Alas, Kate Moss

So Kate Moss got sacked by a bunch of companies for using coke.

I didn't respond to this when it happened weeks ago because, well, I don't really care. Kate Moss is hot and rich and the prospect of her having to be hot and rich a little more anonymously doesn't make me weep with compassion.

But then it occurred to me how weird the whole dynamic of her public shaming is. Most people, I think, assume that celebrities do as much coke as they can get their surgically improved nostrils around. Or at least that models do. So I'm trying to imagine who was actually surprised by this story. And yet the tabloids pretend it's a big shocking deal, and the readers of the tabloids do the same. Egad! A model on coke!

And the companies paying her are just as shocked. And they tear up her contract. Never mind that odds are 50-50 that Kate Moss at least once snorted the blow of at least one VP for Marketing from at least one of those companies. Hell, there's probably a 10% chance that Kate Moss's rider stipulated whether she got Bolivian or Colombian after public appearances.

So much professed outrage, but does anyone really disapprove of KM's coking-up? I mean really, strongly, passionately disapprove to the point that they wouldn't shop at Burberry's? I don't. I don't know anybody who does. Maybe I run in the wrong circles (you know what drug fiend party-kids academics are), but I don't think most people give a rat's ass.

And yet the whole chain of indignant consequences was inevitable as soon as the photographer snapped the lovely KM powdering her nose. Predictable, required, and formally precise. It seems like some peculiar ritual to drive out the ghosts.

But what are the ghosts? Our resentment of the fact that the people (often with no talent beyond a tight ass or rich parents) whom we envy for leading a different kind of life, uh, lead a different kind of life? Our awareness that it's perfectly possible to lead a successful life and occasionally take coke (unless someone takes a picture of you doing so)?

It seems like people wet their grunties because they were afraid that other people might wet their own grunties. I wonder what would've happened if everybody had said what they actually thought. If KM had come out and said, "Yeah, I did it. And I enjoyed it. And if I don't go to jail for it, I'll do it again." If the companies had said, "Yes, she did it. But she showed up on time for the photo shoots and looked hot while she was there, so we're keeping her on if they don't throw her in jail." And the public had said, "Wait, a model did coke at a recording studio? Next you'll be telling me that Germans speak German." And some politician had said, "See, this is why we need to decrinimalize coke, so that we can have more money to chase murderers and pension-raiders and less on throwing models in jail."

I know, I know. Never would've happened. But every once in a while, I get weirded out to realize how much everybody's individual hypocrisy (and I'm included, no doubt), which everybody finds distasteful to maintain, forces everyone else to maintain his or her own hyporcisy. Sometimes I think I have better uses for my energy.

Or maybe I just need more energy. Anybody have the number for Kate Moss's dealer?

No, wait, I mean, drugs are evil. They're like Satan. But powdery. Shifty, dirty Satan powder. Satan powder, I tell you.

Whew. For a minute there, I was afraid I'd have to fire myself from the blog.