In case you are curious, I will be in Philly from Wednesday, Nov. 22 and leaving Sunday the 26th. You can contact me via email, phone or this blogger account if you want... Meanwhile, enjoy stuffing yourself!

Fine. I am a liar. You got me. Feed me to the lions.

Last week I said that "the other day, Annenberg offered the ultimate bizarre juxtaposition to end all bizarre juxtapositions."

That, as it turns out, was a complete lie, although I didn't realize it until today.

A quick recap: Two weeks ago, the writer for Xena spoke at Annenberg. Last week, a bunch of grizzled old men spoke about shooting at Russian tanks in Budapest.

I thought the juxtapositions could not get any weirder.

I was wrong.

As with the previous two lectures, I sat in almost the exact same place. Except today, I can honestly say that I had my first celebrity sighting, for today's lecture was given by Dr. Drew Pinksy from the radio/MTV call-in show "Love Line." He is conducting research about celebrity narcissism.

Now Dr. Drew wasn't referring to the pop-culture definition of "self love." Rather he defined narcissism as a giant hole in the middle of someone's personality brought about by outside trauma. He said that about 2% of the population suffer from this and fill this giant void with celebrity. (He even made a passing reference to one-time cohost Adam Corrolla needing constant attention and thus implying his personality was also narcissistic.) He referred to celebrities that he has met as "poor souls who desperately need help" and 90% of whom need therapy.

So he and his co-researcher began administering tests to celebrities and found that most of them score double the national average for narcissistic behavior. Again, this refers less about "self-love" and more about people covering up the empty feelings in their souls by putting these fantastic shields around themselves, and how they require constant stimulation through the gaggle of people who follow them around.

Further, he noted that the greatest frustration for celebrities is not constantly having cameras around... in fact, that is exactly what they crave to fill their emptiness. Rather, he said that their greatest stress and fear is that, one day, they will not have the gaggle of people around them, leaving them cold and alone. And he should know: He not only has countless celebrities on his show, he also is an addiction treatment specialist who treats celebrities on a regular basis!

So, to wrap things up, in a span of three weeks, I have met Xenaholics, Freedom Fighters and Celebrity Addict Researchers (the latter of which can be read in two ways... Dr. Drew is a celebrity who researches addicts, and he researches celebrities who are addicts.)

Besides that, it's still warm here, to the point that I didn't wear shorts yesterday and was hot as hell. I hear it's really freaking cold back East.

Perhaps my reminding you of this is a sign of my own narcissism?

Okay, so last week I told you about the lecture series where we learned all about the Xenaverse. Here was a guy who wrote for the A-Team and is a cult-like figure for Xenaholics, if you will, talking about the insanity of the entertainment business.

Then, the other day, Annenberg offered the ultimate bizarre juxtaposition to end all bizarre juxtapositions.

So there I was, sitting in almost the exact same seat as I did last week, except this time, instead of hearing about heroic tales of scantily clad warriors in days of old, I was quite literally surrounded by octogenarian freedom fighters from the 1956 Hungarian uprising, an uprising I quite frankly didn't even know had happened.

As I sat next to people who physically shot at Soviet tanks as they rolled into Budapest, trying to break themselves free from Soviet tyrrany, I was truly overwhelmed. These old men were as feisty as ever, pointing fingers at one another, loudly questioning the veracity of the statements that other Hungarians made, speaking in thick Hungarian accents about where they were on the evening of October 23, 1956 at 7:00 in the evening, and how nobody else in the room knew what had really happened because they were there and the rest of us were not. Evidently they believed that the United States was going to help them, but such reinforcements never arrived. And ultimately they failed.


So it's just another week at Annenberg. Frankly I have no idea what this uprising had to do with communication. But hey, I met my first freedom fighter. Will it be my last?