About this Blog

"In the future everybody will be world-famous for 15 minutes." So said the bleached-out, late lamented artist Andy Warhol. Having lived and worked in New York City, Warhol came to fully grasp the hold celebrity has on us. In this very famous sentence, he meant to point out that in a culture fixated on fame, many people will suddenly flash brightly onto the public screen, then--poof--will just as quickly disappear from public view--like shooting stars. Other individuals derive their celebrity from one stellar accomplishment (one hit song, one iconic role, etc.) that they never again match.

This blog is devoted to the one part of our celebrity culture that no one has written much about: temporary/one-shot celebrities.

The pace of modern life has quickened, and now we hear people speaking of someone's 15 seconds of fame. These "celebrities with a lower-case c" who will appear in this blog sometimes come to us from the world of entertainment, sometimes from the world of news. All are fascinating.

The need of our communications media for a continual stream of new material assures that we will have no end of colorful people who go quickly, where celebrity is concerned, from zero to hero (or villain) and back to zero. Now you see 'em, now you don't. What a crazy world, eh?

Temporary celebrities coming from the world of entertainment include one-hit recording artists; TV and movie icons who, although they might have had a great many accomplishments in their career, are remembered for one big role; standouts of reality TV; sports figures remembered for one remarkable accomplishment; and people whose celebrity came from one big role in a commercial or print ad.

News-based temporary celebrities come in many forms: mass/serial killers, other murderers of special note, sex-crime offenders, disgraced figures of government/military/business/media/religion, spies/traitors, hoaxers, femmes/hommes fatale, heroes, whistle blowers, inventors/innovators, and victims.

Celebrity Blogsburg will consider each category in turn.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Hoaxer Paul Castronovo

A typical wild and crazy guy-type disc jockey in South Florida is Paul Castronovo, who in 1991 perpetrated a hoax of the aggravating variety.

On his early-morning show, around 6 a.m., he instructed listeners to set their clocks and watches ahead one hour, because, he said, the moon was aligned with Uranus following the vernal equinox. Many did, and got to work to find the doors still locked. Fallout from the little hoax soon blew over, and Castronovo's DJ/show-host career continued its merry way on different stations in Fort Lauderdale and Miami.

Again like so many DJs, Castronovo aims for the outrageous, telling listeners that he is trying to adopt a 22-year-old Vietnamese dancer, that he likes playing nude badminton, and that his hobby is dissecting dead horses while eating Hawaiian pizza.

In the video clip below, Celebrity Blogsburg reaches a new low in taste, showing Castronovo having his nose hair waxed. One can only hope that this, too, was merely a gag.

No comments:

Post a Comment