Data: We are fucked. God help us all!

I've spent several days thinking about how to chime in on Cops: Britney Spears Edition in a nice way. It's not easy, mind you. I have about as much use for Britney Spears as I do a 1972 Chevy Vega, and in my own personal Abu Ghraib, "Hit Me Baby One More Time" and "Oops I Did It Again" are playing over and over and over in an endless loop.

Making matters worse is that February has been a rotten month so far, and it'd be so easy to tee off on Ms. Shears to vent. It'd be fun, too. Of course, it's not her fault, so I'll try not to...

On top of that, I am seriously trying to figure out whether Sinead O'Britney has genuinely lost her mind, or whether these is yet more "Look at me!" antics out of someone who has shattered the record for most career "Look at me!" antics in just seven years... There's plenty of evidence for both possibilities.

What I know is this: Britney Shears is out of control and clearly a danger to herself and others. Regardless of whether she is in need of a lengthy stay in a psych ward, or just in need of rehab and in dire need of growing a brain, what is obvious is that she is going to get someone killed (herself, or worse yet, someone else) if she doesn't clean up her act.

What's for certain is that in the last week, Britney has decided to audition to play Lt. Ilea in the new Star Trek movie, has checked in and out of rehab about as many times as I've checked into the Beverly Inn to attend tapings of The Price Is Right, and has actually turned Kevin Federline into a sympathetic character.

I would be lying if I said I didn't laugh my ass off the first time I got a look at Jean-Luc Britney on Saturday. Now, some women can pull off bald... Britney can't. Then again, I didn't think she was much to look at WITH hair, so that isn't surprising.

The more I read, the more it sounds to me like Britney's Fun With Shavers was part publicity stunt (how convenient that reporters just happened to be there to tape all of this), and part cover your ass (makes it pretty hard to test hair follicles for drugs when you shave every damned bit of it off your whole body). I know some people have seen the Mr. Clean hairdo as a cry for help. I'm not so sure, when you consider the amused look on her face throughout the whole fiasco, and her classy responses to the press ("Go fuck yourself." and "I did it because of you."). Responses like that sound like an attention-seeking child to me.

Then we get the neverending adventures of "Where's Britney Today?". She's in rehab. No, she left. She's back in rehab. No, she left again. She's back. No she's not. Yes she is.

Look, this isn't so funny. Regardless of whether she is losing her mind, or just too busy trying to dethrone Spuds McKenzie as America's Party Animal, it's well past the time to sober up and clean up. If Britney had no children and wanted to destroy herself, that's her business. But she has two children (that I definitely feel she should NOT have brought into this world to begin with) that need her. By fucking up her life, she is fucking up THEIR lives, and that has me feeling very sorry for those kids, and very disgusted with their mother... Disgusted to the point where I hope Kevin "Gravy Train" Federline gets full custody of them.

With Fed-Ex? They have a chance of living to see adulthood. With Britney? I'm honestly surprised she hasn't killed them yet - and at the rate she's going, it wouldn't be long until she did if she retained custody.

Regardless of what the issue is here, and what's turning Britney Spears into the new Anna Nicole Smith, to a degree (as much as it makes me sick to admit), I feel for her. Being an annoying, overrated pop star doesn't mean she deserves to die (or, worse yet, kill someone else). This is a person that clearly doesn't know how to take care of herself, know how to live a sane life, and certainly isn't equipped to be a parent (we're talking about someone who doesn't seem to understand the difference between a Cabbage Patch Kid and a real, living child). She, for all her so-called success, has never had a chance, and while she has played a part in making a disaster out of her own life, there are more than a few people who have contributed to this neverending saga...

Lynne Spears: You are worse than just being a rotten parent. You are a parasite, a stage mom on crack. You raised a child whose sole purpose in life was to become rich and famous at all costs - at the cost of her normalcy, the cost of an education, and at the rate she's going, her life.

So your daughter basically popped out of your infernal womb wanting to become "the next Madonna"? Wonderful. Kids grow up wanting to eat Twinkies instead of brocoli, too, but that doesn't mean you buy stock in Hostess.

You have created a person with no grasp of reality, no impulse control, and no mind. A child in the overexposed 25 year old body. A woman who thinks Canada is an overseas country. A woman who only knows how to put herself in the news - even if it means childish, insane publicity stunts. A woman who isn't even qualified to work at McDonald's. But why should you care? You are wealthy and famous because you whored out your daughter.

And what scares me even more is you have Mini Britney, a 15 year old who is likely headed in the same direction...

