Why is Britney Spears still famous?

Why do I even know who Britney Spears IS?

I mean – I don’t listen to her music. (Shudder.)

I don’t care about her problems.

I don’t care that she shaved her head. If anything, I like her better that way.

She’s not a friend of mine.

Why do I know about her? Why is she even still famous?

Paris Hilton.

Why is SHE famous?

My 12-year-old told me yesterday: “Paris Hilton is so stupid, she tried to mow the lawn in pumps.”

Now, that IS pretty stupid. So, what is Paris famous for? Stupidity? Because I have a fairly long list of people I’ve run into that I could funnel into the fame machine, with much funnier stories than just mowing the lawn in Manola Blahniks.

Like the time I went down to Chelsea for an interview with a printing company – and the boss, interviewing me, said with a swagger, “So what do YOU know about printing?”

I looked down at his nine fingers, and then held up my own intact ten, and replied: “More than you do.”

Now, which of us was stupider? You be the judge. Me? I was happy not to get the job.

Ashlee Simpson. It just bothers me the way she spells her name.

Ashley Tisdale? It just bothers me the way her acting style is basically a constant state of this-side-of-hysteria. I can just see her now, arguing angrily with her director. “What, that’s not funny? Fuck off. I’m hilarious, and blonde, besides.”

Brenda Song is good. She at least has got to be very smart. No one can portray stupidity as well as she does on “The Suite Life” without being extremely intelligent.

Ashton Kutcher is the same – he played a character so extremely simple on “That 70s Show” you’d wonder if brushing his teeth was a Herculean task, so you just KNEW he had to be a brilliant guy to pull it off. Now, I just dig him because he digs Demi Moore, who’s getting to be a “certain age,” and I think that’s cool, the same way I think Tim Robbins is cool for digging Susan Sarandon, who is just cool all over.

Now, Gwen Stefani? I like her. She’s turning herself into a real hegemony of a business monopoly. How many things is she selling now? Clothes, paper products, toys, excavation machines… she’s like, the Martha Stewart Omnimedia of the teeny-bopper set. Gotta admire that in a babe.

But the main thing?

Why do I even know or care at all about these people? They’re not my friends, I don’t have them over to my house for dinner or anything, and they certainly don’t give a flying fart about me.

It’s weird, this fame thing.

Now: I do performances all over the place, I write, and I’m middle-of-the-road well-known, so I get a tiny taste of what it’s like to have people come up to you who know you – but you don’t know them.

It’s weird, this fame thing.

Being a generally private person – when I’m on stage, I’m doing a show, and I’m all yours, but heck – if you’re not paying me, I’m not your entertainer, you know – I kind of get why famous people get irritated with strangers throwing themselves at them.

And I kind of get why my daughter gets frustrated with me for not caring about the famous.

I don’t know them. I like some of their work, don’t care about others.

Otherwise – I pretty much leave them alone – and remain mystified at the colossal success of the PR machines that make me aware of some people whose music, art or (questionable) talent I haven’t even heard.