gerald Ford.

But, we knew that Anna Nicole was a “train wreck” and we just couldn’t wait to see how it played out. Every time she slurred more nonsense and drivel in that voyeuristic bit of excess on her so-called reality show a while back, people wondered just how darn long she was going to last, as her weight went up and down and the booze and drugs were consumed.

Yet, the show was popular, and it really doesn’t speak all that well of us that it was. I’ll wager there were those that were disappointed, in similar context, when Courtney Love cleaned up her act and didn’t stagger off the planet prematurely like poor ol’ Anna Nicole.

And now that she has gone, the gawkers will have to content themselves with the antics of such wastes of human space and potential as repellant Paris and Britney. Maybe there is hope for Lindsay (who actually has a modicum of talent), but not too many more chances, my dear, so smarten up for chrissake!

Of course hyperbole has run rampant since Anna Nicole’s tired body decided to call it a day about three decades before it should have. There have been the obvious comparisons made with Marilyn Monroe of whom, it is said, AN idolized. Well, a few points of consideration here. Marilyn never made a public spectacle of herself; Marilyn’s substance problems were not apparent until after her own untimely demise; Marilyn did like the boys, no doubt, but even the Kennedy crap wasn’t really known until later; and finally, Marilyn was talented, extremely talented, despite her dysfunction. Watch her in The Seven Year Itch or Some Like it Hot, and see one of the better comic actresses of not just her time, but any time. And finally, and not to be unkind, but Marilyn had it in a country mile over Anna Nicole in the looks department.

So, it really is too bad in a way about Anna Nicole. Any human life is a sad thing to squander in such a way. But, it really is of no consequence other than the train wreck connection. We all have more significant things to fret about.