What scares me even worse is I truly believe the only person you give a shit about is yourself. I think if your daughter managed to kill herself tomorrow, you'd be busy thinking about what that could do for royalties and your bank account.

Way to go, Lynne. Do something useful in life - write a book about your failed experiment. Title it "How NOT To Raise A Kid". Consider it a public service to women who don't want to fuck up the way you have.

The media: Take one sheltered, shallow, attention-starved, programmed young woman, and give her attention like it's the most important thing in the world. What do you think will happen? Yeah, you guessed it: Even MORE hijinks.

Go on and keep publicizing her pantyless romps like it's relevant news.

Go ahead and treat her divorce like it's the biggest story around.

Go ahead and cover her head-shaving hijinks at all costs.

You may not be Britney's Dr. Frankenstein, but you've certainly fueled her fire over the years.

For starters, some people can handle pressure. Some can't. Some people in the know believe part of what fueled Darryl Strawberry's drug abuse was the pressure on him - the pressure of playing in New York, the pressure to succeed or be booed... The pressure of being called the "black Ted Williams" when he first hit the majors.

How much pressure do you think you put on Britney when you wasted no time in crowning her "the next Madonna"? This was a young woman in need of being told to be herself and handle her own life, and instead she feels the need to be someone she's not?

There isn't going to be a "next Madonna", just as there isn't going to be a "next Babe Ruth", a "next Wilt Chamberlain", or a "next John Lennon", to name a few. Some people are once a generation. Some are once in a lifetime. People like them are once EVER. Putting the pressure on people do become them is damned unfair, and more than some people can handle.

You, however, have certainly added to my frustration over the past several days. While you ass-clowns have subjected us to CSI: Anna Nicole and Britney: Chaotic - 24/7 - you have continued to ignore real stories...

Like Bush wanting to send more troops to die to protect his oil fields.

Or how about this whole Salmonella in Peter Pan peanut butter mess? Sure, you gave it about two minutes of coverage before back to Britney's Bogus Journey. Nevermind the fact that over 290 people have gotten sick off this shit. Nevermind the fact there have been two deaths (you didn't even bother to report THAT). Nevermind the fact CONAgra (putting the Con in the food industry) has a nasty reputation when it comes to food safety. Hey, everyone! Britney shaved her head! That's all the news you need to know!

(Forgive me for being a little bitter over this peanut butter shit. I have a friend - Eric - who may have gotten Salmonella, and I know one person who is indeed among those 290-plus confirmed cases... MY FATHER. He, fortunately, is fine now. I am still irate, though.)

But this is nothing new. You have been subjecting us to this All Anna Nicole, All Britney, All Perez Hilton, All Lindsay All The Time crap for YEARS.

You can't be bothered most of the time to put faces and names with those who have died in Bush's war of lies in Iraq. You can't be bothered to tell us how businesses are fucking people over and ruining lives to make even MORE money. You can't be bothered to report stories that affect people's lives. No, it's much easier and much more entertaining to continue to feed the tabloid monsters, the starfucks who somehow have become the most important people in the world.

Not only are you dangerous by ignoring shit that really matters, but this nonstop coverage is only egging these people on to do even MORE to get themselves in the press.

Worse yet, anyone with a brain knows how much you live to build people up to destroy them. You assholes probably are laughing your asses off at Anna Nicole Smith, and if you succeed in pushing Britney into the publicity stunt that sends her to the great big party in the sky, you'd probably laugh it up at that, too.

CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, etc: Pull your heads out of your goddamned asses and do your jobs.

Britney's so-called friends: Yeah, that's it. Watch your "friend" destroy herself with drugs and alcohol. Give her more. Party it up with her. Pick her up from rehab after she's been there 24 hours. Don't bother to think about your "friend", or her two kids. Party, party, party all the time! Party 'till you puke! Party 'till you die!

With friends like you, who needs enemies?

This all said, Britney Spears herself is not blameless, and so let me close this with an "open letter" to Kojak herself:

Britney,

Here are a few things you ought to seriously consider the next time you decide to spend a night on the "Eve Of Destruction".

You are a mother: If you destroy yourself, it's not just your own life that is at stake. There happen to be two children YOU brought into this world, children that you will leave behind.

There are few things in life that hurt worse than losing your mother. Believe me, I know. I lost mine nearly twenty years ago. To say this still affects me would be an understatement.

Take a look at your own hero, Madonna. She lost her mother at the age of five. Quite frankly, I don't think she began to even remotely heal from the loss of the original Madonna Louise Ciccone until she brought her daughter into the world - at the age of 38.

