Former NBA star Lamar Odom was on a days-long bender before he fell unconscious at a brothel on Tuesday afternoon, authorities said Wednesday…
Love Ranch employees confirmed that Odom had taken at least 10 sexual performance-enhancing herbal supplements over a three-day period at the brothel, and that he’d taken cocaine on Saturday.
Odom, 35, was reportedly fighting for his life Tuesday and had yet to regain consciousness. It wasn’t clear what his condition was Wednesday.
(Huffington Post, October 13, 2015)
No doubt his family members and former teammates, notably Kobe Bryant, rushed to Odom’s bedside out of heartfelt concern for his welfare. But you could be forgiven for thinking that his estranged wife Khloe and the other Kardashians rushed there, with cameras rolling, out of ratings concern for their reality-TV show(s). And oh the boon if he throws them a solid by dying … while they’re there.
(Don’t get me started on the twits following fashion with tweets that are clearly more about attention for them than concern for him….)
Sadly, our celebrity-obsessed culture has become such that even the mainstream media are dedicating far more coverage to how the Kardashians are grieving for the cameras than to how Odom is fighting for his life. In fact, so much so that those who know Odom are taking to social media to rail against the Kardashian machine.
ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt rails against Kardashian-slanted coverage of Lamar Odom’s hospitalization…
‘Lamar Odom, unlike those for whom fame is oxygen, whose fame comes in the absence of accomplishment, his fame was earned: as Sixth Man Of The Year, as a multiple NBA champion….’
(New York Daily News, October 15, 2015)
Except that the Kardashians are only doing what the Kardashians do. What’s more, Odom himself has no reason to expect any better of them.
Here’s why:
[O]ne of the two Lakers ejected for committing a flagrant foul was Lamar Odom. But, unlike the other player, he probably did it as much out of frustration as out of some perverse attempt to create more ratings-grabbing fodder for Keeping Up With The Kardashians, the reality-TV show on which he appears as a two-bit player alongside his wife Khloe Kardashian.
Yes folks, our social values have become so screwed up that it’s entirely credible to assert that a multimillionaire basketball player would willfully demean himself and undermine his team on the court just to boost ratings for his reality TV show.
(“Jackson Resigns After Lakers Swept…,” The iPINIONS Journal, May 10, 2011)
How ironic, then, that reports are that, despite his best efforts, he could not manufacture enough drama to keep up with the Kardashians. Further, that the shortcomings of the almost 7-foot has-been in this respect drove an emasculated Odom to seek validation and comfort in drugs, alcohol … and prostitutes.
Incidentally, it speaks volumes about the emasculating nature of their faux reality that gold medal Olympic decathlete Bruce Jenner just managed to escape with his balls, but little else, still intact: “Call me Caitlyn” indeed….
In any event, you might feel sorry for Odom. But I cannot comment any further.
Related commentaries:
Hamm right/wrong about Kardashians…
Celebrity obsessed world…