Britney

Ahhh, can't resist.

"The higher the monkey climb, the more he expose."

I suppose I feel bad for Britney, in a way that has nothing to do with my long-standing desire to do her. (The bald period kind of took care of that.) Britney's music was tolerably competent, given the standards of the middle-of-the-FM-dial crapola that is shoveled at us on a daily basis (in my car, I flip between Rome and Rush). Even her latest song--the pathetic lip-synch from last night--doesn't entirely stink.

Viewed from afar, I think Britney went the way of so many megacelebs: straight from nobody saying no to her to everybody dictating everything to her; from nobody objecting to thirty thousand dollar coffee runs to everyone around you saying, Here, take this, wear this, appear here, do this.

The prototype, of course, is Elvis. Not that Britney is Elvis, but: overweight, sweating, mailing it in, visibly barely caring. Sound familiar?

What would have helped her, some time ago, was a character similar to John Spencer's character on "The West Wing," the one guy who could say, Come down, you're making a fool of yourself. And then protect her when she needed it.