I am sometimes, no, let me rephrase that, I am constantly amazed by how the public takes seriously anything that celebrities and elected officials have to say. And when you think about it, what is a celebrity or a politician?

A Celebrity is a person who gets paid vast sums of money to play a sport, to sing, to dance, or to regurgitate emotionally or humorously words they memorized that were written by someone else with more talent and imagination than the talking mouthpiece. (Notice how I’m sticking up for all of us writers here? Wink, Wink, Nudge, Nudge.)

Where as a Elected Official or Politician can be anyone (Heads of HOAs and their property minions do not count) who are elected to any type of government office ranging from “The County Commissioner who is incharge of the committee whose job is monitoring the sex habits of left handed mosquitos” all the way to the President of The United States (Who may have had mosquito monitoring issues of their own on Epstien Island…stay tuned).

Basically, these are remedial carbon-based life forms that we pay to see perform for our entertainment, or elect to office whose sole purpose is to try to make our communities and/or country a safer and more desirable place to live.

It seems that every time we turn on the news, read a social media commentary on our phones, or scan the latest graffiti on the walls of the men’s room at Taco Bell, we are “being informed” about what this celebrity or that member of our government thinks about some kind of issue. To be honest, with you, I’m done caring about what these four brain-celled assholes feel about anything. Because these people’s I.Qs, morals, and opinions are about as stable and lasting as a fart in the wind.

Yet we, as a society, listen to these idiots. My question is, why? What power do these jerk-offs have over us that causes us to care, or even allow their foul words and deeds to invade our consciousness? I mean, unless I’m Travis Kelsey or live in the 14^th Congressional district of New York, I don’t give a rat’s ass what the hell Taylor Swift or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has to say.

These deep and troubling questions posed a mental dilemma for me. (Hell, at times, doing basic math and/or putting two Legos together can give me a “Mental Dilemma”). So, I do what I always do when faced with mental challenges like this: I go to the lovely Mrs. Nickels, get a kiss, pat her cute ass, and tell her, “I’ll be in the back yard”. At which time I will go into the kitchen, pour a glass of my favorite whiskey, walk into the back yard, light up a cigar, park my confused ass in my favorite lawn chair, then sip and smoke my way to the answers that I’m looking for.

Based on my “Research” on this topic (because thinking while having cigars and whiskey is considered “Research”), I’ve come up with a few cigar-and-whiskey-infused reasons why we listen to these annoying people.

1: Fame Creates A Sense Of Familiarity. Just because these people are well-known, we feel like we know them.

If we see their faces every day, be it on our phones, billboards, or the series we are binge-watching on Netflix, we develop a sense of trust that supposedly “emanates” from these Celebrities and/or Government officials. Granted, this is a one-way relationship. Because if it’s coming from Kim Kardashian, Chuck Schumer, or Barney the Purple and extremely irritating Dinosaur, these people not only have no idea who or what you are, but they also don’t give a rat’s ass what you feel or think.

 2: Celebrities Act Like Cultural Reference Points: People like to watch and follow celebrities to see what they are wearing.

It’s like at the award shows, the commentators all talk about what this celebrity is wearing and what that one is wearing. Never mind the fact that you’d never be able to afford what these camera-flashed zombies are wearing without selling your soul to Satan himself. So, if they are well-dressed, God knows they must be “well informed” about what is going on in the world. (Feel free to insert a Major Eye Roll here). And believe it or not, people buy into it. So, does that mean that if Greta Thunberg puts on a Vera Wang dress, I’m supposed to believe everything she says about the weather? Or if LeBron James, whose sole job is to play basketball, who gets paid millions and millions a year, puts on a tux and wants to talk to me about how society should be run, I’m supposed to change my way of thinking, stop, listen, and believe him?

I don’t think so, Lucy!

3: Authority Carries Weight. I have to admit it. You elect someone to office, and they immediately obtain a level of power that the rest of us do not have.

