Dear Famous People:

I'd like to tell you about my cell phone. In addition to the usual accouterments you'd expect a phone to have - numbers for dialing, a tiny speaker to amplify the voice of the caller, etc., my phone turns into a device that, when aimed at objects or people, takes pictures. Now, considering I bought my phone at the AT&T store on Northwest Highway and Preston-ish in Dallas, I'm pretty sure it's not one of those state-of-the-art spy devices that only the rich and powerful get. For one thing, the dude that sold it to me is not Chuck. And another - there were scads of them on the shelf. So I'm thinking there are probably a good million at least in the world that have a phone with a soul stealing, picture capturing device attached to it. And because of this, you just have to be more careful. You can't, say, take a bong hit at a party anymore because a) you're famous and b) because of that, people will take their cell phones out, record the moment for posterity, and then sell it to the highest (no pun intended) bidder - or at least send it to everyone in their address book. You also can't say obviously inflammatory things about beloved national traditions. Same reasons, plus add YouTube, which means your little, "Black people don't.." aside to a friend can instantly become more popular than that video of a kitten trapped in a box. Yes, I'm talking to you, Michael Phelps, and would also like to issue a gentle reminder to Josh Howard, while we're at it. So yes, famous people, we normal people are a mean, puckish bunch. We've figured out how to use everyday objects to record your foibles, and then we capitalize on them. I just thought I'd warn you, but then I realized you probably don't know that there is a way to get things on the Internet all by yourself (they're called blogs), so you probably won't read this.