The Manifest Destiny Tour - Day 16

4:48 pm - Los Angeles

I've never really understood our obsession with celebrity. Why do we idolize these people? Most of whom have minimal talent. Many of whom are alcoholics or junkies or adulterers or vain assholes or worse. Don't get me wrong. I was thrilled to see Elijah Wood on 6th Street last SXSW. And it was fun sitting behind Evander Holyfield at a high school football game in Georgia several years ago. I may have even fantasized about chance encounters with Kelly Kapowski when I was younger. But I don't care where these people are vacationing or what they're wearing or who they've knocked up or been knocked up by. I'm not saying that anyone who reads People or watches TMZ or surfs Perez is a fool. I'm just saying that I've never understood it.

Until today. Almost every place we've been, I've been struck by the separation, the loneliness, the disconnect, the distance in our eyes. Even when people want to connect with one another, we're not sure how. We lack a constant, middle ground. Something outside ourselves we can rally around and call our own. I guess hundreds, even thousands, of years ago, humans had their villages or tribes, the collective best interest to unite them. As cities grew larger and countries formed, as wars were waged, as great groups of people began migrating and the world shrunk, humans clutched at nationalism and patriotism and racism and religionism. But now that these things are all but dead, what do we turn to for keeping us united? The answer: celebrity. The comfort of celebrity.

I wouldn't have believed it, but walking down Hollywood Boulevard, stepping over the stars of the past and present, Gene Autry and Vivien Leigh and Dolly Parton and Pee Wee Herman and Keanu Reeves, I notice how excited everyone is, how joyous the spirit, the delighted pointing of fingers, the gleeful snapping of the camera lenses, the heartwarming charm of the children's laughter, and I realize that of all the places we've visited, this is the most unified, the most connected, the least lonely, because here is the heart of our new rallying point. Here is something we recognize as our own. Because believe it or not, celebrity was created by us, the common people, and not by the celebrities. We are merely using them to feel like we belong. And now I understand.