Britney Spears asks "What the hell was I thinking?"

[Dogmudgeon]

Someone has gained some small inkling of self-awareness, and that someone is someone we never expected it from.

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE4991TV20081010">Britney Spears asks "What the hell was I thinking?"

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pop star Britney Spears plans to set the record straight about her personal and professional woes in a documentary to be aired shortly before the release of her new album "Circus" in December.

In the 90-minute film, "Britney: For the Record," Spears talks about her high-profile meltdown, which included stints in rehab and psychiatric hospital units, an ugly divorce, losing custody of her two sons and shaving her head.

"I sit there and I'll look back and I'm like: I'm a smart person. What the hell was I thinking?" the 26-year-old singer says in the documentary shot by filmmaker Phil Griffin over three-months.

...

"So much has gone on over the last couple of years and there's a lot that people don't know about me that I want them to know," Spears said in a statement.

Frivolous? Moi?

Has anyone noticed the complete absence of news about Brit, Lindsay, Paris, or any of the other Bad Girls who used to obsess us -- and have caused many of us to curse the "dumbing-down of America" -- ?

I heard a ten-second squib that Heather Locklear was recently busted for DUI. It was like being transported to another world. A safer, more comfortable world. (Even though she's also an enthusiastic Republican. For a few more months, anyway.)

And I was shopping in my local big-box Chinese plastic trinket store, and saw some signage for Miley "Hannah Montana" Cyrus. It was like opening the door on arrival to Oz. Same reason.

The point I'm trying to make is simply this: the paparazzo news has dried up in response to the economic crash, and it's damned eerie. I was surprised I even ran into The News Of Britney at Reuters. Heads will roll, I'm sure.

I can recall the first time I encountered this kind of eerie sensation, this schizoid weltschmertz. It was the day President Kennedy was killed. I was five years old. None of the other kids were out playing. The entire world was quiet. Something Was Different. Bad Different.

9/11 was another such eerie day. I remember feeling as if I had been poisoned.

This present episode, of course, is not a single-day shock to the system. It is being played out in the slow and painful manner of a surgeon's knife -- or a killer's -- opening an incision. The problem is, I do not even trust the surgeons. And I have only recently come to realize that in the past two weeks, my perceptions of the world have subtly changed.

That world is darker. Scarier. Less certain. Our era is drawing to a close. This is it; the next Novus Ordo Saeclorum is waiting impatiently, and I don't know what it will bring. Like Winston Smith, we are in the Ministry of Love waiting for what -- whatever -- will happen. The O'Briens we see on TV each speak a different version of the news, and failure to divine which is the correct one will not betide us well.

I can imagine this must be all the worse for my mother, who is 72 and so grew up during the Depression. She has also lost $20k of her meager savings (and she is not a spendthrift by any stretch); a fallback to a Dow of 4000 would just about wipe her out. Her parents had built a business, became moderately wealthy, and lost it all even before she was born. Anyone reading this who was born between, say, 1918 and 1938, please check in. For reference, I was born in 1958. I have, in fact, known real economic panic because I have recurring medical problems. But it was always a personal crash -- and there was always someone who could help me out. The world itself has never been S.O.L.

Now, it is.

So ... how's your head?

--p!

P.S. to Britney Spears --

Please be nice to those "little people". Once, you needed them; soon, they will need you.

My best to the family, especially the boys.

--p

[fed_up_mother]

1. Her revelation would be more believable if she didn't have an album coming out

but I wish her well. Child performers tend to crash and burn. I hope she turns her life around for the sake of her kids, if nothing else.

[knowbody0]

2. reality's a bitch

Yep, it's dark, but remember it's darkest just before dawn. There was so much wrong, too much wrong to fix. It had to crash and burn. It's exciting to me because it's change.

[ixion]

3. in the words of smashmouth

"who did you know coming up?
who did you know going down?
who's getting sent back down as a brand spanking new kid in town?"

[aquart]

4. Slept for an hour, woke up crying.

It's hard to know how to react when you don't know the full results. I remember waiting for Katrina to strike. I remember the first reports of the tsunami.

And my mother also grew up in the Depression. She says she remembers when parents realized nothing was going to go well for them, and began to put all their hope in something better for their children.

But hearing that Canadian banks are calm and stable because they are regulated out the wazoo? I COULD SCREAM!!!!

Took a Harris Poll recently. They almost never touch politics...but they were asking how I felt about regulating our financial system.

[Warpy]

7. I saw this coming, so I almost feel a sense of relief

It's sort of how you feel on an oppressively hot and muggy August day when a huge thunderstorm finally breaks. You know it's going to be frightening and uncomfortable for a while, but once it's gone, the cooler breezes rush in behind it.

I am furious at the GOP and their stupid ideology and at all the perfectly nice people who were stupid enough to fall for it. Since there is not much I can do about it, being disinclined to commit mass murder, I'll just content myself with seeing those smug expressions turn to panic.

Right now I'm sitting in a comfy chair at a computer and my kitchen is full of nice things to eat. I am fine.

So are you.

[lunatica]

5. I don't want to let this sink without a reply to your thoughtful post

I can feel that eerie feeling too. I think we're going through the stages of grief but on a different level because we already went through it in the last 8 years. We know we're losing something we thought was real and solid and lasting. Everyone is caught in the maelstrom, knows it's a maelstrom and has no idea what will happen next. All we know is that change has swooped down on us very much like a tornado touching down here then there, and we don't know when or where it will touch down again. We just know it will.

Everyone I talk to is aware of the economic situation and everyone is afraid of what it means for them. All the people I know who have been ready to retire are waiting to see what happens because they may need their jobs. At the same time they wonder if the jobs themselves will survive.

Your analogy of the day Kennedy was assassinated and 9/11 are very good. Our feeling of normality is gone because this moment in time separates the things we took for granted in the past from the total unknown of the future. I think the trick is to try to be the conscious observer who rides the turbulence with awareness.

[woo me with science]

6. Paris was talking to Palin this morning.

"Has anyone noticed the complete absence of news about Brit, Lindsay, Paris, or any of the other Bad Girls who used to obsess us -- and have caused many of us to curse the "dumbing-down of America" -- ?"


Paris was in the news this morning:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27092444/

Hilton urges Sarah Palin to ‘show some skin’

updated 8:09 p.m. ET, Wed., Oct. 8, 2008
Paris Hilton has some fashion advice for vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin: show some skin.

In the same tone as her FunnyOrDie.com response to John McCain’s campaign ad, which pitted Barack Obama as the “biggest celebrity in the world” alongside a montage of footage featuring Britney Spears and the heiress, Hilton took on a host of presidential questions in the November issue of Harper’s Bazaar.

“My advice to Sarah Palin is, you’ve got a hot bod; don’t keep it to yourself,” the heiress said. “Why wear a pantsuit when you can wear a swimsuit?”

[sallydallas124]

8. I admit

embarrasingly, that I have a history of sometimes getting caught up in celebrity junk. Now, I have absolutely no interest whatsoever. Celebrities are no comfort now. What good is all shine & no substance? It bores me. They seem ridiculous and useless. Of course, they are the engine by which one can escape but I'm far too caught up in reality right now, feel I have to be on guard and prepared. I got my Vanity Fair in the mail the other day and it was just so strikingly out of touch - all the unnecessary bling all over the place, the pictures of the celebs at the whatever annual "Best Dressed Party," Marilyn Monroe meets Tony Curtis!, Prince William's girlfriend! Many have already felt this way but I'm wondering about the previously celeb-addicted. I'm wondering if it's a phenomenon that's dying down. I hope so, I don't think it's healthy for the obsessed or the obsessees.