Yes, we had the power to vote them into office, and we have the power to vote them out, but that’s not what I’m driving at. But as soon as someone is elected to office, be it from the aforementioned chairman of the voyeristic monitoring of the sex lives of left-handed mosquitoes to the guy who can push a single button and put us back into the technology equivalent of the country of Niger, power always goes to the head of the person in power. It’s like what Lord Acton said: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

The problem with these power-hungry despots is that they can impact laws, freedoms, money, or even the society we live in. Even if we disagree with them (which the majority of us do because we have functioning brain cells and/or have exquisite cigars & whiskey), we have no choice but to listen to them because these little reincarnated dictators from World War 2 are pulling all the strings.

4: People Like Signals For How To Interpret Complex Issues. We have a society that has become so damn lazy or overworked that we no longer have the drive, energy, or brain functions to think for ourselves.

We want people to think for us. Let’s face it, our society has become brain-dead. We want our entertainment figures and politicians to give us guidance on what to say, eat, drink, think, and how to live. Given the fact that most of the humans in this world have fewer brain cells than a survivor of a failed lobotomy experiment, we think that people who have lots of “Bling-Bling” or an office in a government building with an impressive logo on it can provide us with a simple answer to all of life’s problems. They can make the hard seem simple. And this is why we either follow them on social media, buy their movie tickets, see them put a ball in a hoop, or elect them to their jobs. They do the thinking for us, and we, as sheep, follow them to the intellectual slaughter.

5: Media Amplification. Celebrities and Government Officials are popular.

I mean, if they weren’t, we wouldn’t watch them or vote for them. And what do they use to get their names and agendas out there? Well, the media, of course! News outlets, Social Media platforms, algorithms from various search engines get a celebrity, or politicians’ faces, butts, tits, movies, songs, scores, games, or political agendas out there and into our phones, TV’s, and streaming services. It could be the most asinine thing said by someone who just happens to be “trending,” and people will swear it is the most gospel truth since the first coming of Jesus Christ. What a celebrity or politician said could be blatantly false. Still, if it’s plastered all over the media, discussed on a podcast, written in a blog, or shows up on your feed, people will believe it because “it’s out there”.

6: Social Identity And Group Belonging. People naturally gravitate to those who agree with them.

Those who share the same taste in fashion, social, economic, and political views, and fast food as we do. So, just think how much more validated the pathetic moron who pays for their double big gulp, hot dog, and Häagen-Dazs ice cream with their EBT card at 7-Eleven feels when they find out that Bernie Sanders or Jane Fonda agrees with their freeloading political and economic ideals.

Their way of thinking is that if these celebrities and politicians think the same way I do, then I’m just like them. If a celebrity or politician gives them justification for how they are living, then they will follow and support said person who says, “It’s okay, it’s not your fault, you can’t get ahead. Have another hot dog and vote for me, or go see my next movie.”

These are people with no sense of their own individual thought processes who share a sense of belonging to these talking heads who haven’t a clue what the hell is really going on in the world.

7: Humans Are Storytelling Creatures. Celebrities and Politicians all come in with their own back story. And just because we think our own lives are boring as shit, we want to hear what these reality-challenged idiots have to say. We want to listen to their success stories.

Like when Kylie Jenner became a billionaire with her makeup company. Who the hell cares? I mean, good for her as far as building up her business and all, but tell me what in the world can a 28-year-old reality star and makeup hack tell me about how life is supposed to work?

But, on the flip side, we do love a good scandal. This is why people were so drawn to the Sean Combs trial and the ongoing saga of “Who is on The Epstein Files?” We want to hear the good, the bad, and the ugly about every Celebrity and Politician we can find. Why do you think shows like TMZ, E!, CNN, and Fox News are in business? They create a need for us to listen to their stories. While we do love our Celebrities and Politicians, we love them more when the people we follow take a career-ending, life-changing nosedive into the cement we call reality.

As you can see, you don’t need to listen to any celebrity or political figure to understand what you see right in front of you. You don’t need these bozos’ approval or their “sage wisdom” to live your life. These glorified mouthpieces should only provide silence regarding how you raise your family, how to think, act, or feel.

What we need to realize and relate back to these pompous assholes is that we do not need them, but they do need us. Without us, their mega salaries and powerful positions will just disappear. So if you are a celebrity, just do your job of providing the entertainment we pay you to do and shut your holes. If you are a politician, do the job we elect you to do, and that is make our communities and country safer and more prosperous without taxing the shit out of us. Again, do your job and shut the hell up.

Personally, I’m done listening to their bullshit…are you?