Pal + Kate Plus Eight = Bad Ideas

By Blake Townsley

Howdy, folks. Welcome back to the humble Friday installment of the Pickv bloggers’ corner. As you may recall from last week, my mission here at Pickv is to scour the tabloids, internet and otherwise, to find the pop culture nuggets that make for an interesting discussion. What you choose to do with those nuggets is up to you. I promise I won’t judge.  

Today, I was all set up to discuss the pop culture phenomenon of Glee. I’ll admit that I’ve been hooked on it since Fox premiered the pilot last spring as a teaser for the full season. It’s even caused me to break my very strict rules about never, ever watching a musical. When I got home last night and hopped on the internet, however, I saw an article that made me cackle with glee for a different reason. The article? The latest from Kate Gosselin’s camp, regarding her plans for achieving A-list status in Hollywood. I guess that review of Jane Lynch paying tribute to Madonna’s Vogue video will have to wait until next week. For now, I can’t wait to dig into the hubristic train wreck of Team Gosselin.  

Setting aside a moment for full disclosure, I’ve never seen one minute of Kate Gosselin’s show about her and the kids and the chain-smoking husband-douche. I don’t watch Dancing With The Stars. My only real contact with the Gosselin family has been through those most reliable of sources, Internet celebrity gossip websites. While those are far from unimpeachable, firsthand founts of information, I feel like I’ve been reading long enough to get as good a grasp on her life as any other random blogger. Which is to say, none whatsoever. Let’s proceed with the judgment! 

For those of you that didn’t see it, one of Kate’s “pals” was quoted over at Popeater spouting the following: “Kate is serious about going Hollywood and thinks dating a celebrity is a great idea. When Kate sees how Tom Cruise changed Katie Holmes life, it became clear that she needed to do the same. Obviously, she knows she’s not yet ready to date a George Clooney, but she thinks she would be the perfect partner for a Jeff Goldblum or someone like David Hasselhoff.” 

After I stopped laughing, two things became immediately clear. First, Kate’s “pal” the publicist is either the logical heir to Steven Wright’s killer deadpan style of humor, or a community college dropout with delusions of grandeur. Second, Kate Gosselin just got a whole lot more interesting, if only for the tragedy that lies down this path.  

How many things are wrong with that three-sentence paragraph? I will agree that dating a celebrity is a great idea. What’s not to like about it? I’m sure it’s a rush to associate with someone that everyone knows, and potentially likes. It’s the equivalent of dating the head cheerleader or varsity quarterback in high school. It automatically makes you cooler by association, unless I totally misinterpreted the plot of She’s All That. And I understand that Mrs. Gosselin certainly has acquired a taste for easy money after her reality show. If someone wanted to pay me for doing pretty much nothing all day, I’d get used to it in a hurry as well. It’s the same reason you’re not supposed to feed bears in Yellowstone. It makes them lazy and unable or unwilling to find their own food.  

We haven’t even gotten to the part about which celebrities Kate is ready to date. Obviously she’s not ready for a Clooney, so she should probably start at the bottom of the celebrity food chain, and work her way up like a minor league ballplayer. I can only imagine how bad Jon Gosselin must be as a husband if The Hoff seems like an upgrade. All I can see is that video The Hoff’s daughter put on YouTube of him on the floor, drunkenly eating a cheeseburger with no shirt on. There’s only one possible conclusion: Jon Gosselin must be the spawn of the devil.  

Obviously, once Kate’s proved that she can handle a German heartthrob with alcohol issues, it’s only a matter of time before she convinces Intern George that she is what’s been missing from his fairy-tale existence of winning Oscars and sleeping with beautiful Italian women and Las Vegas cocktail waitresses, who as we all know are the American equivalent of beautiful Italian women.  

Where was I? Oh, right, YOU LEAVE JEFF GOLDBLUM OUT OF THIS, KATE GOSSELIN! THAT MAN IS A NATIONAL TREASURE! 

Whoops, the powers that be here are telling me it’s time to wrap up. So here goes… 

I’m sure it’s not easy to raise eight kids with an absentee father, and I don’t begrudge Kate Gosselin the chance to provide the best possible life for those poor kids. The therapy bills alone are going to run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars before high school graduation hits.  

So, good for you, Kate, for pursuing the American dream for your kids, if that’s really the reason you’re doing this. I hope it is, because otherwise this whole thing smacks of self-serving egotism, and misguided and amateurish attempts to get famous. If you’re gonna date someone, do it because you like them, and they really love all eight of your kids, and it’s the right thing to do for your family. At the very least, fire your publicist, because she’s pissing off Jeff Goldblum. Don’t make him send Sally Struthers over to your house to smack your nannies around.  

“Won’t anyone think of the children!?!”

(Credits: Image by Grant Neufeld)