This has been an extremely emotional week for me, but I think that I have gathered enough strength due to the kindness and support of family and friends to retell my story with composure.
I was recently attacked. Ring the alarm. Call TUPD. I'd like to press charges against an entertainer named Britney Jean Spears for assaulting my sensibilities and crossing all boundaries of taste.
Here's what happened, for the official police record. I'm a sucker for nostalgia, so, like the nose-picking fool I am, I heard that the erstwhile teen sensation was releasing a new single from her upcoming greatest hits record and felt like reliving my prepubescent glory days. My acne-less self associated Britney with coy come-ons and subtle double-entendres, and I'd been following her various brushes with insanity, back-up dancers, pregnancy and lecherous creeps ever since the early days of her career.
She once pulled up next to me in a white Mercedes convertible at a gas station wearing a brown wig, a see-through wife-beater worn as a dress and thigh-high boots. She looked like she needed a hug, but because her bodyguard was a rather large and mean-looking individual, I managed to refrain.
I can't say I'm a fan of her music, but there's a place for the girl in my bleeding heart, so I downloaded "3" (2009), her new song, and promptly began to listen to the track in earnest. The familiar Auto-Tuned whimpers began: "One, two, three/ Not only you and me/ Got 180 degrees/ And I'm caught in between." I was mostly confused. I'm not much of a math whiz, so it took me a second or two to recall that 180 degrees is a half-circle. What does geometry have to do with this? "Countin' one, two, three/ Peter, Paul and Mary…" Oh, how sweet, I thought. She's name-checking one of the all-time great folk trios. Perhaps she is a fan, or paying tribute to the recently deceased Mary Travers. Maybe this song will be about peace, love, harmony and the answers blowing in the wind. "…gettin' down with 3P, everybody loves…" Huh?
At this point, a thumping beat sets in, and Spears overtly asks someone over and over again if he would like to engage in some sort of sexual encounter involving three people. Shoot me dead. What happened to the schoolgirl hanging out with her buds in the gymnasium?
It's not that I'm prudish; I have a bit of a cussing habit and I do love a certain explicit Ying Yang Twins jam. But, in my delusion, I expected more from the woman single-handedly responsible for at least a quarter of the songs I have ever heard at a Bar Mitzvah. Like Michael Jackson and The Beatles, Britney is one of those artists to whom I've attached memories and feelings. Somehow, I thought that she was still singing about her love for music, dancing and her burgeoning sensuality in the vaguest possible terms as in videos I watched on "TRL" when I got home from middle school. "3" shocked me back to reality.
Apparently, this is hardly the worst of her musical transgressions. According to several people to whom I relayed my harrowing tale, I had somehow managed to gloss over a little ditty she released last year called "If You Seek Amy." I was told to say the title ten times fast. I did this. I was not amused.
So, Ms. Spears, I will see you in court. I expect you to be formally charged with murdering my innocence and perception of you. Please leave the midriff-baring shirt at home.