You want to leave your kids behind to try to cope with that?

You went on and on for years in interviews, about how you wanted babies so much. You've got them. Either take care of them, or give them to someone who will.

Wake up and put them first, ahead of your flashing, your publicity stunts and your drugs. Put them first before you fuck up three lives instead of one.

Quit being an honorary Hilton sister: Drugged out and stupid is no way to go through life. Not only is there the abuse to your own body, but the lapse in judgement that comes from scrambling your brains with drugs.

Believe me, I know that all too well also... I might still have two parents if it wasn't for that.

I don't wish death upon anyone, but the more I watch you and your pals flashing yourselves, fucking around and getting wasted without a care in the world, I become fearful that someone is going to wind up dead. Is that what is needed as a wake-up call? I hope not, but I am beginning to fear it will come to that.

Rehab is not a drive-thru: I know this is the 21st century, that we want everything NOW, and thanks to technology, many things are available instanstly... Income tax refunds, loans, car insurance, you name it.

Rehab is not one of them.

This time, try sticking around and cleaning yourself up. If not for yourself, then at least do it for your kids.

Get some help before you kill someone: I don't know if it's going to be you, or your kids, or friends, or innocent bystanders, or a conbination of the above. But at the rate you're going, someone is going to end up dying by your hands.

You may feel like your life is ruined. You may be miserable. But do something, before it's too damned late, before someone's life winds up finished and destroyed.

Labels: Bushwhacking, Presstitutes, Sinead O'Britney

I am a week late. All I can say is it has been one hell of a week, and it's a miracle I didn't come unglued after it.

Trips to see The Price Is Right are usually a lengthy process, but it's definitely gotten much more crazy in recent weeks, with everyone trying to "come on down" to Television City and see Bob one last time.

I got into line around 8:30 pm, complete with dinner, munchies, and 29 people ahead of me already. No joke. The first people got into line at 5:30 pm!

Mike joined me a bit later, thanks to a little snafu... He accidentially left the ticket in my apartment. After nearly going all the way back to Riverside for it, he realized he still had the e-ticket in his email box. So while I set up camp, he ran off to a net cafe, printed the ticket, and returned.

And camp is quite appropriate, as I definitely threw the term "Camp Barker" around a few dozen times through the night. That is what Fairfax has become - a camp.

As usual, we met our share of interesting people in line. We had a couple of Bears fanatics (so much for that joke about the Colts and marajuana both being smoked in a Bowl) in line right in front of us (poor guys) - one of which managed to get called down to Contestant's Row (okay, maybe not so poor after all). They were quite nuts, and definitely did their part to add to the insanity of the long night/day.

Just in front of them was a woman and her husband, who went on a K-Mart run earlier and bought a package of socks. She was kind enough to give us each a pair - thank goodness! It was colder than I expected, and thanks to a problem with one of my toes, I was in sandals. We, of course, rewarded them with breakfast, which they clearly enjoyed.

Another group of people sat up all night, and stayed up all day, and had more energy than I ever did at their age. They even came across one of the rats that resides in the bushes along Fairfax, and eventually named him "Ricky".

"Ricky" sure gave us some laughs as well. One person commented that "He wants to see Bob, too!". And after "Ricky" ran up toward the front of the line, there were a few jokes about him cutting up in line.

Speaking of which, we did have that take place. A woman from New Jersey arrived around 4 am, and tried to bribe people to let her go in with them - including us. On one hand, I felt her pain, and was almost tempted to just let her come in with us. On the other hand, I would've been making that decision for a few hundred people - not just myself. She eventually did manage to talk the "Ricky" group into letting them join her.

Sadly, though, we did get some bad news in line: One of the guys right behind us had attempted one of the Monday tapings, and told us about a page who "would be a great announcer if Rich became host". He also added that this page had the day off. It didn't take long to realize that he was indeed referring to Chuck.

Damn. No Chuck!

Of course, that didn't keep us from starting up a Chuck chant at 8 am, which prompted one of the pages to say (visibly irritated) "Chuck isn't here today."

Speaking of which, it's my understanding that Chuck chants have become quite routine at Television City. It looks like we created a monster on August 31!

However, quite honestly, these lines have gotten insane. 150-200 people turned away at 6:00 am after over 300 order of arrival slips were given out. Another 150 or so turned away at 8:00 am, after over 100 stand-by numbers were given out. The last person to get a priority number was roughly #126, and he arrived before 2:30 am.

