All That Glitters Ain’t Gold

In my last column I blathered about how technology can be both a blessing and a curse and I still believe this to be true. As stated then, this glut of knowledge that has been made so assessable to us needs to be scrutinized before we accept it as gospel. Nothing can be taken at face value anymore. However, once this information is deemed credible, it does have a real value. At least it does for me.

It has shown me that all that glitters ain’t gold.

Let me explain. Do you have a favorite athlete? Someone that you idolize. Someone that you obsess over and root for on and off the field. Someone, who as far as you are concerned, can do no wrong. Do you?

It doesn’t have to be an athlete. It can be an actor, or a musician. Maybe for you it is a politician or some other public figure. You get the point. We all have someone that we put on a pedestal for one reason or another.

But, is this blind adoration merited deservedly? What if this person has less than an admirable personality, or has done things that you might find unacceptable, or, worse yet, maybe even immoral?

Do we need to know this? Maybe yes, maybe no. Personally, I know it is something that I would like to know. But how does one go about doing a background check on a beloved icon?

In the past, you might find a newspaper article or, better yet, a book and discover what you are looking for. This is how I learned that a certain hockey superstar that I held in high esteem, had a fixation with punching his wife. Suddenly this jet was no longer “golden” in my mind.

Catching your favorite celebrity on a talk show was another method that I used to employ back in the good old days. Dating back to when Johnny Carson hosted the Tonight Show, I would look forward to seeing a favorite actor or actress being interviewed.

Sometimes these appearances would reveal the star was all that you hoped they were. Other times you might be disappointed in what you saw. Unfortunately, more often than not, you would only get what they wanted the public to see. But every once in a while they would let their guard down…

Nowadays, we still have a multitude of talk shows to evaluate the individuals that we admire, but we also have additional methods available to us. Celebrity gossip sites and an abundance of “reality” television shows provide added insight to the personal lives of the beautiful people we think so highly of.

Sad to say, shows like TMZ often dwell on only negative aspects when reporting on the famous. That’s when it’s time for us to put our thinking caps back on and decipher what we are being told and ask why.

The last way to get the measure of our idols is social networking. Things like MySpace, facebook and Twitter can often furnish us with eye-opening revelations of those we hold in high regard. For myself, reading their facebook statuses will usually give you a good idea of what is important to them and what they are all about.

Once again, it is up to us decide what does have a ring of truth to it and what doesn’t. Many times the most stunning super model will lose a little bit of that allure and eye-appeal when they open their mouth. The same goes for star athletes when you see the undesirable cretins with whom they choose to associate.

In the popular song, “Stairway to Heaven”, Led Zeppelin proclaims, “All that glitters is gold.” I, however, disagree and heed the advice of The Who when they declare, “Don’t get fooled again. No, no!” That’s because, I have found, all that glitters ain’t gold. Until next time…from the booth.