It’s an even madder, mad, mad world when it’s caught on tape and shared like crazy.

“Kiss me I’m Irish!”

Has the human race jumped the shark? Talk about a Mondo couple of days. Where to begin? Was anything more sadly horrific than watching Donald Sterling dig himself into the abyss like he did on CNN with Anderson Cooper? The clip is from Funny or Die but honestly you don’t need their overlay to be blown away. Unreal watching this decrepit bozo. He found a way to make matters worse for himself than they already are. Sterling whines: “What has Magic Johnson done to help minorities?” Geez, old man, what hasn’t he done? Later in the taping he starts blubbering because his skeevy, half-century younger-than-he-is girlfriend betrayed him. Oh, the humanity! Then the ultimate out-of-touch moment, he asks Anderson Cooper “have you ever liked a girl?” I would have laughed had my jaw not already been on the floor.

Regarding homosexual behavior, how about that videotape of Michael Sam smooching his boyfriend upon finding out he was drafted by the St. Louis Rams?

Beef Cake

It’s a personal moment that suddenly became a national spectacle after ESPN got through with it. You would have thought he’d stuck a knife in the guy the way the network reacted. And what about the rest of us? Get a load of this ninny on a local Dallas talk show.. She’s beside herself with… Rage? Disgust? God forbid two people are happy and in love.

Speaking of rage what are we to make of that now-infamous elevator clip of Beyoncé’s less famous sister, Solange going off on Jay Z?

No lovin’ in an elevator…

This, too, would be sadly horrific if it weren’t so random and weird. The security camera’s silent black and white coverage gives the whole thing a creepy found footage vibe. A squabble after a long night of partying is nothing special. Unless, of course, you’re Jay Z, Beyoncé and Solange. Watching it I actually felt sorry for these people. Perhaps the strangest part was observing Beyoncé do absolutely nothing. Regardless, soon enough the video becomes interminable. One begins to feel like a voyeur and, I should qualify, not in a good way. Again, it’s a personal moment made spectacle. And the aftermath is just beginning. Inquiring minds want to know!

In 2013, the word of the year was “selfie.” A good call. Nothing codifies our collective narcissism like a selfie. That same year, Miley Cyrus blew up the water cooler by twerking and tonguing her way into adulthood. So last year! Shit’s about as old as Dennis Rodman playing ping-pong with the dictator of North Korea. Yawn.

“You bitches all look alike.”

2014 isn’t even half over and it’s off the chain.

I will give our culture this much. It is truly united. Old, young, white, black, gay, we are all skittles in the bag -the extreme sour kind!- waiting to be devoured by the Jaws of Modern Life. Society is on an epic sugar high. Taste the f—king rainbow!

Donald Sterling, the racist. As NBA owner, a tsunami of outrage. As slumlord, barely a trickle.

Donald Sterling, same as he ever was.

Slimy shit this business with Don Sterling. Lord knows I don’t need to weigh in on the topic. Everyone and their brother are doing that. For those living under a rock, Sterling, the owner of an NBA franchise (the Los Angeles Clippers), in a recording leaked to a gossip website (TMZ), made a torrent of racially divisive comments to his mistress (V. Stiviano) regarding certain black people she was cavorting with. You know the rest. It has become a shit storm to end all shit storms.

Yet…

How come there was no outcry when the same man blamed black people for “stinking up” a tenement building that he owned? He also made slurs about Mexicans being lazy and drunk. It’s all a matter of public record. He settled the case for a couple million bucks, a similar amount to what is being levied at him by the NBA.

My question is a rhetorical one. I think I know the answer. And I’ll get to it shortly. But first another question: Are not safe and secure living arrangements for the poor, in the face of an ignorant and racist slumlord, far more grave than what has transpired now?

Though his recent remarks are despicable they are by comparison benign. The African American players on the Los Angeles Clippers and, indeed, the rest of the NBA are all millionaires, some many times over. Nothing Sterling said can hurt their livelihoods unless they let it, by striking or boycotting. Which, of course, they won’t. Letting some old bigot’s comments interfere with their ability to perform would only give more power to his words. Win or lose, the Clippers are better than that. We all are.

The truth is the reason few people took notice of Sterling’s vulgar statements in the past, despite their real-world implications, is because those events were just plain news. A creepy old slumlord did what countless creepy old slumlords have done for centuries.

Then there were no secret recordings. No famous millionaires. No playoffs. No scorned mistress (and all that their sordid relationship implies). No TMZ or Deadspin. In the end it was just a crappy story about a crappy man doing crappy things. He was made to give restitution by the local courts. The world shrugged. And so did Sterling. Not that it matters, but I’m betting his racist views were only enhanced by these events.

We gape and gawk now because the story is sensational. It has all the elements: see above paragraph. Though I get it, completely, something about it gnaws at my core: that badness needs to be entertaining in order to move us.

Sterling is rightfully being forced under the rock he came from. And he will die there. His story is almost over. But what about all the other stories out there? Must they have water-cooler value in order to be told and, moreover, listened to? For the most part, I’m afraid the answer is yes.