And, from what I understand, huge turnouts and huge turnaways have been par for the course throughout all of January... Things have gotten so crazy that they can get TWO full audiences out of the line, and they will no longer do group bookings after February.

In other words, if you want to see the Bob Farewell Tour in person, show up early.. DAMNED early.

I'm almost afraid to see what it'll be like come May and early June.

More than once that night, I said that maybe it's time to relocate tapings to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Because at the rate we're going, we may need 70,000 seats by then!

Once we got into grounds of Television City, the energy wasn't quite there. Sure, there was the usual chattering and fun and cheering, but this definitely wasn't August 31. Part of it surely was no Chuck, but I think some of us were just plain exhausted. I know I was - I was going on 24 hours with nothing but a few catnaps, and lots of sugar and caffeine by that point.

I think part of it was so many people coming to see Bob one last time, and so many "We'll miss you, Bob" shirts. I know people are going to miss him - I'M definitely going to! - but I just think these shirts contributed to a somewhat darker atmosphere. An atmosphere that, sadly, carried into the studio itself.

If I had any say in it, I'd be telling people to keep such shirts at home until the last few weeks. I mean, the producers want us to party, but it's getting harder and harder to party when it feels like it's just a countdown to the end of Bob's career.

Fortunately, unlike the previous taping, they wasted no time getting us into the studio rather quickly after the interviews. It's a good thing, because at that point I was now on 28 hours with very little sleep, and the more I sat still, the more I wanted to sleep...

Let's just say it's a good thing they didn't offer a bed during the show - I would've been tempted to run up on stage and make use of it!

Though, I can't complain one bit about the music that greeted me as I entered: An Esther megamix! They must've known I was coming! After all, it's only appropriate to play some Madonna with Maddy in the house!

Sadly, though, they didn't pick me, so maybe they didn't really realize it. Damn.

The taping itself seemed rushed (and somewhat dark), as if they didn't want the commercial breaks to turn into a funeral (and, yes, the majority of the people who raised their hands discussed Bob's retirement, or brought up how much they would miss him). I would imagine that commercials breaks for the last two months or so have been filled with discussion/questions/comments about Bob's pending retirement, and it's certainly had to have had an affect on the atmosphere.

Heck, even Rich's warmup was rushed - very quick, and he didn't give me a chance to shout out that he was 22. Damn.

We did get a few Barkerisms despite that, though:

After one too many people brought up Bob's retirement (saying they'd miss him, etc.): "Don't rush me!"

After a young woman raised her hand to ask if Bob was married (*groan*), then Bob said he was a widower (shouldn't anyone who claims to be a fan of Bob know that Dorothy Jo has been gone for 25 years now and NOT bring it up?) and she tried to set him up with his grandmother: "You know you're getting old when people try to set you up with their grandmothers!"

Another person asked if Bob had any kids who could take over as host for him: "No, I gave them all away on Truth Or Consequences!" (Bob and Dorothy Jo, of course, never had any, sadly).

We had another person ask if Bob still celebrates the start of his career the same way (the toast with Ralph Edwards). Bob, of course, pointed out that Ralph Edwards passed away (ironically, on the day of my very first taping), and went into a lengthy story about his hiring.

(Death and retirement. Notice a recuring theme here? No wonder this taping felt somewhat dark!)

Mike also raised his hand to make our voices heard and state that Rich should be hired to become the next host of TPIR. The look on Rich's face was priceless - he definitely looked more than a bit shocked to have someone speak up for him getting the job.

As far as the show itself, again, I won't say much until it airs of March 1, outside of saying I was pleased to see a few games played that I hadn't seen played in the past. Variety is a nice thing, after all...

That being said, I would like to touch on my losing streak of getting picked in closing. I'm now 0 for 5, while seeing people attending their first taping getting picked - a few of which have been more than a bit over the top during their interviews.

At this point, I am lost. Do I just go apeshit during the interview? Do I show up dressed like I am auditioning to star in Pretty Woman?

I keep thinking about old Doc Graham in Field Of Dreams, who of course never got to hit in the major leagues, and sharing his dream of what he would've wanted it to be like. I think about how, for just a few minutes, I'd like to find myself a part of a show that has meant so much to me for nearly three decades, and wondering if my dream is slipping away.

At this point, I am seriously finding myself looking around for my own Ray Kinsella. Where is he when I need him?!

I'm trying to keep the faith, I'm trying to keep my fingers crossed, but time and circumstances are making me wonder if my chances may have slipped away.

Labels: Barker Worship, Camp Barker, Chuck, That's What Friends Are For