Sue me, Amor

I once told a guidance counsellor that my ideal job would be something that involves heavy drinking and complaining. Now that I'm a recovering alcoholic and a columnist, I'm working towards my second major goal, which is to be the first humorist in history to be accused of causing a teenager to murder his parents. Maybe after reading my column backwards, or something. Why should rock stars have all the fun?

But baby steps, as they say in the meetings, so right now I'd settle for being sued by Amor Vittone. Frankly, I can't understand why, to this day, I haven't received a single summons from her lawyers. Not even so much as a cease-and-desist letter. And this, after all I've done for her, and all I've said. I’m beginning to wonder if the woman even Googles herself. (Don't be ashamed if you do. It's perfectly natural and it doesn't hurt anyone).

But apparently, tabloid hack Yolanda Barnard, with her lousy 8 000 copies of Die Ponies Gallop (I'll give you the English translation: The Ponies are Galloping, although it makes me feel like I've just translated a stop sign) is worthy of Vittone's affectations. Barnard "writes untrue averments," says the summons, and that "any person, especially a woman, of whom this is said will feel extremely insulted, degraded and prejudiced."

The reason? Apparently, Barnard's book claims that when Vittone was nervous she "farted like a horse" and Barnard was able to smell her before she saw her. Nice.

The book also claims that Vittone doesn't like rugby (gasp!) and when Barnard asked if she thought her husband had cheated on her, Vittone responded, "I don't know. Perhaps."

For this, Vittone is suing Barnard, her publisher, and even Exclusive Books for trying to flog this garbage, for a cool R1 million. Now that's a lot of lip gloss.

I could think of a few people who would argue the cliché that 'all publicity is good publicity' – Pete Townsend immediately springs to mind – but Vittone is not one of them.

I put it to you, my learned friends, that upon perusal of the minutiae of her equine flatulence, Vittone's pink parts performed a double-take worthy of Emmett Kelly, then quivered with onanistic exhilaration in anticipation the impending media releases, interviews and photo-shoots as she once again seized the limelight to bask in the ephemeral luminescence of her deficient fanbase of colourless hoi polloi who used to eat all the glue in primary school.

In short, she's a media whore, a Zzzzz-grade, small-town Paris Hilton who would sell her mother's soul for a shot at a magazine cover. Or in her case, her ruinous marriage to a born-again hypocrite intent on acting like what his name happens to rhyme with. A result of the debacle was Vittone scoring the cover of Marie Claire, accompanied by a nauseating piece of puffery by its then-editor, Kate Wilson, who deserves to be publically flogged for sycophancy.

In the interview, Vittone attempts to demonstrate her mad puissance skills, but instead comes across as a classless bimbo torn between delusional confabulation and her own narcissism. It's an artless, sophomoric and thoroughly depressing piece of work.

Admittedly, taking the piss out of Vittone and/or Van der Westhuizen is a bit like shooting particularly badly dressed fish in a barrel that just happens to have its own golf course and 24-hour security. But I don't have to tell you they're asking for it. By their own hand, they've become not so much a couple as a brand, a dumbed-down Posh and Becks, leaping in front of cameras like drunken wedding guests at every opportunity. There's no way I would have known about Vittone's alleged farting habits if she hadn't drawn attention to this obscure book in the first place, and neither would you. Now, Barnard may well have a bestseller under her belt. It's enough to turn St Francis of Assisi into a nihilistic misanthrope.

The Joost/ Amor (Joomore? Amoost?) media machine has become a cankerous boil on the arse of our cultural landscape, but any attempt to lance it would probably result in the entire operating staff being sucked into its vacuous maw. And the last thing this country needs right now is to lose more medical professionals.

Now I'm having an existential crisis. Despite my negativity, I'm probably feeding the monster with this very column. But maybe I can piggyback a ride to random fame with a few simple words. So sue me, Amor, you dumb plastic hag.

Nothing personal.
 
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