For the most part I am a shameless person. I tend to like things unabashedly, and that includes things that are probably not the healthiest, the safest or the smartest things out there. I feel there is too much shame in our culture, that we are taught to feel shame about a lot of things that are perfectly natural.

However.

Even I have the good sense to be ashamed of this particular pleasure of mine, because I know it is insanely vapid and empty and is probably responsible for a whole hell of a lot that's wrong with our society right now.

Here goes.

I'm an avid celebrity watcher.

I am fluent in the language of TomKat, Brangelina and K. Fed. I know who Perez Hilton, Rick Solomon and Kim Kardashian are. I read blogs that prominently feature close-ups of Britney's shaved head and Cameron Diaz's acne. I can name all of Jennifer Lopez's husbands. When my grandma told me she made it to the second round of auditions to become one of the host families for The Simple Life, I got all excited. (But that's because Nicole Richie is hilarious, not because of any sort of Paris Hilton worship. *shudder*)

My name is Caitlin, and I'm a celebrity gossip junkie.

Hi, Caitlin!

I am fully aware that celebrity obsession drives the following things:

- Horribly misguided plastic surgery (all the women out there who got lip implants to look like Angelina Jolie, my eyes are like lasers in your direction)

- Obsessions with high-priced luxury items like Louis Vuitton handbags and Seven for All Mankind jeans, which has women on a receptionist's budget spending half a month's rent on a freaking handbag

- The fact that everyone knows the tiniest detail about Anna Nicole Smith, but has no idea that the Bush administration is trying to shove us into a war in Iran

There's a good argument to be made for the destruction of celebrity culture, and I'd be inclined to agree with it.

But then who would wear sparkly clothes for me to drool over? Who would wear ugly clothes for me to hurl over? Who would have torrid affairs for me to follow? Whose career trajectory could I track from child star to leading lady to rehab patient? What about all of the drugs, bad plastic surgery, weird public appearances and bed-hopping?

That's what it really comes down to - gossip. Yet I don't really care for gossiping about people I know personally. I learned that lesson in high school, thankyouverymuch. It sometimes happens but I really try to keep a lid on it, simply because it does nothing for interpersonal relationships. So I focus that appetite for intrigue and sordid detail on a bunch of rich, beautiful people who make a living entertaining us.

In a way I sort of make an exception for myself because I'm very well-informed about the world around me and spend far more time reading actual news articles of substance than I do surfing blogs like Perez Hilton or Pink is the New Blog. Plus, it can be quite utilitarian. There are no better magazines for extended cardio workouts in the gym than the gossip ones they place by the registers at the grocery store. You don't have to think all that hard about it, especially for something like the "Stars - They are Just Like Us!" (Watch Justin Timberlake pump his own gas! See Reese Witherspoon tie her daughter's shoes!) It's mindless fun. And it has a dual use - a funny statement about a celebrity can be an instant icebreaker, something that is critical in the profession I'm trying to get into.

I find that sports serves the same purpose. In fact, I'd argue that sports are merely the macho, testosterone-y flip side of celebrity watching. Think about it. Rather than acting in movies and making music, they play games while wearing goofy costumes. Instead of predicting the longevity of a celebrity marriage, they predict the degree to which temperature will affect a dude's ability to throw a ball. Equally stupid, equally damaging (How many people read the sports pages and the business pages and nothing else? How many watch ESPN but never CNN?), but equally fun.

Anyways, I'm going to end this with a video clip from my second-place guilty pleasure, who I realized wasn't really a guilty pleasure because he's just so damn out there. Anyways, Weird Al almost got the title. I'm a huge Weird Al fan, and I have been since I was a little kid. You know his movie, UHF? Yeah, I didn't think so. Anyways, I love it and I love him. Check it:

Plus, when he sheds the molester 'stache and the weird white-boy Jheri Curl, he's actually pretty hot.