I look forward to hearing from you. I have been getting an excellent response from the other students.

Best regards,

James Dickinson

POP CULTURE 101: POP PSYCHOLOGY

If you think about it, anybody who wants to be famous has to be fundamentally messed up. To crave attention, adulation, adoration from the whole wide world means that you aren’t content being happy in your own little corner of the world; a white picket fence, SUV and IKEA furniture in a suburban loft just don’t cut it unless your presence is known, unless you’re a star. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Life wouldn’t be nearly as entertaining if we didn’t have J.Lo’s booty to dish about. (Speaking of J.Lo, have you heard that Puff Daddy is changing his name to “P. Diddy”? What does that mean? Oh and while we’re on the subject of nonsensical monikers, what in the world does “Eden’s Crush,” the name of the WB Popstars group, mean?) But it’s become quite clear over the years that those who go to Hollywood with the explicit intent of becoming famous inevitably end up in AAA meetings, Betty Ford or the adult section at VideoPros. And it’s not just drugs or alcohol—others slip into phobic behavior, sex addictions, obsessive-compulsive patterns, co-dependent relationships, hallucinations, etc. Maybe their mommies didn’t give them enough love. (Hmm, on that note, maybe while I’m off sending Winona Ryder some shampoo—she looks pretty dirty these days—I’ll send Calista Flockhart a teddy bear.) The best part about all this self-destructive behavior is that now we can play doctor and diagnose it! America has become pop psychology central—all of us can recommend a good therapist, self-medicate and blab about codependency, personality and eating disorders, depression, psychotherapy, serotonin, etc. with relative ease. And who better to practice on than these crashing-and-burning stars? Here are some recent case studies:

Patient: Robbie Williams. Diagnosis: Low Self-Esteem. Poor Robbie. Multiplatinum albums, Awards for Sexiest Man Alive from the British Press and Best Butt on Earth from Celebrity Bodies Magazine (there’s a Celebrity Bodies magazine? Yeesh!), and throngs of screaming female fans can’t allay his low self-worth. Recently Williams disclosed that he stumbles into alcoholism every so often to “sabotage” his own success. Williams, who’s known for his cheeky displays of ego (and I mean “cheeky” literally—in the video for Rock DJ, he tears off the skin on his buttocks while receiving oral sex), told a London mag last week that he questions whether he “deserves” his fame and wealth. Um, of course not. But isn’t that the point of being a superstar—dealing with the guilt?