On celebrity worship

Behold my beloved future Hall of Famer, Greg Maddux. I adore him.
I have followed his career for more than two decades. I have memorized his stats. He has won more Gold Gloves at his position than any other pitcher in MLB history. He has more than 300 wins and 3000 strike outs (I was privileged to be there on that rainy night for #3000). He wears a Mickey Mouse watch when he pitches because his little girl gave it to him. He has a celebrity golf tournament each year to raise money for The Greg and Kathy Maddux Foundation, which helps children and families in distress. I have also heard many a less publicized tale of him donating signed baseballs and his (very good) comp baseball tickets to raffles, etc. (I have not heard these stories from the Maddux camp, but instead from charities that have benefited and recommended that if you have a good cause that ties to kids, you should contact him.)

He is supposedly ready to retire. Detractors have said that he has played too long, gotten out of shape, and even that he has "a pear-shaped ass like a fat grandma." I am so besotted that I even find his Pillsbury Doughboy physique a positive, for it tells me that unlike Cheater McCheaty Pants Clemens, Greg Maddux has never used steroids.

In short, I am near blind with looooooooooove.

That would be "near blind." I know he is not perfect. There is a You Tube video of him spending entirely too much time "adjusting himself" in the dugout on a day he wasn't playing. (No link. You naughty readers have to go look it up yourself.) I know he he didn't realize he was on camera but he did know he was in public. He has a remarkably vulgar sense of humor for a man of 40+ and has been known to find it funny to fart in front of reporters and pee on other players in the shower. He's nicknamed "the Professor" for his encyclopedic knowledge of the hitters he has faced, not for his ability to compare and contrast the diplomatic styles of Madeline Albright and Condoleeza Rice.

So what is my point here?

Yes, I have one, and it's this: By the time we reach middle age, we should be able to admit that celebrities we adore are just that -- celebrities we adore. Fantasy figures. People that are imbued with talents we admire.

It doesn't mean they are perfect. We should be able to accept that.

There's an online debate raging about a pop singer who may or may not have behaved badly last week on a morning news/talk show. I am alternately amused and disgusted by the response of his fans. "He would NEVER do that." That would mean that the parents of seriously ill children are spreading rumors about him, which I find hard to believe. I'm sure that with all they are dealing with, they have better things to do, so they must have been deeply offended by his behavior.

Or, "If he did, he had reasons." Now this singer is over 60 and does not appear in HSM. In fact, his fanbase is more familiar with HRT than HSM. His fans should be able to admit to themselves that he is capable of being rude, or taking his bad moods out on others, of being a shit on occasion, just like the rest of us.

I'm not using his name, nor the name of the charity and the kids he dissed, because I don't want his fans Googling the incident and then flocking here and asking me, HOW DARE YOU?

But I wonder -- when people suspend reality to this degree and defend someone they don't know, will never know, and who has most likely done something indefensible, what does this mean? Are their lives empty? What are they compensating for? When does one cross the line? Is when you stop worshipping, say, a future Hall of Famer and think you know him? Is this a new phenomenon among middle-aged/old women? Or has it been going on since women wept over the death of Rudolph Valentino?