RANTalicious

Get ready for a rant, because nothing pisses me off more than wasted real estate in my morning paper.

That there's Daphne Zuniga, of "Melrose Place" fame with her 8 year-old niece, who is serving up ice cream right here in my very home town. Seems she is family of the owners of Cedar Hill Dairy Joy where I live and stopped bye yesterday to work at the Dairy Joy, as it's known here by the locals.

Now I ask you, WHO CARES???

Who is this woman and what has she done since the mid-90's in the world? Yet she still gets credited with the of "Melrose Place" fame tag. She gets a headline story in the local papers and a mention and photo in the Boston papers in the gossip column. WHAT GIVES??

Why is this crap important?? It's not like she donated her day's earnings to a local food shelter or handed out free cones to underprivileged kiddies. Does her presence at the Dairy Joy make the world a better place? Does this use her pseudo-"celebrity" to bring attention to worthy cause or equate with some fun community service?

NO.

The only service she is doing here is for herself and her family, which is fine by me, but does it have to be in my news paper? The thing is, The Dairy Joy does not NEED any charity from "pseudo-celebs" because everything there is RIDICULOUSLY priced, even if it is ridiculously good. They have some seriously good fried clams, and ouch, at $15 bucks for a small box, you somehow justify the price for the deliciousness. For around $20 bucks you can get a lobster roll and cones run from about $4 bucks to $6 bucks, depending on the size. The big joke in town is that you had better bring your wallet if you are eating at Dairy Joy.

Couldn't Ms. Zuniga's "photo-op" have been better served if she partnered with Dairy Joy to bring some charity to the community. Lord knows this town does not need it, but a large, neighboring city, which has lots of shelters and agencies for less fortunate people, could have been better served by a little press and a feel good ice cream-op to bring it's issue into the spotlight. In all fairness, Zuniga did talk about her involvement with Communities for a Better Environment which is an organization committed to "environmental health and justice by building grassroots power in and with communities of color and working-class communities." But where is the action I speak about? It would seem this was more about Zuniga promoting her return to CW's new Melrose Place and her reprising of her role of Jo Reynolds on said show, which premiers Sept 8.

I don't get why this is newsworthy. Does one or two Lifetime movies in the past ten years get the public all lathered up to go out and spend AT LEAST $30 bucks at the local ice cream joint for a peek at fame?

Rant over.

Now I got a hankering for some fried clams.

Seriously.