Because You Tell Everyone You Are An A Lister, Doesn't Make You An A Lister

MTV, US Weekly, Entertainment Tonight, and TMZ lead us astray. Why? Because on Saturday night, the person sitting directly across from me looked me dead in the eye and said that Diddy is an A Lister. I had to laugh. I laughed even harder when my combatant said that he was an A Lister because he is "a great business man." I guess that makes Warren Buffet an A Lister too.

Despite how much Diddy himself (and MTV) wants Diddy to happen, he is absolutely not an A Lister. I'll explain later why he isn't. First, let's get to some other people who aren't A Listers

Britney Spears, J-Lo, Rihanna, Lupe Fiasco, Kate Hudson, JJ Abrahms, Tony Soprano, The Pussycat Dolls, Peyton Manning, Megan Fox (she's just my future GF), Shia Labeouf, anyone from Mad Men, Jennifer Aniston, Christina Aguilera, Adam Sandler, Jim Carey, Will Ferrel, Vince Vaughn, Jessica Simpson, Chris Brown, Adrian Grenier, Mario Lopez, Jeremy Piven, Zac Effron, Lil Wayne, Sarah Palin, John Grisham, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Jessica Biel, Maraiah Carey, any reality star, Brooke Burke (so hot though. And like 50 kids!) Kevin Bacon, Charlie Sheen, Mark Ruffalo (note the objectivity), Wayne Gretzky, Manny, all my indie bands, Barry Bonds, Eva Longoria, Tony Parker, Roger Clemens, Nicholas Sparks, Richard Gere, Nick Lachey (and I love him), Spike Lee, Al Pacino, Peyton Manning, anyone in Good Charlotte, LC, Kelly Clarkson, Brody Jenner, Kim Kardashian, Jeff Probst, Simon Cowell, Robert Downey, Jr., or Julia Louis-Dreyfuss.

Because we are celebrity obsessed society (I'm part of this scene by the way, only there are certainly people who read this blog who are way worse than me), we love watching Heidi Montag (not A List) get a Starbucks and Matthew Perry (A List? Please) be a bitch (who knew?).

For the most part, we who take in these tabloid rags know that they are exactly what they are and nothing more. It's funny to see people get really mad at "stars" becoming "stars" who really don't deserve to be "stars" (talk to my brother about the cast of The Hills), but occassionally, these pieces of journalism do give us interesting nuggets (I had no idea that Audrina Partrdige would be in my top 10 girlies and I also had no idea that Arnold no longer looked like he did in Commando).

However, after drinking several martinis and breaking down "The A List" with a fellow celebrity gossip whore, I realized that MTV (God I hate you), US Weekly, ET, and TMZ- while completely addicting- have more than blurred the lines between who is a "celebrity" and who is an honest to goodness, real, true, actual celebrity. Now, as I said in the beginning, most of us KNOW who are celebrities and who are not, but who is actually on The A List? In fact, I thought about this for so long, that it was my sole brainstorm for somewhere between fifteen and nineteen hours.

I started by googling "A List" and Celine Dion came up (please). So did Paris Hilton (we'll get to this) and Jessica Alba (you have to be in a good movie to be on the A List). So obviously google knew nothing. I then turned to various celebrity websites to see who made covers and what stories were happening right now. They were all as worthless as google. So when no one could help me and I thought that everyone was being ridiculous, I did what I do best and decided to get together with some people to make the A List. The committee consisted of me.

I crafted a list of qualifications to be on the A List (this took about six hours) and I decided to go with what most wannabe smart guys end up going with: A sports analogy.

I deemed that to be an A Lister, you have to be a Five Tool Player, like in baseball (hit for avaerage, hit for power, run, throw, and range). But I couldn't have just five tools, so I went with seven. To be an A Lister, I decided that one has to:
1. Be Good
2. Be recognizable, but not a media whore
3. Be rich or command a big salary
4. Dominate an era (a Hall of Fame prerequisite)
5. Not do anything horrifically cheesey just to stay relevant
6. Be Relevant RIGHT NOW
7. Be hot

So here is why Diddy is out.

