Hollywood Is the New Olympus.

It's 3:30am and I can't sleep, so I will take a moment to reflect on a conversation I had with a good friend earlier this evening. We got to talking about a certain, now-infamous, couch-jumping movie god, and how his very public antics over the past year have forced us to look at him in a whole new light. My friend asked what had happened to the man, and I replied that he had probably always been that way but until now had stayed more private about his life. Then we considered other celebrities out there who, in the last several months, have seemingly thrown open the doors to their closets and let the skeletons come sashaying out; from the ones who have embraced extreme religion, to the ones who have made reality shows chronicling their day-to-day bizarreness, a trend seems to be forming. Instead of the old days in Hollywood, where stars would do anything but murder their mothers* in order to convince you they were 100% healthy/normal/perfect, today's crop of celebs appear determined to show you just how, er, unique they can get.

The thing is, they probably all were already crazy to begin with. It's not like some switch suddenly flipped in their heads... they have been hiding their inner freak and have only just now decided to invite the rest of us along for the ride. There probably comes a point in an A-List actor's career where they figure, "Screw it: I'm rich enough and successful enough to stop caring what people think of me!" And then they break out the floral tutu they've been hiding in the mothballs. In a way, you've got to admire it -- they have transcended the human condition of social anxiety. They are going to let all their eccentric habits and fixations hang out there in the open, for all of us to see, because they can afford to longer be embarrassed or scared. Ah yes, the American Dream.

When you think about it, celebrities are, in a way, like the new Greek pantheon; they're all partying it up in their bungalows and mansions on their Mount Olympus, while we mortals watch them enviously, worshipping them yet secretly relishing it when they fall. I mean, the Greek gods really only were a bunch of beautiful, powerful people prone to extreme fits of jealousy and rage. And the whole immortality twist? Our Mount Hollywood group has the next best things: botox and collagen.

Back to the conversation with my friend... eventually, I asked him, "So if you got to that point where you were famous and rich enough to let your craziness out of the closet, what would you do?" He responded immediately that he would stop wearing pants. He would go out in public wearing nice button-down shirts with stylish footwear and the works -- but no pants, no boxers, no briefs. He said he would also hit the talk-show circuit to aggressively push his theories on the dangers of wearing pants. I kid you not. I really do have the most interesting friends.

And you, Dear Reader, what would you do? What sick, harmless, hilarious little obsession would you let loose, once you had finally bought everything you could possibly want and earned the love and adoration of the little people? I bet you money that mine's better...

*Update:
I should add that some stars of the past did do anything up to and including murdering family members in order to maintain their wholesome public image. My apologies for giving any impressions to the contrary.