While he achieved some of the aforementioned, he never did any of them well. At the height of his music fame, there were other rappers better, like Jay Z, Biggie, and Dre. His record company has no one on it (Gorilla Zoe? What?), no one watches his MTV show, his movie splash was a made for TV movie stolen from a junior high summer reading list, and although Danity Kane has experienced minor success, they have already imploded because Diddy had to fire those that were becoming bigger than him. The fact that Diddy is loud and MTV loves him does not make him successful. Right now, his biggest success is his clothing line. He's a lesser version of Ralph Lauren and is Ralph Lauren an A Lister? Please. I think I win on this one Ming, but you can still cook better than me. ;)

Others who are out and why:

Rihanna hasn't done it long enough, Jessica Simpson has a bad shoe line and dates Tony Romo, not enough people watch Adrian Grenier in Entourage, Mariah Carey, Kelly Clarkson, and J-Lo were once there but have done nothing lately, Lindsay Lohan is a joke, Jessica Biel has never been in a good movie, and Peyton Manning isn't good looking enough.

Paris Hilton is the prime example of what an A Lister IS NOT. She is not good, relevant, and everything she does is for attention. She is both a media whore AND someone who does cheesey things for attention. While people WANT to make her an A Lister, the people in the know realize she is not. She does nothing well and she is not in demand. At all. If she's an A Lister, then so is Paul Anka.

And where can an A Lister come from? Well, that's part of what makes an A Lister an A Lister... They transcend genres. An A Lister can be from ANY part of the celebrity world and these people will always be evaluated on a case by case basis because A Listers tend to be from the Silver Screen. That's where the money and fame are. So, if an athlete or TV Star is REALLY good and recognizable, but maybe not as rich as a Hollywood actor, then s/he can make the A List (if I were doing an 1987 A List, Bill Cosby and Michael J. Fox are on it no doubt). Make sense? Well too bad... Because it does to me.

Now more on the qualifications...

In fantasy baseball, a player who hits for overwhlemingly big power, but doesn't steal bases, will still go for big money because his power can compensate. That is why there has to be An A List Hall of Fame, because some people are not relevant RIGHT NOW because they might not have a movie out or might be in semi retirement, but they will still always be part of the A List because of what they have accomplished. Here is a partial list of The A List Hall of Fame (must be living or this could go on all day):

Tom Cruise, Jerry Seinfeld, Steven Spielberg, Bono, David Letterman, Jay Z, Martin Scorcese (see how objective I can be?), Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, Robert Redford, Martha Stewart, Bill Clinton, Tom Hanks, Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali, Sting, George Lucas, Robert De Niro, Harrison Ford, Shaq, Sean Connery, Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts (admitting that hurts), Bill Gates, Stephen King, Snoop, and Mark Hammill (joke).

There are probably a few more you can nominate, but since I am the judge and I came up with the scoring system, then I get last say. Now on to the difficult part: Who are current A Listers?

The A List is forever changing, but it gets thrown around too easily. To use another analogy, I envision the A List being like colleges. The best are the best are the best. We can argue and have personal hatreds (Duke? Notre Dame?), but no matter how much you might hate Harvard kids, you still know that Harvard is better than UMass. End of story. No matter how happy you are that you're a BC alum, BC is not Harvard just like Ben Affleck is not George Clooney. So while your BC diploma is certainly better than Bridgewater State (say, Tom Berenger?) and FSU (Christian Slater?), your Affleck Equitable Diploma is certainly no Cal Tech (Angie?).

And so how many cream of the crop colleges are there out there? Twelve? Fifteen? Twenty five, max. It's not more than that and so the A List cannot be more than twenty five at any given time. If one person makes it on, then another is off. 25 seem too few? Well, that's what the A List is. Do all students get all As? Nope, but they are all STUDENTS just like all celebrities are, to some extent celebrities. And like there are A Students, there are also A Listers.

So here's the A List (in no particular order). There were lots of close calls (Beyonce, Ben Stiller, Gwyneth, Reese Witherspoon, Affleck, Kobe, Quentin Tarantino, Christian Bale) but this is the list. It is static and cannot be argued. If you don't like it, you are quite simply hating.

1. George Clooney (President, Chairman, and CEO)
2. Brad Pitt
3. Johnny Depp
4. Oprah (Hot she ain't, but she crushes everything else)
5. Will Smith
6. Tom Brady (Fuck!)
7. Gisele (Makes me hate number 12 even more!)
8. Angie
9. Kanye West
10. Matt Damon
11. Barack
12. Chris Martin
13. Steve Carrel
14. Madonna
15. JK Rowling
16. A-Rod
17. JT
18. Tina Fey
19. Leo
20. Ryan Seacrest
21. Becks
22. Judd Apatow
23. Jon Stewart
24. Denzel
25. Matt Berninger

Let me know if I missed any. I'll be happy to explain why your binkie is absolutely not an A Lister...